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