0:00:00.312,0:00:01.711 I'm going to share with you 0:00:01.711,0:00:03.844 a paradigm-shifting perspective 0:00:03.844,0:00:05.549 on the issues of gender violence -- 0:00:05.549,0:00:08.418 sexual assault, domestic violence, relationship abuse, 0:00:08.418,0:00:10.474 sexual harassment, sexual abuse of children. 0:00:10.474,0:00:12.512 That whole range of issues that I'll refer to in shorthand 0:00:12.512,0:00:14.353 as "gender violence issues," 0:00:14.353,0:00:17.651 they've been seen as women's issues that some good men 0:00:17.651,0:00:20.183 help out with, but I have a problem with that frame 0:00:20.183,0:00:21.176 and I don't accept it. 0:00:21.176,0:00:24.411 I don't see these as women's issues that some good men help out with. 0:00:24.411,0:00:26.879 In fact, I'm going to argue that these are men's issues, 0:00:26.879,0:00:28.592 first and foremost. 0:00:28.592,0:00:31.532 (Applause) 0:00:31.532,0:00:33.299 Now obviously, they're also women's issues, 0:00:33.299,0:00:36.077 so I appreciate that, but calling 0:00:36.077,0:00:38.810 gender violence a women's issue is part of the problem, 0:00:38.810,0:00:40.452 for a number of reasons. 0:00:40.452,0:00:43.777 The first is that it gives men an excuse not to pay attention. 0:00:43.777,0:00:45.981 Right? A lot of men hear the term "women's issues" 0:00:45.981,0:00:47.319 and we tend to tune it out, and we think, 0:00:47.319,0:00:49.915 "Hey, I'm a guy. That's for the girls," or "That's for the women." 0:00:49.915,0:00:52.710 And a lot of men literally don't get beyond the first sentence 0:00:52.710,0:00:54.283 as a result. 0:00:54.283,0:00:56.387 It's almost like a chip in our brain is activated, 0:00:56.387,0:00:59.307 and the neural pathways take our attention in a different direction 0:00:59.307,0:01:01.567 when we hear the term "women's issues." 0:01:01.567,0:01:03.627 This is also true, by the way, of the word "gender," 0:01:03.627,0:01:05.707 because a lot of people hear the word "gender" 0:01:05.707,0:01:07.587 and they think it means "women." 0:01:07.587,0:01:11.029 So they think that gender issues is synonymous with women's issues. 0:01:11.029,0:01:13.145 There's some confusion about the term gender. 0:01:13.145,0:01:16.357 And actually, let me illustrate that confusion by way of analogy. 0:01:16.357,0:01:17.997 So let's talk for a moment about race. 0:01:17.997,0:01:19.732 In the U.S., when we hear the word "race," 0:01:19.732,0:01:22.336 a lot of people think that means African-American, 0:01:22.336,0:01:24.309 Latino, Asian-American, Native American, 0:01:24.309,0:01:28.081 South Asian, Pacific Islander, on and on. 0:01:28.081,0:01:30.885 A lot of people, when they hear the word "sexual orientation" 0:01:30.885,0:01:33.629 think it means gay, lesbian, bisexual. 0:01:33.629,0:01:35.253 And a lot of people, when they hear the word "gender," 0:01:35.253,0:01:37.154 think it means women. In each case, 0:01:37.154,0:01:39.391 the dominant group doesn't get paid attention to. 0:01:39.391,0:01:42.791 Right? As if white people don't have some sort of racial identity 0:01:42.791,0:01:46.018 or belong to some racial category or construct, 0:01:46.018,0:01:49.199 as if heterosexual people don't have a sexual orientation, 0:01:49.199,0:01:51.763 as if men don't have a gender. 0:01:51.763,0:01:54.140 This is one of the ways that dominant systems maintain 0:01:54.140,0:01:56.101 and reproduce themselves, which is to say 0:01:56.101,0:01:59.526 the dominant group is rarely challenged to even think about its dominance, 0:01:59.526,0:02:01.219 because that's one of the key characteristics 0:02:01.219,0:02:04.689 of power and privilege, the ability to go unexamined, 0:02:04.689,0:02:08.517 lacking introspection, in fact being rendered invisible 0:02:08.517,0:02:10.926 in large measure in the discourse 0:02:10.926,0:02:13.273 about issues that are primarily about us. 0:02:13.273,0:02:15.222 And this is amazing how this works 0:02:15.222,0:02:16.723 in domestic and sexual violence, 0:02:16.723,0:02:19.016 how men have been largely erased from so much 0:02:19.016,0:02:20.733 of the conversation about a subject 0:02:20.733,0:02:23.275 that is centrally about men. 0:02:23.275,0:02:25.398 And I'm going to illustrate what I'm talking about 0:02:25.398,0:02:26.694 by using the old tech. 0:02:26.694,0:02:29.707 I'm old school on some fundamental regards. 0:02:29.707,0:02:32.527 I work with -- I make films -- and I work with high tech, 0:02:32.527,0:02:34.460 but I'm still old school as an educator, 0:02:34.460,0:02:37.720 and I want to share with you this exercise 0:02:37.720,0:02:40.374 that illustrates on the sentence structure level 0:02:40.374,0:02:42.311 how the way that we think, 0:02:42.311,0:02:44.479 literally the way that we use language, 0:02:44.479,0:02:47.119 conspires to keep our attention off of men. 0:02:47.119,0:02:49.328 This is about domestic violence in particular, 0:02:49.328,0:02:52.759 but you can plug in other analogues. 0:02:52.759,0:02:55.655 This comes from the work of the feminist linguist Julia Penelope. 0:02:55.655,0:02:57.959 It starts with a very basic English sentence: 0:02:57.959,0:03:01.591 "John beat Mary." 0:03:01.591,0:03:02.843 That's a good English sentence. 0:03:02.843,0:03:04.254 John is the subject. Beat is the verb. 0:03:04.254,0:03:06.293 Mary is the object. Good sentence. 0:03:06.293,0:03:08.021 Now we're going to move to the second sentence, 0:03:08.021,0:03:11.026 which says the same thing in the passive voice. 0:03:11.026,0:03:17.391 "Mary was beaten by John." 0:03:17.391,0:03:20.138 And now a whole lot has happened in one sentence. 0:03:20.138,0:03:22.415 We've gone from "John beat Mary" 0:03:22.415,0:03:24.008 to "Mary was beaten by John." 0:03:24.008,0:03:27.482 We've shifted our focus in one sentence from John to Mary, 0:03:27.482,0:03:30.539 and you can see John is very close to the end of the sentence, 0:03:30.539,0:03:33.176 well, close to dropping off the map of our psychic plain. 0:03:33.176,0:03:35.137 The third sentence, John is dropped, 0:03:35.137,0:03:38.438 and we have, "Mary was beaten," 0:03:38.438,0:03:40.311 and now it's all about Mary. 0:03:40.311,0:03:43.103 We're not even thinking about John. It's totally focused on Mary. 0:03:43.103,0:03:44.891 Over the past generation, the term we've used 0:03:44.891,0:03:46.646 synonymous with "beaten" is "battered," 0:03:46.646,0:03:51.016 so we have "Mary was battered." 0:03:51.016,0:03:53.495 And the final sentence in this sequence, 0:03:53.495,0:03:55.142 flowing from the others, is, 0:03:55.142,0:03:57.840 "Mary is a battered woman." 0:03:57.840,0:04:04.840 So now Mary's very identity -- Mary is a battered woman -- 0:04:04.840,0:04:07.809 is what was done to her by John in the first instance. 0:04:07.809,0:04:10.683 But we've demonstrated that John has long ago left the conversation. 0:04:10.683,0:04:13.072 Now, those of us who work in the domestic and sexual violence 0:04:13.072,0:04:16.305 field know that victim-blaming is pervasive in this realm, 0:04:16.305,0:04:19.211 which is to say, blaming the person to whom something was done 0:04:19.211,0:04:20.548 rather than the person who did it. 0:04:20.548,0:04:22.703 And we say things like, why do these women go out with these men? 0:04:22.703,0:04:23.914 Why are they attracted to these men? 0:04:23.914,0:04:26.440 Why do they keep going back? What was she wearing at that party? 0:04:26.440,0:04:28.163 What a stupid thing to do. Why was she drinking 0:04:28.163,0:04:31.399 with that group of guys in that hotel room? 0:04:31.399,0:04:34.939 This is victim blaming, and there are numerous reasons for it, 0:04:34.939,0:04:36.794 but one of them is that our whole cognitive structure 0:04:36.794,0:04:39.091 is set up to blame victims. This is all unconscious. 0:04:39.091,0:04:40.895 Our whole cognitive structure is set up to ask questions 0:04:40.895,0:04:43.531 about women and women's choices and what they're doing, 0:04:43.531,0:04:45.327 thinking, and wearing. 0:04:45.327,0:04:47.146 And I'm not going to shout down people who ask questions 0:04:47.146,0:04:49.964 about women, okay? It's a legitimate thing to ask. 0:04:49.964,0:04:52.638 But's let's be clear: Asking questions about Mary 0:04:52.638,0:04:54.987 is not going to get us anywhere in terms of preventing violence. 0:04:54.987,0:04:57.014 We have to ask a different set of questions. 0:04:57.014,0:04:58.614 You can see where I'm going with this, right? 0:04:58.614,0:05:02.173 The questions are not about Mary. They're about John. 0:05:02.173,0:05:05.109 The questions include things like, why does John beat Mary? 0:05:05.109,0:05:07.149 Why is domestic violence still a big problem 0:05:07.149,0:05:09.078 in the United States and all over the world? 0:05:09.078,0:05:10.960 What's going on? Why do so many men abuse, 0:05:10.960,0:05:13.405 physically, emotionally, verbally, and other ways, 0:05:13.405,0:05:15.469 the women and girls, and the men and boys, 0:05:15.469,0:05:18.355 that they claim to love? What's going on with men? 0:05:18.355,0:05:22.083 Why do so many adult men sexually abuse little girls and little boys? 0:05:22.083,0:05:23.965 Why is that a common problem in our society 0:05:23.965,0:05:25.454 and all over the world today? 0:05:25.454,0:05:27.845 Why do we hear over and over again 0:05:27.845,0:05:31.046 about new scandals erupting in major institutions 0:05:31.046,0:05:33.605 like the Catholic Church or the Penn State football program 0:05:33.605,0:05:36.614 or the Boy Scouts of America, on and on and on? 0:05:36.614,0:05:38.549 And then local communities all over the country 0:05:38.549,0:05:41.449 and all over the world, right? We hear about it all the time. 0:05:41.449,0:05:43.249 The sexual abuse of children. 0:05:43.249,0:05:46.004 What's going on with men? Why do so many men rape women 0:05:46.004,0:05:48.132 in our society and around the world? 0:05:48.132,0:05:50.189 Why do so many men rape other men? 0:05:50.189,0:05:51.640 What is going on with men? 0:05:51.640,0:05:55.894 And then what is the role of the various institutions 0:05:55.894,0:05:58.341 in our society that are helping to produce abusive men 0:05:58.341,0:05:59.627 at pandemic rates? 0:05:59.627,0:06:01.391 Because this isn't about individual perpetrators. 0:06:01.391,0:06:04.104 That's a naive way to understanding what is a much deeper 0:06:04.104,0:06:05.983 and more systematic social problem. 0:06:05.983,0:06:07.693 You know, the perpetrators aren't these 0:06:07.693,0:06:09.677 monsters who crawl out of the swamp 0:06:09.677,0:06:12.088 and come into town and do their nasty business 0:06:12.088,0:06:14.063 and then retreat into the darkness. 0:06:14.063,0:06:16.616 That's a very naive notion, right? 0:06:16.616,0:06:18.670 Perpetrators are much more normal than that, 0:06:18.670,0:06:20.010 and everyday than that. 0:06:20.010,0:06:23.350 So the question is, what are we doing here 0:06:23.350,0:06:24.480 in our society and in the world? 0:06:24.480,0:06:26.509 What are the roles of various institutions 0:06:26.509,0:06:28.796 in helping to produce abusive men? 0:06:28.796,0:06:30.957 What's the role of religious belief systems, 0:06:30.957,0:06:33.312 the sports culture, the pornography culture, 0:06:33.312,0:06:35.973 the family structure, economics, and how that intersects, 0:06:35.973,0:06:37.831 and race and ethnicity and how that intersects? 0:06:37.831,0:06:39.481 How does all this work? 0:06:39.481,0:06:42.744 And then, once we start making those kinds of connections 0:06:42.744,0:06:45.103 and asking those important and big questions, 0:06:45.103,0:06:47.884 then we can talk about how we can be transformative, 0:06:47.884,0:06:49.789 in other words, how can we do something differently? 0:06:49.789,0:06:51.836 How can we change the practices? 0:06:51.836,0:06:53.991 How can we change the socialization of boys 0:06:53.991,0:06:57.239 and the definitions of manhood that lead to these current outcomes? 0:06:57.239,0:06:59.363 These are the kind of questions that we need 0:06:59.363,0:07:01.548 to be asking and the kind of work that we need to be doing, 0:07:01.548,0:07:04.441 but if we're endlessly focused on what women are doing 0:07:04.441,0:07:07.055 and thinking in relationships or elsewhere, 0:07:07.055,0:07:09.809 we're not going to get to that piece. 0:07:09.809,0:07:11.570 Now, I understand that a lot of women 0:07:11.570,0:07:13.582 who have been trying to speaking out about these issues, 0:07:13.582,0:07:16.159 today and yesterday and for years and years, 0:07:16.159,0:07:18.223 often get shouted down for their efforts. 0:07:18.223,0:07:21.111 They get called nasty names like "male-basher" 0:07:21.111,0:07:22.770 and "man-hater," 0:07:22.770,0:07:29.963 and the disgusting and offensive "feminazi." Right? 0:07:29.963,0:07:31.490 And you know what all this is about? 0:07:31.490,0:07:32.876 It's called kill the messenger. 0:07:32.876,0:07:34.400 It's because the women who are standing up 0:07:34.400,0:07:36.394 and speaking out for themselves and for other women 0:07:36.394,0:07:40.204 as well as for men and boys, it's a statement to them 0:07:40.204,0:07:43.553 to sit down and shut up, keep the current system in place, 0:07:43.553,0:07:45.376 because we don't like it when people rock the boat. 0:07:45.376,0:07:47.005 We don't like it when people challenge our power. 0:07:47.005,0:07:50.420 You'd better sit down and shut up, basically. 0:07:50.420,0:07:52.484 And thank goodness that women haven't done that. 0:07:52.484,0:07:53.614 Thank goodness that we live in a world 0:07:53.614,0:07:57.148 where there's so much women's leadership that can counteract that. 0:07:57.148,0:07:59.672 But one of the powerful roles that men can play in this work 0:07:59.672,0:08:01.261 is that we can say some things 0:08:01.261,0:08:03.000 that sometimes women can't say, 0:08:03.000,0:08:05.158 or, better yet, we can be heard saying some things 0:08:05.158,0:08:07.263 that women often can't be heard saying. 0:08:07.263,0:08:10.388 Now, I appreciate that that's a problem. It's sexism. 0:08:10.388,0:08:12.716 But it's the truth. And so one of the things that I say to men, 0:08:12.716,0:08:14.775 and my colleagues and I always say this, 0:08:14.775,0:08:16.996 is we need more men who have the courage and the strength 0:08:16.996,0:08:19.181 to start standing up and saying some of this stuff, 0:08:19.181,0:08:21.821 and standing with women and not against them 0:08:21.821,0:08:23.062 and pretending that somehow this is 0:08:23.062,0:08:25.759 a battle between the sexes and other kinds of nonsense. 0:08:25.759,0:08:27.196 We live in the world together. 0:08:27.196,0:08:29.688 And by the way, one of the things that really bothers me 0:08:29.688,0:08:32.886 about some of the rhetoric against feminists and others 0:08:32.886,0:08:33.970 who have built the battered women's 0:08:33.970,0:08:36.597 and rape crisis movements around the world 0:08:36.597,0:08:38.861 is that somehow, like I said, that they're anti-male. 0:08:38.861,0:08:41.437 What about all the boys who are profoundly affected 0:08:41.437,0:08:43.535 in a negative way by what some adult man is doing 0:08:43.535,0:08:46.875 against their mother, themselves, their sisters? 0:08:46.875,0:08:49.017 What about all those boys? 0:08:49.017,0:08:50.302 What about all the young men and boys 0:08:50.302,0:08:52.874 who have been traumatized by adult men's violence? 0:08:52.874,0:08:54.630 You know what? The same system that produces 0:08:54.630,0:08:57.511 men who abuse women produces men who abuse other men. 0:08:57.511,0:08:58.896 And if we want to talk about male victims, 0:08:58.896,0:09:00.379 let's talk about male victims. 0:09:00.379,0:09:04.109 Most male victims of violence are the victims of other men's violence. 0:09:04.109,0:09:06.565 So that's something that both women and men have in common. 0:09:06.565,0:09:08.853 We are both victims of men's violence. 0:09:08.853,0:09:10.379 So we have it in our direct self-interest, 0:09:10.379,0:09:13.575 not to mention the fact that most men that I know 0:09:13.575,0:09:15.911 have women and girls that we care deeply about, 0:09:15.911,0:09:19.381 in our families and our friendship circles and every other way. 0:09:19.381,0:09:22.181 So there's so many reasons why we need men to speak out. 0:09:22.181,0:09:25.423 It seems obvious saying it out loud. Doesn't it? 0:09:25.423,0:09:29.184 Now, the nature of the work that I do and my colleagues do 0:09:29.184,0:09:33.029 in the sports culture and the U.S. military, in schools, 0:09:33.029,0:09:35.739 we pioneered this approach called the bystander approach 0:09:35.739,0:09:37.642 to gender violence prevention. 0:09:37.642,0:09:39.990 And I just want to give you the highlights of the bystander approach, 0:09:39.990,0:09:43.560 because it's a big thematic shift, 0:09:43.560,0:09:45.045 although there's lots of particulars, 0:09:45.045,0:09:48.586 but the heart of it is, instead of seeing men as perpetrators 0:09:48.586,0:09:50.268 and women as victims, 0:09:50.268,0:09:53.624 or women as perpetrators, men as victims, 0:09:53.624,0:09:55.211 or any combination in there. 0:09:55.211,0:09:56.780 I'm using the gender binary. I know there's more 0:09:56.780,0:09:59.144 than men and women, there's more than male and female. 0:09:59.144,0:10:00.685 And there are women who are perpetrators, 0:10:00.685,0:10:03.028 and of course there are men who are victims. 0:10:03.028,0:10:04.416 There's a whole spectrum. 0:10:04.416,0:10:06.988 But instead of seeing it in the binary fashion, 0:10:06.988,0:10:09.686 we focus on all of us as what we call bystanders, 0:10:09.686,0:10:12.594 and a bystander is defined as anybody who is not 0:10:12.594,0:10:15.662 a perpetrator or a victim in a given situation, 0:10:15.662,0:10:18.118 so in other words friends, teammates, colleagues, 0:10:18.118,0:10:20.490 coworkers, family members, those of us 0:10:20.490,0:10:23.625 who are not directly involved in a dyad of abuse, 0:10:23.625,0:10:26.822 but we are embedded in social, family, work, school, 0:10:26.822,0:10:29.110 and other peer culture relationships with people 0:10:29.110,0:10:31.158 who might be in that situation. What do we do? 0:10:31.158,0:10:33.374 How do we speak up? How do we challenge our friends? 0:10:33.374,0:10:35.999 How do we support our friends? But how do we not 0:10:35.999,0:10:38.435 remain silent in the face of abuse? 0:10:38.435,0:10:40.935 Now, when it comes to men and male culture, 0:10:40.935,0:10:43.001 the goal is to get men who are not abusive 0:10:43.001,0:10:44.351 to challenge men who are. 0:10:44.351,0:10:46.306 And when I say abusive, I don't mean just 0:10:46.306,0:10:47.389 men who are beating women. 0:10:47.389,0:10:51.007 We're not just saying a man whose friend 0:10:51.007,0:10:54.039 is abusing his girlfriend needs to stop the guy 0:10:54.039,0:10:55.318 at the moment of attack. 0:10:55.318,0:10:59.679 That's a naive way of creating a social change. 0:10:59.679,0:11:02.679 It's along a continuum, we're trying to get men 0:11:02.679,0:11:03.636 to interrupt each other. 0:11:03.636,0:11:06.295 So, for example, if you're a guy and you're in a group of guys 0:11:06.295,0:11:09.390 playing poker, talking, hanging out, no women present, 0:11:09.390,0:11:12.846 and another guy says something sexist or degrading 0:11:12.846,0:11:15.615 or harassing about women, 0:11:15.615,0:11:18.988 instead of laughing along or pretending you didn't hear it, 0:11:18.988,0:11:20.670 we need men to say, "Hey, that's not funny. 0:11:20.670,0:11:22.842 You know, that could be my sister you're talking about, 0:11:22.842,0:11:24.432 and could you joke about something else? 0:11:24.432,0:11:25.730 Or could you talk about something else? 0:11:25.730,0:11:27.616 I don't appreciate that kind of talk." 0:11:27.616,0:11:30.195 Just like if you're a white person and another white person 0:11:30.195,0:11:32.502 makes a racist comment, you'd hope, I hope, 0:11:32.502,0:11:36.341 that white people would interrupt that racist enactment 0:11:36.341,0:11:37.456 by a fellow white person. 0:11:37.456,0:11:39.975 Just like with heterosexism, if you're a heterosexual person 0:11:39.975,0:11:43.144 and you yourself don't enact harassing or abusive behaviors 0:11:43.144,0:11:45.519 towards people of varying sexual orientations, 0:11:45.519,0:11:48.958 if you don't say something in the face of other heterosexual people doing that, 0:11:48.958,0:11:50.367 then, in a sense, isn't your silence 0:11:50.367,0:11:52.603 a form of consent and complicity? 0:11:52.603,0:11:54.960 Well, the bystander approach is trying to give people tools 0:11:54.960,0:11:57.645 to interrupt that process and to speak up 0:11:57.645,0:11:59.494 and to create a peer culture climate 0:11:59.494,0:12:01.678 where the abusive behavior will be seen as unacceptable, 0:12:01.678,0:12:05.093 not just because it's illegal, but because it's wrong 0:12:05.108,0:12:07.013 and unacceptable in the peer culture. 0:12:07.013,0:12:09.134 And if we can get to the place where men 0:12:09.134,0:12:11.918 who act out in sexist ways will lose status, 0:12:11.918,0:12:13.847 young men and boys who act out in sexist 0:12:13.847,0:12:15.452 and harassing ways towards girls and women, 0:12:15.452,0:12:17.165 as well as towards other boys and men, 0:12:17.165,0:12:20.158 will lose status as a result of it, guess what? 0:12:20.158,0:12:23.255 We'll see a radical diminution of the abuse. 0:12:23.255,0:12:25.754 Because the typical perpetrator is not sick and twisted. 0:12:25.754,0:12:28.734 He's a normal guy in every other way. Isn't he? 0:12:28.734,0:12:32.177 Now, among the many great things that Martin Luther King 0:12:32.177,0:12:33.543 said in his short life was, 0:12:33.543,0:12:35.338 "In the end, what will hurt the most 0:12:35.338,0:12:37.233 is not the words of our enemies 0:12:37.233,0:12:38.973 but the silence of our friends." 0:12:38.973,0:12:41.088 In the end, what will hurt the most is not the words 0:12:41.088,0:12:43.398 of our enemies but the silence of our friends. 0:12:43.398,0:12:45.499 There's been an awful lot of silence in male culture 0:12:45.499,0:12:48.311 about this ongoing tragedy of men's violence 0:12:48.311,0:12:50.390 against women and children, hasn't there? 0:12:50.390,0:12:51.808 There's been an awful lot of silence. 0:12:51.808,0:12:55.215 And all I'm saying is that we need to break that silence, 0:12:55.215,0:12:57.475 and we need more men to do that. 0:12:57.475,0:13:00.798 Now, it's easier said than done, 0:13:00.798,0:13:03.621 because I'm saying it now, but I'm telling you it's not easy 0:13:03.621,0:13:06.313 in male culture for guys to challenge each other, 0:13:06.313,0:13:08.026 which is one of the reasons why 0:13:08.026,0:13:10.702 part of the paradigm shift that has to happen 0:13:10.702,0:13:13.707 is not just understanding these issues as men's issues, 0:13:13.707,0:13:15.954 but they're also leadership issues for men. 0:13:15.954,0:13:18.526 Because ultimately, the responsibility for taking a stand 0:13:18.526,0:13:20.207 on these issues should not fall on the shoulders 0:13:20.207,0:13:23.288 of little boys or teenage boys in high school 0:13:23.288,0:13:26.688 or college men. It should be on adult men with power. 0:13:26.688,0:13:29.186 Adult men with power are the ones we need to be holding accountable 0:13:29.186,0:13:30.662 for being leaders on these issues, 0:13:30.662,0:13:33.216 because when somebody speaks up in a peer culture 0:13:33.216,0:13:35.911 and challenges and interrupts, he or she 0:13:35.911,0:13:38.280 is being a leader, really, right? 0:13:38.280,0:13:41.568 But on a big scale, we need more adult men with power 0:13:41.568,0:13:43.730 to start prioritizing these issues, 0:13:43.730,0:13:45.982 and we haven't seen that yet, have we? 0:13:45.982,0:13:49.668 Now, I was at a dinner a number of years ago, 0:13:49.668,0:13:52.869 and I work extensively with the U.S. military, all the services. 0:13:52.869,0:13:55.961 And I was at this dinner and this woman said to me -- 0:13:55.961,0:13:58.711 I think she thought she was a little clever -- she said, 0:13:58.711,0:14:01.505 "So how long have you been doing sensitivity training 0:14:01.505,0:14:03.306 with the Marines?" 0:14:03.306,0:14:06.149 And I said, "With all due respect, 0:14:06.149,0:14:08.926 I don't do sensitivity training with the Marines. 0:14:08.926,0:14:11.422 I run a leadership program in the Marine Corps." 0:14:11.422,0:14:13.219 Now, I know it's a bit pompous, my response, 0:14:13.219,0:14:16.396 but it's an important distinction, because I don't believe 0:14:16.396,0:14:18.384 that what we need is sensitivity training. 0:14:18.384,0:14:20.478 We need leadership training, because, for example, 0:14:20.478,0:14:23.640 when a professional coach or a manager of a baseball team 0:14:23.640,0:14:26.685 or a football team -- and I work extensively in that realm as well -- 0:14:26.685,0:14:30.375 makes a sexist comment, makes a homophobic statement, 0:14:30.375,0:14:32.739 makes a racist comment, there will be discussions 0:14:32.739,0:14:35.111 on the sports blogs and in sports talk radio. 0:14:35.111,0:14:37.243 And some people will say, "Well, he needs sensitivity training." 0:14:37.243,0:14:38.834 And other people will say, "Well get off it. 0:14:38.834,0:14:40.825 You know, that's political correctness run amok, 0:14:40.825,0:14:42.859 and he made a stupid statement. Move on." 0:14:42.859,0:14:45.270 My argument is, he doesn't need sensitivity training. 0:14:45.270,0:14:46.898 He needs leadership training, 0:14:46.898,0:14:49.467 because he's being a bad leader, because in a society 0:14:49.467,0:14:52.278 with gender diversity and sexual diversity -- 0:14:52.278,0:14:53.858 (Applause) — 0:14:53.858,0:14:55.478 and racial and ethnic diversity, you make 0:14:55.478,0:14:57.705 those kind of comments, you're failing at your leadership. 0:14:57.705,0:15:00.695 If we can make this point that I'm making 0:15:00.695,0:15:03.758 to powerful men and women in our society 0:15:03.758,0:15:06.151 at all levels of institutional authority and power, 0:15:06.151,0:15:08.419 it's going to change, it's going to change 0:15:08.419,0:15:10.494 the paradigm of people's thinking. 0:15:10.494,0:15:12.128 You know, for example, I work a lot 0:15:12.128,0:15:16.542 in college and university athletics throughout North America. 0:15:16.542,0:15:18.524 We know so much about how to prevent 0:15:18.524,0:15:20.927 domestic and sexual violence, right? 0:15:20.927,0:15:24.009 There's no excuse for a college or university 0:15:24.009,0:15:26.887 to not have domestic and sexual violence prevention training 0:15:26.887,0:15:29.647 mandated for all student athletes, coaches, administrators, 0:15:29.647,0:15:31.928 as part of their educational process. 0:15:31.928,0:15:34.135 We know enough to know that we can easily do that. 0:15:34.135,0:15:36.512 But you know what's missing? The leadership. 0:15:36.512,0:15:38.518 But it's not the leadership of student athletes. 0:15:38.518,0:15:39.877 It's the leadership of the athletic director, 0:15:39.877,0:15:42.536 the president of the university, the people in charge 0:15:42.536,0:15:44.234 who make decisions about resources 0:15:44.234,0:15:47.190 and who make decisions about priorities in the institutional settings. 0:15:47.190,0:15:51.159 That's a failure, in most cases, of men's leadership. 0:15:51.159,0:15:54.244 Look at Penn State. Penn State is the mother 0:15:54.244,0:15:56.711 of all teachable moments for the bystander approach. 0:15:56.711,0:15:59.149 You had so many situations in that realm 0:15:59.149,0:16:02.438 where men in powerful positions failed to act 0:16:02.438,0:16:05.012 to protect children, in this case, boys. 0:16:05.012,0:16:07.285 It's unbelievable, really. But when you get into it, 0:16:07.285,0:16:09.215 you realize there are pressures on men. 0:16:09.215,0:16:12.356 There are constraints within peer cultures on men, 0:16:12.356,0:16:14.671 which is why we need to encourage men 0:16:14.671,0:16:16.543 to break through those pressures. 0:16:16.543,0:16:17.867 And one of the ways to do that is to say 0:16:17.867,0:16:20.530 there's an awful lot of men who care deeply about these issues. 0:16:20.530,0:16:21.979 I know this. I work with men, 0:16:21.979,0:16:23.512 and I've been working with tens of thousands, 0:16:23.512,0:16:26.953 hundreds of thousands of men for many, many decades now. 0:16:26.953,0:16:29.847 It's scary, when you think about it, how many years. 0:16:29.847,0:16:33.699 But there's so many men who care deeply about these issues, 0:16:33.699,0:16:35.616 but caring deeply is not enough. 0:16:35.616,0:16:38.378 We need more men with the guts, 0:16:38.378,0:16:41.617 with the courage, with the strength, with the moral integrity 0:16:41.617,0:16:45.853 to break our complicit silence and challenge each other 0:16:45.853,0:16:47.665 and stand with women and not against them. 0:16:47.665,0:16:49.907 By the way, we owe it to women. 0:16:49.907,0:16:50.999 There's no question about it. 0:16:50.999,0:16:52.745 But we also owe it to our sons. 0:16:52.745,0:16:54.879 We also owe it to young men who are growing up 0:16:54.879,0:16:57.911 all over the world in situations where they didn't make the choice 0:16:57.911,0:17:00.051 to be a man in a culture that tells them 0:17:00.051,0:17:01.515 that manhood is a certain way. 0:17:01.515,0:17:02.909 They didn't make the choice. 0:17:02.909,0:17:06.874 We that have a choice have an opportunity 0:17:06.874,0:17:08.504 and a responsibility to them as well. 0:17:08.504,0:17:11.615 I hope that, going forward, men and women, 0:17:11.615,0:17:13.664 working together, can begin the change 0:17:13.664,0:17:15.220 and the transformation that will happen 0:17:15.220,0:17:17.880 so that future generations won't have the level of tragedy 0:17:17.880,0:17:19.297 that we deal with on a daily basis. 0:17:19.297,0:17:21.340 I know we can do it. We can do better. 0:17:21.340,0:17:23.829 Thank you very much. (Applause)