Date:Sat, 30 Dec 2000

Sender: Coalition Against Trafficking in Women

Subject:[CATW] Mergemag interview with Jackson Katz

Jackson Katz, anti-violence educator and activist, talks about gender violence, and how men can use their power to make the world a better place--while improving their own lives in the process.

M : I think many men think that the problems---rape, domestic violence, etc.---are all being caused by the 'handful of bad men over there' and not by them or their actions.

J: Yes, I agree. The main focus of my work in violence prevention is on men who are not necessarily doing bad things---but not doing anything positive.They're not using their power, their influence, their resources to speak out and provide leadership. There are a lot of guys like that out there.

M: With regard to the culture, there is a mountain of evidence now about the link between media and sexual violence, violence in general, and it is all discounted for some reason or other.

J: Because there's a motive to discount---not because there's an intellectual rationale, but because there's a motive.

M: A profit motive it seems to me. . .

J: Most people don't have a profit motive in media. It's also pleasure.

K: And power . . .

J: But not just power. There are a lot of people on the wrong side of power who defend [the system]. It's crazy.

M: I think that gets back to the whole socialization process. A lot of women take on the 'image' of whatever the culture is calling for women to do, thinking that it will get them into the power structure, that it will get them power. But of course, it doesn't ever work.

J: And they don't see other alternatives.

M : What brought you to work on gender and violence? Was there a specific event in your life?

J: I'm asked this question a lot---how did a guy come to care about these issues. I'm asked this not just because of my sports background [Jackson played football in college], but just because I'm a guy. My typical response is to ask people to think about it for a minute. When people get involved in environmental activism---the degradation of the water, endangered species---people don't question their motives or wonder why they're doing it. They assume that the ecosystem is important enough to take care of. If someone is a civil rights activist, people don't question their motives; they just assume some people seriously question the supposed values of our country, and want to fight for equal treatment for all. With any major issue, it's the same. Yet when a man speaks out against men's violence against women, people wonder what is going on. There must have been something that happened to him, he must have been a child witness to domestic violence, or a woman close to him must have been assaulted.

M: That's because, you, as a white man, especially with your sports background, are at the pinnacle of the power structure. Why would you voluntarily question that structure, which will, in effect, diminish what power you enjoy?

J: I agree. But the women and girls in my life can't even walk to the store at 9 o'clock at night to get a can of soda because they are afraid some guy might assault them---and people are asking me why I'm involved? We need to turn the question around and ask why are so *few* men, who have women and girls they supposedly care about in their lives, working on these issues. If we had a march on Washington of men who know women who have been assaulted by men, it wouldn't be a million man march. It wouldn't be a ten million man march. It would be closer to 30 or 40 million men. And if you included men who *know* women who order their daily lives around the threat of men's violence---just the threat---you'd have a 130 or 140 million man march---half the people in this country---because every single man in this country knows women who order their daily lives around the threat of men's violence.

M: That comes back to one of the biggest myths that men are taught---which is the myth of compartmentalization. Men don't get, too often, that their own purchases and votes and behavior are supporting the very system that creates this environment for women. Too many men think it's a handful of men who create the problems.

J: That's part of what education is about: making those connections, raising consciousness. One of the challenges of working with men on these issues is that dominate systems maintain themselves through a lack of critical examination or introspection on the part of the dominant group: white people, men, heterosexual people, etc.

M: The example in your video 'Tough Guise' of the newspaper headlines being written in the passive voice was an example of this. It was so subtle but powerful--and the concept had completely got by me. A newspaper headline is written 'Two women were raped,' instead of 'Man rapes two women . . .'

J: In my educational training, I have a three-hour block just on language---it's that important. The use of the passive voice in the discussion of violence is extremely critical. My insights on this are indebted to the work of feminist writer Julia Penelope. In this country, we talk about how many women were abused, how many women were raped, or how many teenage girls 'got' pregnant. The use of the passive voice shifts our attention off men and boys and onto women and girls.

M: Gloria Steinem once asked how is it possible that we can know so many women who have been raped---and not know any rapists.

J: Which is a great line. There's not a one-to-one ratio, because the average rapist rapes so many women, but it's a powerful consciousness-raising exercise to point this out to people. I spend a lot of time of language because when you give people analytical tools like this, it applies to so many other issues. If someone starts reading the paper more critically and looking for the passive voice, looking for the hidden dominance, the light bulbs go off and it starts opening up a whole new world of awareness.

M : It's been so frustrating to see 'politically correct' language get lambasted and trivialized. That concept is very important and it got lost in the extreme examples that the media portrayed.

J: I think part of the reason for the backlash was because it was having such a powerful effect. Calling attention to how language is used in the service of power has been such an effective tool that the Right and forces protecting the status quo have reacted against it. So much of the demonization of the term politically correct was an attempt to silence people who are trying to be thoughtful and critical about the way power is enacted in everyday language. Too many people don't even realize that that is what's happening.

M: With the media playing such a prominent role in people's lives right now, it makes the issue of language that much more important. People have less and less contact with each other, are working at home, move a lot, what have you. The community's influence diminishes while the media's power increases. If you're an activist, you begin to think that you're the only one who thinks this way, because you don't see people on TV, hear people on the radio, reflecting your observations. The media really comes to divide and conquer in this way.

J: Especially if you're using the mainstream, corporate-subsidized media as your main source of information and entertainment. If you don't actively seek out alternative magazines and media, it takes much more effort to break free of the dominant systems of thought presented. It takes a lot more effort to deconstruct what is really being said and presented.

M : Then there's the problem of magazines and media that call themselves progressive that really aren't. There's a lot of Orwellian use of the language with the term progressive, the word feminist, which is an additional problem with regard to language. How did you come to see the root of the problem of gender violence as the definition of masculinity?

J: One of the earliest insights that I gained from feminist ideas, when I was a first-year student at college, was that gender was one of the primary axes around which human societies are organized. It didn't take any persuasion; that point was obvious. Gender doesn't equal women----it equals gender. So it wasn't a very big leap to understand that when a society has systems of inequality---sexism, racism---that the dominant groups in each case are embedded in the system as much as the subordinate group. Men are every bit affected and shaped by the gender order as women are. As a straight, white m an I was embedded in this system. And because of my sense of social justice and fairness, it was very clear to me that as a white man, I could have a positive impact on changing that.

M : Do you think the hypermasculinization that is happening now (wrestling, tough man competitions, open support of stripping, 'manly; rituals, etc.), is mostly linked to the change in gender roles or backlash against feminism? Are there other factors involved?

J: There are always multiple factors---class, race, and sexuality are all factors. These are complex systems of power and control and privilege. But certainly, the degree to which you see hypermasculine posturing can be attributed to changing gender roles and women asserting their independence and integrity. For example in battering relationships, one of the key factors of the presence, and often, the severity, of violence, is the degree to which the woman is compliant. If she is, she's less likely to be acted on violently because she's been so successfully controlled.

M : And it's reported that the most dangerous point for a woman in an abusive relationship is when she tries to leave.

J: That's a crystal clear indication that so much of this is about power and control. When she finally says she's no longer going to put up with his power trip, that assertion of independence is what puts her at the greatest risk.

M : And that, in microcosm, is what's happening in the larger culture. The system is trying to reassert it's control by crushing the opposition.

J: It's a simple observation, but one of the reasons for violence in general is to maintain inequality. Whether it's a female-male relationship, or at the structural level, it's the same. In South Africa during apartheid, the State used violence to suppress opposition voices. The reason the State needs to use violence is because they are trying to maintain an unequal system--and they know it.

M : It's interesting thinking about South Africa, how they went from having race apartheid to the highest rate of rape in the world [the US is now second]. Did the problem of control and power get 'transferred' to gender?

J: It's tricky, because race is deeply intertwined with the discussion of sexual violence in South Africa; You have to be careful not to rely on any racist generalizations. But one way that I would frame it is that if you deprive men the means to express their 'manhood,' as defined by the culture, they are going to look for validation in other ways. Usually it's poor men who are affected, but if you have a group of men, anywhere in the world, who grow up in a culture where manhood means providing for your family, being respected, having status in the community, etc. and yet they are systematically denied access to this, what do they have left? One thing they have is violence, as a means to project power, something that is available to a lot of men who don't have access to those other avenues. It's why you have such hypermasculine posturing in certain groups of men---because of their inability to achieve status or validation of their manhood in other ways.

M : When you go around the country talking to young men, in high school and college, are they relieved to know someone is talking about these issues? Or do they resist these ideas?

J: There's certainly an openness to it, but as with other challenging ideas, there's a spectrum. There are some young men who are eager to hear this and be validated in their own beliefs; and there are young men who are threatened and defensive, who are being trained in this system---and they don't want to hear that system criticized. It's the same with women. There are women who are threatened by feminism, and for some reason, have bought into their own second class status. But most of the time, the response is very positive. It might initially be defensive, but I think a lot of men come into these discussions defensive. And it's much more difficult to work with older men than younger men. Many people assume younger men have grown up with feminism, so it's easier for them. But what's less obvious is that the older a guy is, the more likely he is to have done things that he should feel guilty about it. So on some psychological level, he's more likely to defend himself against thinking about these things because of his own actions. A 15-year-old guy might be a little defensive at first, but he's not as likely to have assaulted a woman---or perpetuated through his silence violence against women.

M : Do you think that men can really undo the brainwashing? I guess you have to believe it on some level because of your educational efforts. But it gets to such deep issues of how a man sees himself, his sexuality----very powerful issues---which is why its hard to get people to think them. I ask this because I see how difficult it is for women to break free from thinking of themselves as objects to be looked at, how their hair or weight is, etc. So I wonder if it can really be transcended.

J: I think it can. We've all been conditioned by the culture, and these systems of power work their way into our psyches. But the key to transcending your conditioning is not just the insight to think more critically, but, especially for men, the permission, to think and talk about these things openly. Young men need permission to break out of the traditional masculine role. There are really powerful policing mechanisms in the male culture--- homophobia being a key one --- and questions about a man's manhood keep men in line. If a man questions the system of sexism or male dominance, his manhood is often called into question. But this absurd. We say we respect men who show leadership, strength of character, and the courage of their convictions, but when men speak out against sexism, someone's manhood is questioned? A man who speaks out against sexism is more worthy of our respect. because it takes much more strength and courage to speak out than it does to be one of the guys. Being one of the guys is one of the easiest things in the world. The other part of this policing, the homophobia, is equally absurd. A man speaks out against sexism, a man cares about how women are treated, because he wants to have sex with other men? It's silly.

M : Those are really good sound bites. And as far as policing, it's the same with women. Women are threatened with the withholding of male companionship, sex, being loved if they are openly feminist, and that cuts so deep. It's a very effective tool to keep women out of their own civil rights movement.

J: And this kind of change---challenge---cannot really be enacted on the individual level. We need movements of people, which is part of what leadership is about. The women's movement has been filled with leaders, women who have dared to speak out, dared to transform thousands of years of patriarchal conditioning and economic structures. But there have been nowhere near enough men who have provided that same leadership for men. The more men speak up and take a leadership role, the more men will have the courage to speak out themselves. People cannot feel isolated. The power of the status quo is impressive, but if you feel like you are part of a movement, that there are plenty of women and men out there who think and feel the same way you do, you no longer feel like you are alone.

M: Which gets back to how people come to think that they are the only ones who see these problems when our voices are not heard in the media----and isolation sets in.

J: Around violence, silence is a key component. One of the things I talk about is how most of the talk about violence is about how victims are silenced. The domestic violence and rape crisis movements have been giving voice to victims, and getting them to speak out, organizing Take Back the Night rallies, etc. Which is all very important. But the people around the victim are also silenced---they're nervous or fearful, or it's awkward to talk about. And most importantly, the people around the perpetrator---the friends, family members, colleagues---are silent as well. As an extension of this, men are silenced by other men's violence, and because of that silence, the men who act out and are sexist and violent come to speak for the rest of us. Our silence becomes a form of consent and complicity, even if it's not intended to be.

M: I never even thought about the friends and family around the perpetrator. And you know that they 'know,' on some level, what's going on. It's another passive group keeping the system of violence in place.

J: The traditional model of looking at gender violence as been binary: the victim---the survivor---and the perpetrator. But we need to broaden that model and look at it as a continuum and focus on the vast middle---all the bystanders---those of us who are embedded in social and family relationships with perpetrator or potential perpetrators, or victims and potential victims. We need to ask what all of us can do to confront the situation of abuse before, during, and after an assault. How can we be empowered agents that confront abuse, not be complicit in our silence. When my colleagues and I work with young men, whether it's in high schools, the US Marine Corps, a college football team, police officers--our focus is on these bystanders, which is a paradigm shift.

M : Because the problem isn't just the rapist and the woman who is raped, it's the whole structure that surrounds and supports that, and allows it to happen in the first place.

J: Feminists have been talking about a rape culture for several decades now, and I'm trying to empower the peers of abusers and victims, male and female, to not be silent. It's an important concept for all of us to consider.

M : And a good one, because it implicates so many more people----which it should, because that's where the problem is.

J: A lot of guys will say 'I'm a good guy, I don't rape or abuse women, this isn't my problem.' And my whole approach is that yes, it *is* your problem. Great, you don't rape women---but that's not enough in a society where women cannot safely walk to their car in a parking garage, or need a security escort to walk them back to their residence hall after night class.

M : What three things can men do to have a positive impact in the world?

J: First, really listen to women. Read women's literature, take courses in women's studies and gender-related topics. Listen to what women have been saying and writing about their experience in the world.

M : I don't see that happening, but it would be great!

J: Every single man I know who is doing this work is indebted to women and feminist writing. It's the only way we have been able to do this. The second thing would be reading and thinking about masculinities---plural. Because a gay, Latino, single man from Brooklyn is going to have a different experience of masculinity from a white, upper class, heterosexual guy in Beverly Hills. Men need to start thinking about a plural construct of masculinity; it's more instructive and useful. Read and think critically about masculinities, and men's experience with both women and other men. Be introspective on an individual level and look at it from an societal level as well. Third would be to speak out, especially with other men. Provide leadership through example. And use your power in your sphere of influence, especially with younger males; use the mentoring power you have and take it seriously. Young boys need a lot more guidance to learn what it means to be a man, what it means to respect women, to have an egalitarian sensibility and way of being in the world.

M : This gets to the idea of men always seeing women as so 'different.' But whole sets of difference among men are ignored, while other differences, between men and women, are magnified and trumped up to be very important (and why things are the way they are).

J: People make such ridiculous observations! There's actually more differentiation *within* sex classifications than there is between us. People like John Gray are just ludicrous.

K: I think people, individuals, are different. If John Gray was writing books entitled "Negroes like to dance, and Jews are good with money' he would be lambasted! But he makes sweeping generalizations about half the species and somehow that's OK.

J: These gender stereotypes hurt everyone. It's important for men to know that there is a self interest in confronting these issues. It's not just about men being altruistic. So many men have led diminished lives because of buying into this male dominance system. It's not as simple as saying 'men are in power, why would men want to give that up?' I think that's wildly obsolete and outdated concept. It's more complicated than that. There's really only a handful of men who are in full power, and they're not going to give that up. But we're not talking about them. We're talking about the millions, billions, of men who are not doing very well in this system. And many times men don't have a way to recognize this, because the measure of how they're doing emotionally and psychologically is not as easy to measure as income. I think there are a lot of lonely, unhappy men in the world, including white heterosexual men with good incomes.

M : That's why I hope more men will get involved, and redefine masculinity. I think if men ever really thought about what they've lost in terms of their relationships with women, with their kids, their true sexuality, just their lack of emotional outlets and emotional deadness, they would never stop grieving that loss.

J: Part of why I think 'Tough Guise' has gotten a positive response is because in it there's empathy with men---as well as holding men accountable. The video doesn't use a 'law and order' approach to changing men, if you will, but an empathetic approach. It says 'look guys, don't you see how your lives have been diminished? How your relationships with other men and with women have been negatively impacted by this whole system? And look at all the men who are victims of other's men's violence.' I think a lot of men can hear that. I bet you have male peers who have been assaulted or bullied as adolescent---have experienced some kind of violence and intimidation.

M : I bet *all* men, to a lesser or greater degree, have had this happen. People often think of bullying and violence as a natural part of growing up, but it crosses the line so easily.

J: People talk about this, and sibling violence, like it's normal. They write it off as child's play, but it's extremely damaging. The quality of my life and the lives of my colleagues have improved so much as a result of this work. And when men can get beyond their initially defensiveness, I think they are eager to participate in this conversation. Part of the role I play as an educator is to provide a context for these discussions to happen, for men to talk to each other. They start to realize that they've all had similar experiences, that they're not alone. Men have to expend so much energy posturing; and vulnerability is such a threat.

M : There has to be such a huge sense of relief when a man gives up that posturing. I'm think it's hard initially, but when a man's energy isn't put into the facade anymore, he gets to be authentic. I would think there is a huge sense of relief in that.

J: I can sometimes physically feel this sense of release, just by giving men a place talk. It's a release of pressure that has sometimes built up for years. It's another benefit and motivation for men to talk about and deal with these issues. ---

Read more about Jackson's work at his web site: www.jacksonkatz.com