TED: Violence & Silence, Jackson Katz

I don't normally post things that aren't SF/F related here, but I saw this TED talk today and had to share it.

     


The entire video is fantastic, but here are some of the highlights for me (and when they show up).  Please note, all of these quotes are out of context and context is everything, so watching the video to understand why he's said these things is important.

"But let's be clear.  Asking questions about Mary is not going to get us anywhere in terms of preventing violence.  We have to ask a different set of questions.

...

The questions include things like: Why does John beat Mary?  Why is domestic violence still such a big problem in the United States and all over the world?  What's going on?  Why do so many men abuse - physically, emotionally, verbally and in other ways - the women and girls and the men and boys, that they claim to love.  What's going on with men?" (6:34-6:51)

"...how can we change the practices, how can we change the socialization of boys and the definitions of manhood that lead to these current outcomes." (8:24 -8:33)

"One of the things that really bothers me about some of the rhetoric against feminists and others who have built the battered women's and rape crisis movemets around the world is that, somehow, like I said, that they're anti-male. What about all the boys who are profoundly affected in a negative way by what some adult man is doing against their mother, themselves, their sisters  What about all those boys.  what about all the young men and boys who have been traumatized by adult men's violence. You know what, the same system that produces men who abuse women, produces men who abuse other men.  And if you want to talk about male victims, let's talk about male victims.  Most male victims of violence are the victims of other men's violence.  So that's something that both women and men have in common.  We are both victims of men's violence. So we have it in our direct self-interest, not to mention the fact that most men that I know have women and girls that we care deeply about in our families and our friendship circles and every other way.  So there's so many reasons we need men to speak out."

(10:01-10:56)

"...if you don't say something in the face of other heterosexual people doing that [making homophobic comments] then isn't your silence in a sense a form of consent and complicity?  Well the bystander approach is trying to give people tools to interrupt that process and to speak up and to create a peer culture climate where the abusive behaviour will be seen as unacceptable not just because it's illegal but because it's wrong and unacceptable in the peer culture.  And If we can get to the place where men who act out in sexist ways will lose status, young men and boys who act out in sexist and harrassing ways towards girls and women - as well as towards other boys and men - will lose status as a result of it, guess what?  We'll see a radical dimunition of the abuse". (13:22 -13:56)

"Among the many great things that Martin Luther King said in his short life was: "In the end, what will hurt most is not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."  "In the end, what will hurt most is not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."  There's been an awful lot of silence in male culture about this ongoing tragedy of men's violence against women and children, hasn't there?  There's been an awful lot of silence.  And all I'm saying is that we need to break that silence.  And we need more men to do that."  (14:04-14:34)