WEBVTT 00:00:00.716 --> 00:00:04.023 I'm going to share with you a paradigm-shifting perspective 00:00:04.047 --> 00:00:07.322 on the issues of gender violence: sexual assault, domestic violence, 00:00:07.346 --> 00:00:10.514 relationship abuse, sexual harassment, sexual abuse of children. 00:00:10.538 --> 00:00:11.848 That whole range of issues 00:00:11.872 --> 00:00:14.759 that I'll refer to in shorthand as "gender violence issues," 00:00:14.783 --> 00:00:18.867 they've been seen as women's issues that some good men help out with, 00:00:18.891 --> 00:00:21.666 but I have a problem with that frame and I don't accept it. 00:00:21.690 --> 00:00:24.943 I don't see these as women's issues that some good men help out with. 00:00:24.967 --> 00:00:27.604 In fact, I'm going to argue that these are men's issues, 00:00:27.628 --> 00:00:29.014 first and foremost. 00:00:29.038 --> 00:00:30.226 Now obviously -- NOTE Paragraph 00:00:30.250 --> 00:00:31.508 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:31.532 --> 00:00:34.416 Obviously, they're also women's issues, so I appreciate that, 00:00:34.440 --> 00:00:39.087 but calling gender violence a women's issue is part of the problem, 00:00:39.111 --> 00:00:40.739 for a number of reasons. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:40.763 --> 00:00:44.237 The first is that it gives men an excuse not to pay attention, right? 00:00:44.261 --> 00:00:46.307 A lot of men hear the term "women's issues" 00:00:46.331 --> 00:00:48.320 and we tend to tune it out, and we think, 00:00:48.344 --> 00:00:51.249 "I'm a guy; that's for the girls," or "that's for the women." 00:00:51.273 --> 00:00:55.161 And a lot of men literally don't get beyond the first sentence as a result. 00:00:55.185 --> 00:00:57.538 It's almost like a chip in our brain is activated, 00:00:57.562 --> 00:01:00.722 and the neural pathways take our attention in a different direction 00:01:00.746 --> 00:01:02.607 when we hear the term "women's issues." 00:01:02.631 --> 00:01:05.090 This is also true, by the way, of the word "gender," 00:01:05.114 --> 00:01:07.432 because a lot of people hear the word "gender" 00:01:07.456 --> 00:01:09.036 and they think it means "women." 00:01:09.060 --> 00:01:12.240 So they think that gender issues is synonymous with women's issues. 00:01:12.264 --> 00:01:14.375 There's some confusion about the term gender. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:14.399 --> 00:01:16.984 And let me illustrate that confusion by way of analogy. 00:01:17.008 --> 00:01:18.830 So let's talk for a moment about race. 00:01:18.854 --> 00:01:20.774 In the US, when we hear the word "race," 00:01:20.798 --> 00:01:23.160 a lot of people think that means African-American, 00:01:23.184 --> 00:01:25.257 Latino, Asian-American, Native American, 00:01:25.281 --> 00:01:28.057 South Asian, Pacific Islander, on and on. 00:01:28.369 --> 00:01:31.281 A lot of people, when they hear the word "sexual orientation" 00:01:31.305 --> 00:01:33.720 think it means gay, lesbian, bisexual. 00:01:33.744 --> 00:01:36.285 And a lot of people, when they hear the word "gender," 00:01:36.309 --> 00:01:37.463 think it means women. 00:01:37.487 --> 00:01:40.463 In each case, the dominant group doesn't get paid attention to. 00:01:40.487 --> 00:01:43.237 As if white people don't have some sort of racial identity 00:01:43.261 --> 00:01:46.251 or belong to some racial category or construct, 00:01:46.275 --> 00:01:49.811 as if heterosexual people don't have a sexual orientation, 00:01:49.835 --> 00:01:51.935 as if men don't have a gender. 00:01:51.959 --> 00:01:55.737 This is one of the ways that dominant systems maintain and reproduce themselves, 00:01:55.761 --> 00:01:58.350 which is to say the dominant group is rarely challenged 00:01:58.374 --> 00:02:00.034 to even think about its dominance, 00:02:00.058 --> 00:02:03.311 because that's one of the key characteristics of power and privilege, 00:02:03.335 --> 00:02:04.746 the ability to go unexamined, 00:02:04.770 --> 00:02:09.947 lacking introspection, in fact being rendered invisible, in large measure, 00:02:09.971 --> 00:02:13.401 in the discourse about issues that are primarily about us. 00:02:13.425 --> 00:02:16.615 And this is amazing how this works in domestic and sexual violence, 00:02:16.639 --> 00:02:20.206 how men have been largely erased from so much of the conversation 00:02:20.230 --> 00:02:23.221 about a subject that is centrally about men. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:23.245 --> 00:02:25.580 And I'm going to illustrate what I'm talking about 00:02:25.604 --> 00:02:26.952 by using the old tech. 00:02:26.976 --> 00:02:29.683 I'm old school on some fundamental regards. 00:02:29.707 --> 00:02:32.442 I make films and I work with high tech, 00:02:32.466 --> 00:02:35.086 but I'm still old school as an educator, 00:02:35.110 --> 00:02:37.696 and I want to share with you this exercise 00:02:37.720 --> 00:02:40.453 that illustrates on the sentence-structure level 00:02:40.477 --> 00:02:45.008 how the way that we think, literally the way that we use language, 00:02:45.032 --> 00:02:47.175 conspires to keep our attention off of men. 00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:49.386 This is about domestic violence in particular, 00:02:49.410 --> 00:02:52.834 but you can plug in other analogues. 00:02:52.858 --> 00:02:55.922 This comes from the work of the feminist linguist Julia Penelope. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:55.946 --> 00:02:58.114 It starts with a very basic English sentence: 00:02:58.138 --> 00:03:01.567 "John beat Mary." 00:03:01.591 --> 00:03:03.092 That's a good English sentence. 00:03:03.116 --> 00:03:06.602 John is the subject, beat is the verb, Mary is the object, good sentence. 00:03:06.626 --> 00:03:08.840 Now we're going to move to the second sentence, 00:03:08.864 --> 00:03:11.210 which says the same thing in the passive voice. 00:03:11.234 --> 00:03:16.473 "Mary was beaten by John." 00:03:17.564 --> 00:03:20.350 And now a whole lot has happened in one sentence. 00:03:20.374 --> 00:03:22.479 We've gone from "John beat Mary" 00:03:22.503 --> 00:03:24.298 to "Mary was beaten by John." 00:03:24.322 --> 00:03:27.585 We've shifted our focus in one sentence from John to Mary, 00:03:27.609 --> 00:03:30.516 and you can see John is very close to the end of the sentence, 00:03:30.540 --> 00:03:33.506 well, close to dropping off the map of our psychic plain. 00:03:33.530 --> 00:03:35.250 The third sentence, John is dropped, 00:03:35.274 --> 00:03:38.588 and we have, "Mary was beaten," 00:03:38.612 --> 00:03:40.484 and now it's all about Mary. 00:03:40.508 --> 00:03:43.570 We're not even thinking about John, it's totally focused on Mary. 00:03:43.594 --> 00:03:44.805 Over the past generation, 00:03:44.829 --> 00:03:47.605 the term we've used synonymous with "beaten" is "battered," 00:03:47.629 --> 00:03:50.676 so we have "Mary was battered." 00:03:51.324 --> 00:03:55.118 And the final sentence in this sequence, flowing from the others, is, 00:03:55.142 --> 00:03:57.816 "Mary is a battered woman." 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:04.338 So now Mary's very identity -- Mary is a battered woman -- 00:04:05.673 --> 00:04:08.220 is what was done to her by John in the first instance. 00:04:08.244 --> 00:04:11.460 But we've demonstrated that John has long ago left the conversation. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:11.484 --> 00:04:14.400 Those of us who work in the domestic and sexual violence field 00:04:14.424 --> 00:04:16.941 know that victim-blaming is pervasive in this realm, 00:04:16.965 --> 00:04:19.904 which is to say, blaming the person to whom something was done 00:04:19.928 --> 00:04:21.559 rather than the person who did it. 00:04:21.583 --> 00:04:23.791 And we say: why do they go out with these men? 00:04:23.815 --> 00:04:26.695 Why are they attracted to them? Why do they keep going back? 00:04:26.719 --> 00:04:29.671 What was she wearing at that party? What a stupid thing to do. 00:04:29.695 --> 00:04:32.383 Why was she drinking with those guys in that hotel room? 00:04:32.407 --> 00:04:35.172 This is victim blaming, and there are many reasons for it, 00:04:35.196 --> 00:04:38.802 but one is that our cognitive structure is set up to blame victims. 00:04:38.826 --> 00:04:39.993 This is all unconscious. 00:04:40.017 --> 00:04:42.642 Our whole cognitive structure is set up to ask questions 00:04:42.666 --> 00:04:46.157 about women and women's choices and what they're doing, thinking, wearing. 00:04:46.181 --> 00:04:49.503 And I'm not going to shout down people who ask questions about women. 00:04:49.527 --> 00:04:51.028 It's a legitimate thing to ask. 00:04:51.052 --> 00:04:53.351 But's let's be clear: Asking questions about Mary 00:04:53.375 --> 00:04:56.507 is not going to get us anywhere in terms of preventing violence. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:56.531 --> 00:04:58.592 We have to ask a different set of questions. 00:04:58.616 --> 00:05:02.197 The questions are not about Mary, they're about John. 00:05:02.297 --> 00:05:05.086 They include things like, why does John beat Mary? 00:05:05.110 --> 00:05:08.941 Why is domestic violence still a big problem in the US and all over the world? 00:05:08.965 --> 00:05:11.615 What's going on? Why do so many men abuse physically, 00:05:11.639 --> 00:05:13.825 emotionally, verbally, and other ways, 00:05:13.849 --> 00:05:17.075 the women and girls, and the men and boys, that they claim to love? 00:05:17.099 --> 00:05:18.299 What's going on with men? 00:05:18.678 --> 00:05:22.132 Why do so many adult men sexually abuse little girls and boys? 00:05:22.156 --> 00:05:24.193 Why is that a common problem in our society 00:05:24.345 --> 00:05:25.860 and all over the world today? 00:05:26.224 --> 00:05:27.844 Why do we hear over and over again 00:05:27.868 --> 00:05:31.266 about new scandals erupting in major institutions 00:05:31.290 --> 00:05:34.567 like the Catholic Church or the Penn State football program 00:05:34.591 --> 00:05:36.791 or the Boy Scouts of America, on and on and on? 00:05:36.815 --> 00:05:39.030 And then local communities all over the country 00:05:39.054 --> 00:05:40.219 and all over the world. 00:05:40.243 --> 00:05:41.703 We hear about it all the time. 00:05:41.727 --> 00:05:43.225 The sexual abuse of children. 00:05:43.249 --> 00:05:46.559 What's going on with men? Why do so many men rape women 00:05:46.663 --> 00:05:48.414 in our society and around the world? 00:05:48.438 --> 00:05:50.165 Why do so many men rape other men? 00:05:50.189 --> 00:05:51.736 What is going on with men? 00:05:51.760 --> 00:05:56.728 And then what is the role of the various institutions in our society 00:05:56.752 --> 00:05:59.536 that are helping to produce abusive men at pandemic rates? NOTE Paragraph 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:01.870 Because this isn't about individual perpetrators. 00:06:01.894 --> 00:06:04.614 That's a naive way to understanding what is a much deeper 00:06:04.638 --> 00:06:06.325 and more systematic social problem. 00:06:06.349 --> 00:06:10.020 The perpetrators aren't these monsters who crawl out of the swamp 00:06:10.044 --> 00:06:12.488 and come into town and do their nasty business 00:06:12.512 --> 00:06:14.431 and then retreat into the darkness. 00:06:14.455 --> 00:06:16.737 That's a very naive notion, right? 00:06:16.761 --> 00:06:20.055 Perpetrators are much more normal than that, and everyday than that. 00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:24.456 So the question is, what are we doing here in our society and in the world? 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:26.485 What are the roles of various institutions 00:06:26.509 --> 00:06:29.016 in helping to produce abusive men? 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:31.123 What's the role of religious belief systems, 00:06:31.147 --> 00:06:33.288 the sports culture, the pornography culture, 00:06:33.312 --> 00:06:36.027 the family structure, economics, and how that intersects, 00:06:36.051 --> 00:06:38.290 and race and ethnicity and how that intersects? 00:06:38.314 --> 00:06:39.793 How does all this work? NOTE Paragraph 00:06:39.817 --> 00:06:42.720 And then, once we start making those kinds of connections 00:06:42.744 --> 00:06:45.378 and asking those important and big questions, 00:06:45.402 --> 00:06:47.860 then we can talk about how we can be transformative, 00:06:47.884 --> 00:06:50.335 in other words, how can we do something differently? 00:06:50.359 --> 00:06:51.937 How can we change the practices? 00:06:51.961 --> 00:06:53.967 How can we change the socialization of boys 00:06:53.991 --> 00:06:57.416 and the definitions of manhood that lead to these current outcomes? 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:00.130 These are the kind of questions that we need to be asking 00:07:00.154 --> 00:07:02.314 and the kind of work that we need to be doing, 00:07:02.338 --> 00:07:05.901 but if we're endlessly focused on what women are doing and thinking 00:07:05.925 --> 00:07:07.612 in relationships or elsewhere, 00:07:07.636 --> 00:07:10.058 we're not going to get to that piece. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:10.082 --> 00:07:11.745 I understand that a lot of women 00:07:11.769 --> 00:07:14.248 who have been trying to speak out about these issues, 00:07:14.272 --> 00:07:16.339 today and yesterday and for years and years, 00:07:16.363 --> 00:07:18.619 often get shouted down for their efforts. 00:07:18.643 --> 00:07:23.639 They get called nasty names like "male-basher" and "man-hater," 00:07:23.663 --> 00:07:30.205 and the disgusting and offensive "feminazi", right? 00:07:30.229 --> 00:07:31.970 And you know what all this is about? 00:07:31.994 --> 00:07:33.498 It's called kill the messenger. 00:07:33.522 --> 00:07:35.529 It's because the women who are standing up 00:07:35.553 --> 00:07:37.971 and speaking out for themselves and for other women 00:07:37.995 --> 00:07:40.180 as well as for men and boys, 00:07:40.204 --> 00:07:42.576 it's a statement to them to sit down and shut up, 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:44.208 keep the current system in place, 00:07:44.232 --> 00:07:46.630 because we don't like it when people rock the boat. 00:07:46.654 --> 00:07:49.002 We don't like it when people challenge our power. 00:07:49.026 --> 00:07:51.148 You'd better sit down and shut up, basically. 00:07:51.172 --> 00:07:53.423 And thank goodness that women haven't done that. 00:07:53.447 --> 00:07:55.321 Thank goodness that we live in a world 00:07:55.345 --> 00:07:58.467 where there's so much women's leadership that can counteract that. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:58.491 --> 00:08:01.333 But one of the powerful roles that men can play in this work 00:08:01.357 --> 00:08:04.283 is that we can say some things that sometimes women can't say, 00:08:04.307 --> 00:08:06.690 or, better yet, we can be heard saying some things 00:08:06.714 --> 00:08:08.667 that women often can't be heard saying. 00:08:08.691 --> 00:08:12.173 Now, I appreciate that that's a problem, it's sexism, but it's the truth. 00:08:12.197 --> 00:08:14.095 So one of the things that I say to men, 00:08:14.119 --> 00:08:16.058 and my colleagues and I always say this, 00:08:16.082 --> 00:08:18.767 is we need more men who have the courage and the strength 00:08:18.791 --> 00:08:21.201 to start standing up and saying some of this stuff, 00:08:21.225 --> 00:08:23.326 and standing with women and not against them 00:08:23.350 --> 00:08:26.318 and pretending that somehow this is a battle between the sexes 00:08:26.342 --> 00:08:27.688 and other kinds of nonsense. 00:08:27.712 --> 00:08:29.188 We live in the world together. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:29.212 --> 00:08:31.884 And by the way, one of the things that really bothers me 00:08:31.908 --> 00:08:34.495 about some of the rhetoric against feminists and others 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:38.221 who have built the battered women's and rape crisis movements around the world 00:08:38.245 --> 00:08:40.749 is that somehow, like I said, that they're anti-male. 00:08:40.773 --> 00:08:44.028 What about all the boys who are profoundly affected in a negative way 00:08:44.052 --> 00:08:47.835 by what some adult man is doing against their mother, themselves, their sisters? 00:08:47.859 --> 00:08:49.135 What about all those boys? 00:08:49.159 --> 00:08:50.927 What about all the young men and boys 00:08:50.951 --> 00:08:53.312 who have been traumatized by adult men's violence? 00:08:53.336 --> 00:08:54.524 You know what? 00:08:54.548 --> 00:08:56.928 The same system that produces men who abuse women, 00:08:56.952 --> 00:08:58.539 produces men who abuse other men. 00:08:58.563 --> 00:09:02.031 And if we want to talk about male victims, let's talk about male victims. 00:09:02.055 --> 00:09:05.361 Most male victims of violence are the victims of other men's violence. 00:09:05.385 --> 00:09:08.171 So that's something that both women and men have in common. 00:09:08.195 --> 00:09:10.076 We are both victims of men's violence. 00:09:10.100 --> 00:09:12.132 So we have it in our direct self-interest, 00:09:12.156 --> 00:09:14.446 not to mention the fact that most men that I know 00:09:14.470 --> 00:09:16.679 have women and girls that we care deeply about, 00:09:16.703 --> 00:09:19.681 in our families and our friendship circles and every other way. 00:09:19.705 --> 00:09:22.354 So there's so many reasons why we need men to speak out. 00:09:22.378 --> 00:09:25.398 It seems obvious saying it out loud, doesn't it? 00:09:25.751 --> 00:09:29.324 Now, the nature of the work that I do and my colleagues do 00:09:29.348 --> 00:09:33.005 in the sports culture and the US military, in schools, 00:09:33.029 --> 00:09:35.877 we pioneered this approach called the bystander approach 00:09:35.901 --> 00:09:37.889 to gender-violence prevention. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:37.913 --> 00:09:41.232 And I just want to give you the highlights of the bystander approach, 00:09:41.256 --> 00:09:43.691 because it's a big thematic shift, 00:09:43.715 --> 00:09:45.536 although there's lots of particulars, 00:09:45.560 --> 00:09:48.858 but the heart of it is, instead of seeing men as perpetrators 00:09:48.882 --> 00:09:50.120 and women as victims, 00:09:50.144 --> 00:09:53.600 or women as perpetrators, men as victims, 00:09:53.624 --> 00:09:55.187 or any combination in there. 00:09:55.211 --> 00:09:56.604 I'm using the gender binary. 00:09:56.628 --> 00:10:00.126 I know there's more than men and women, there's more than male and female. 00:10:00.150 --> 00:10:02.107 And there are women who are perpetrators, 00:10:02.131 --> 00:10:04.278 and of course there are men who are victims. 00:10:04.302 --> 00:10:05.514 There's a whole spectrum. 00:10:05.538 --> 00:10:07.749 But instead of seeing it in the binary fashion, 00:10:07.773 --> 00:10:10.129 we focus on all of us as what we call bystanders, 00:10:10.153 --> 00:10:14.320 and a bystander is defined as anybody who is not a perpetrator or a victim 00:10:14.344 --> 00:10:15.952 in a given situation, 00:10:15.976 --> 00:10:20.014 so in other words friends, teammates, colleagues, coworkers, family members, 00:10:20.038 --> 00:10:23.952 those of us who are not directly involved in a dyad of abuse, 00:10:23.976 --> 00:10:27.298 but we are embedded in social, family, work, school, 00:10:27.322 --> 00:10:29.082 and other peer culture relationships 00:10:29.106 --> 00:10:31.134 with people who might be in that situation. 00:10:31.158 --> 00:10:34.358 What do we do? How do we speak up? How do we challenge our friends? 00:10:34.382 --> 00:10:35.876 How do we support our friends? 00:10:35.900 --> 00:10:38.411 But how do we not remain silent in the face of abuse? NOTE Paragraph 00:10:38.435 --> 00:10:41.121 Now, when it comes to men and male culture, 00:10:41.145 --> 00:10:44.541 the goal is to get men who are not abusive to challenge men who are. 00:10:44.565 --> 00:10:47.812 And when I say abusive, I don't mean just men who are beating women. 00:10:47.836 --> 00:10:52.632 We're not just saying a man whose friend is abusing his girlfriend 00:10:52.656 --> 00:10:55.473 needs to stop the guy at the moment of attack. 00:10:55.497 --> 00:10:59.951 That's a naive way of creating a social change. 00:10:59.975 --> 00:11:03.871 It's along a continuum, we're trying to get men to interrupt each other. 00:11:03.895 --> 00:11:06.823 So, for example, if you're a guy and you're in a group of guys 00:11:06.847 --> 00:11:09.715 playing poker, talking, hanging out, no women present, 00:11:09.739 --> 00:11:16.088 and another guy says something sexist or degrading or harassing about women, 00:11:16.112 --> 00:11:18.964 instead of laughing along or pretending you didn't hear it, 00:11:18.988 --> 00:11:21.005 we need men to say, "Hey, that's not funny. 00:11:21.029 --> 00:11:23.279 that could be my sister you're talking about, 00:11:23.303 --> 00:11:25.267 and could you joke about something else? 00:11:25.291 --> 00:11:27.167 Or could you talk about something else? 00:11:27.191 --> 00:11:29.022 I don't appreciate that kind of talk." 00:11:29.046 --> 00:11:30.691 Just like if you're a white person 00:11:30.715 --> 00:11:33.958 and another white person makes a racist comment, you'd hope, I hope, 00:11:33.982 --> 00:11:36.606 that white people would interrupt that racist enactment 00:11:36.630 --> 00:11:37.867 by a fellow white person. 00:11:37.891 --> 00:11:40.757 Just like with heterosexism, if you're a heterosexual person 00:11:40.781 --> 00:11:43.588 and you yourself don't enact harassing or abusive behaviors 00:11:43.612 --> 00:11:45.822 towards people of varying sexual orientations, 00:11:45.846 --> 00:11:49.566 if you don't say something in the face of other heterosexual people doing that, 00:11:49.590 --> 00:11:52.901 then, in a sense, isn't your silence a form of consent and complicity? NOTE Paragraph 00:11:52.925 --> 00:11:55.760 Well, the bystander approach is trying to give people tools 00:11:55.784 --> 00:11:59.605 to interrupt that process and to speak up and to create a peer culture climate 00:11:59.629 --> 00:12:02.293 where the abusive behavior will be seen as unacceptable, 00:12:02.317 --> 00:12:05.084 not just because it's illegal, but because it's wrong 00:12:05.108 --> 00:12:07.159 and unacceptable in the peer culture. 00:12:07.183 --> 00:12:09.579 And if we can get to the place where men 00:12:09.603 --> 00:12:11.894 who act out in sexist ways will lose status, 00:12:11.918 --> 00:12:13.823 young men and boys who act out in sexist 00:12:13.847 --> 00:12:15.863 and harassing ways towards girls and women, 00:12:15.887 --> 00:12:17.826 as well as towards other boys and men, 00:12:17.850 --> 00:12:20.367 will lose status as a result of it, guess what? 00:12:20.391 --> 00:12:23.372 We'll see a radical diminution of the abuse. 00:12:23.396 --> 00:12:26.043 Because the typical perpetrator is not sick and twisted. 00:12:26.067 --> 00:12:28.761 He's a normal guy in every other way, isn't he? NOTE Paragraph 00:12:28.785 --> 00:12:32.153 Now, among the many great things that Martin Luther King 00:12:32.177 --> 00:12:33.696 said in his short life was, 00:12:33.720 --> 00:12:37.123 "In the end, what will hurt the most is not the words of our enemies 00:12:37.147 --> 00:12:39.201 but the silence of our friends." 00:12:39.225 --> 00:12:42.396 In the end, what will hurt the most is not the words of our enemies 00:12:42.420 --> 00:12:43.935 but the silence of our friends. 00:12:43.959 --> 00:12:46.414 There's been an awful lot of silence in male culture 00:12:46.438 --> 00:12:48.511 about this ongoing tragedy of men's violence 00:12:48.535 --> 00:12:50.505 against women and children, hasn't there? 00:12:50.529 --> 00:12:52.315 There's been an awful lot of silence. 00:12:52.339 --> 00:12:55.191 And all I'm saying is that we need to break that silence, 00:12:55.215 --> 00:12:57.077 and we need more men to do that. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:57.475 --> 00:13:00.774 Now, it's easier said than done, 00:13:00.798 --> 00:13:02.188 because I'm saying it now, 00:13:02.212 --> 00:13:04.686 but I'm telling you it's not easy in male culture 00:13:04.710 --> 00:13:06.611 for guys to challenge each other, 00:13:06.635 --> 00:13:09.016 which is one of the reasons 00:13:09.040 --> 00:13:11.348 why part of the paradigm shift that has to happen 00:13:11.372 --> 00:13:14.110 is not just understanding these issues as men's issues, 00:13:14.134 --> 00:13:16.181 but they're also leadership issues for men. 00:13:16.205 --> 00:13:19.643 Because ultimately, the responsibility for taking a stand on these issues 00:13:19.667 --> 00:13:21.942 should not fall on the shoulders of little boys 00:13:21.966 --> 00:13:24.786 or teenage boys in high school or college men. 00:13:24.810 --> 00:13:26.755 It should be on adult men with power. 00:13:26.779 --> 00:13:29.940 Adult men with power are the ones we need to be holding accountable 00:13:29.964 --> 00:13:31.629 for being leaders on these issues, 00:13:31.653 --> 00:13:33.972 because when somebody speaks up in a peer culture 00:13:33.996 --> 00:13:35.932 and challenges and interrupts, 00:13:35.956 --> 00:13:38.530 he or she is being a leader, really. 00:13:38.554 --> 00:13:41.805 But on a big scale, we need more adult men with power 00:13:41.829 --> 00:13:43.975 to start prioritizing these issues, 00:13:43.999 --> 00:13:46.428 and we haven't seen that yet, have we? NOTE Paragraph 00:13:46.452 --> 00:13:49.858 Now, I was at a dinner a number of years ago, 00:13:49.882 --> 00:13:53.071 and I work extensively with the US military, all the services. 00:13:53.095 --> 00:13:55.937 And I was at this dinner and this woman said to me -- 00:13:56.636 --> 00:13:58.793 I think she thought she was a little clever -- 00:13:58.817 --> 00:14:03.363 she said, "So how long have you been doing sensitivity training with the Marines?" NOTE Paragraph 00:14:03.387 --> 00:14:06.633 And I said, "With all due respect, 00:14:06.657 --> 00:14:09.186 I don't do sensitivity training with the Marines. 00:14:09.210 --> 00:14:11.488 I run a leadership program in the Marine Corps." NOTE Paragraph 00:14:11.512 --> 00:14:13.586 Now, I know it's a bit pompous, my response, 00:14:13.610 --> 00:14:15.371 but it's an important distinction, 00:14:15.395 --> 00:14:18.544 because I don't believe that what we need is sensitivity training. 00:14:18.568 --> 00:14:21.004 We need leadership training, because, for example, 00:14:21.028 --> 00:14:24.794 when a professional coach or a manager of a baseball team or a football team -- 00:14:24.818 --> 00:14:27.124 and I work extensively in that realm as well -- 00:14:27.148 --> 00:14:30.351 makes a sexist comment, makes a homophobic statement, 00:14:30.375 --> 00:14:31.916 makes a racist comment, 00:14:31.940 --> 00:14:35.320 there will be discussions on the sports blogs and in sports talk radio. 00:14:35.344 --> 00:14:38.126 And some people will say, "He needs sensitivity training." 00:14:38.150 --> 00:14:40.155 Other people will say, "Well, get off it. 00:14:40.179 --> 00:14:42.349 That's political correctness run amok, 00:14:42.373 --> 00:14:44.177 he made a stupid statement, move on." 00:14:44.201 --> 00:14:46.831 My argument is, he doesn't need sensitivity training. 00:14:46.855 --> 00:14:48.263 He needs leadership training, 00:14:48.287 --> 00:14:49.823 because he's being a bad leader, 00:14:49.847 --> 00:14:52.974 because in a society with gender diversity and sexual diversity -- NOTE Paragraph 00:14:52.998 --> 00:14:54.063 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:14:54.087 --> 00:14:55.626 and racial and ethnic diversity, 00:14:55.650 --> 00:14:58.857 you make those kind of comments, you're failing at your leadership. 00:14:58.881 --> 00:15:01.069 If we can make this point that I'm making 00:15:01.093 --> 00:15:03.734 to powerful men and women in our society 00:15:03.758 --> 00:15:06.829 at all levels of institutional authority and power, 00:15:06.853 --> 00:15:10.083 it's going to change the paradigm of people's thinking. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:10.655 --> 00:15:12.161 You know, for example, 00:15:12.185 --> 00:15:14.461 I work a lot in college and university athletics 00:15:14.485 --> 00:15:16.019 throughout North America. 00:15:17.087 --> 00:15:20.902 We know so much about how to prevent domestic and sexual violence, right? 00:15:21.613 --> 00:15:23.985 There's no excuse for a college or university 00:15:24.009 --> 00:15:26.867 to not have domestic and sexual violence prevention training 00:15:26.891 --> 00:15:29.701 mandated for all student athletes, coaches, administrators, 00:15:29.725 --> 00:15:32.073 as part of their educational process. 00:15:32.097 --> 00:15:34.645 We know enough to know that we can easily do that. 00:15:34.669 --> 00:15:36.757 But you know what's missing? The leadership. 00:15:36.781 --> 00:15:39.021 But it's not the leadership of student athletes. 00:15:39.045 --> 00:15:41.175 It's the leadership of the athletic director, 00:15:41.199 --> 00:15:43.710 the president of the university, the people in charge 00:15:43.734 --> 00:15:45.403 who make decisions about resources 00:15:45.427 --> 00:15:48.730 and who make decisions about priorities in the institutional settings. 00:15:48.754 --> 00:15:51.290 That's a failure, in most cases, of men's leadership. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:51.314 --> 00:15:52.508 Look at Penn State. 00:15:52.532 --> 00:15:56.640 Penn State is the mother of all teachable moments for the bystander approach. 00:15:56.664 --> 00:15:59.125 You had so many situations in that realm 00:15:59.149 --> 00:16:02.792 where men in powerful positions failed to act 00:16:02.816 --> 00:16:05.227 to protect children, in this case, boys. 00:16:05.251 --> 00:16:06.504 It's unbelievable, really. 00:16:06.528 --> 00:16:09.611 But when you get into it, you realize there are pressures on men. 00:16:09.635 --> 00:16:12.436 There are constraints within peer cultures on men, 00:16:12.460 --> 00:16:16.644 which is why we need to encourage men to break through those pressures. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:16.668 --> 00:16:18.597 And one of the ways to do that is to say 00:16:18.621 --> 00:16:21.601 there's an awful lot of men who care deeply about these issues. 00:16:21.625 --> 00:16:23.106 I know this, I work with men, 00:16:23.130 --> 00:16:25.309 and I've been working with tens of thousands, 00:16:25.333 --> 00:16:27.697 hundreds of thousands of men for many decades now. 00:16:27.721 --> 00:16:30.195 It's scary, when you think about it, how many years. 00:16:30.219 --> 00:16:33.675 But there's so many men who care deeply about these issues, 00:16:33.699 --> 00:16:35.840 but caring deeply is not enough. 00:16:35.864 --> 00:16:38.354 We need more men with the guts, 00:16:38.378 --> 00:16:41.813 with the courage, with the strength, with the moral integrity 00:16:41.837 --> 00:16:45.829 to break our complicit silence and challenge each other 00:16:45.853 --> 00:16:47.853 and stand with women and not against them. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:48.192 --> 00:16:49.883 By the way, we owe it to women. 00:16:49.907 --> 00:16:51.349 There's no question about it. 00:16:51.373 --> 00:16:52.994 But we also owe it to our sons. 00:16:53.018 --> 00:16:56.237 We also owe it to young men who are growing up all over the world 00:16:56.261 --> 00:16:58.528 in situations where they didn't make the choice 00:16:58.552 --> 00:17:01.925 to be a man in a culture that tells them that manhood is a certain way. 00:17:01.949 --> 00:17:03.615 They didn't make the choice. 00:17:03.639 --> 00:17:08.636 We that have a choice, have an opportunity and a responsibility to them as well. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:11.591 I hope that, going forward, men and women, 00:17:11.615 --> 00:17:13.907 working together, can begin the change 00:17:13.931 --> 00:17:15.907 and the transformation that will happen 00:17:15.931 --> 00:17:18.706 so that future generations won't have the level of tragedy 00:17:18.730 --> 00:17:20.506 that we deal with on a daily basis. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:20.530 --> 00:17:22.340 I know we can do it, we can do better. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:22.364 --> 00:17:23.747 Thank you very much.