Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and and How All Men Can Help

by Jackson Katz

  I knew I had to respond forcefully; as a civilian who had just started working with the military, my credibility was on the line. But I never got the chance. Instead, another Marine turned toward him and asked, incredulously, “What do you think boot camp is for? If you think a man can’t change once he’s reached eighteen, what are you doing in the Marine Corps? We resocialize guys all the time. We take ’em from all sorts of backgrounds—healthy and unhealthy—and make Marines out of ’em.”

  It is no secret that an important part of what the military seeks to accomplish when it resocializes young men—and women—is to prepare them to kill other human beings. This is clearly the opposite of violence prevention. But implicit in military training is the idea that it is never too late to introduce someone to a new social norm, or expect them to conform to it. There are many graduates of court-ordered domestic violence programs who speak in public about their experiences and teach other men to rethink old abusive definitions of manhood. I know men who were physically or sexually abusive to women who nonetheless became powerful advocates for anti-sexism and non-violence. I have watched colleagues of all ages go through profound personal transformations when they started to engage in discussions with other men and women about the subject of sexism and men’s violence against women. On the outside, many of these men have traditional masculine resumes. They are former college or professional athletes, or they have had military experience. Some are police officers. Some were drawn to the subject matter by chance, others by the professional or personal interests of a woman close to them. But as they began to read and think critically about masculinity, violence, sexism, and homophobia, and listen to other men who were grappling with many of the same questions about male identity, it dawned on them that they had never been fully comfortable in a social system that trains men to devalue and dominate women. It would be an overstatement to argue that most of these men would willingly relinquish all the perks of male privilege. But when they realized that a lot of other men shared their discomfort with certain forms of sexism and male dominance, they were eager to hear ideas about how they could help other men, and boys, along a similar questioning path.

  Boys Learn What We Teach Them

  In an earlier chapter, I argued that use of the passive voice in discussions about gender violence (“How many women are raped?”) shines the critical spotlight on the victims instead of the perpetrators—and the society that produces them. This is useful if the goal is only to take care of victims. But if the goal is to stop the abuse from happening in the first place, critical attention needs to be turned onto the people most responsible for it. In a similar fashion, to say that boys learn to mistreat girls either at home or out in the world shifts attention away from the role adult men play in teaching boys to mistreat girls. This is subtle but significant, because when you shift the topic of conversation back to how men teach boys to be violent it puts the onus for change back on adults. It frames the question as one about the responsibilities adults have to children. For example: When daddy goes out to Hooters with friends after a softball game, what message does he send to his twelve-year-old son about how men view women? When a male coach tries to motivate his underperforming male players by comparing them to a “bunch of ladies,” what information does he communicate to them about women’s worth? When there is a public march against violence against women and only a handful of men show up, what message do all of the absent men send to the boys (and girls) who might be there with their mothers?

  In the rest of this chapter, I am going to explore briefly three areas where adult men (and in some cases women) teach—or fail to teach—boys and young men how to treat girls. First I want to discuss some of the issues for fathers—and mothers—of sons. Then I will talk about the role of adult male leadership in the schools. This includes the leadership role of men in the highly influential culture of school athletics. And finally, I will make the case for a dramatic expansion of media literacy education—in schools and elsewhere—in order to provide young people with tools to counteract the one-dimensional, sexist, and distorted images of manhood that pervade contemporary media and entertainment.

  PARENTS

  In the early years of the twenty-first century, parents of girls and boys have ample reason to be worried about their kids. Many of them recall their own childhoods as relatively carefree in comparison to what kids face today, and this is especially true when it comes to sex and violence. The sexual abuse of children is not a new phenomenon, but there is vastly greater public awareness of it than there was a generation ago. What is new is the degree to which children’s sexualized bodies are on display in the media. Moreover, since the advent of the Internet, sexual predators have had unprecedented access to their young victims. Although most children who are sexually or physically abused know their abusers, in our highly mobile and increasingly impersonal society, children are also more vulnerable to random acts of violence. It seems every time you turn on the news you hear about another young girl or boy abducted by a man on the street or in a mall parking lot. And for parents of daughters, recent research on the prevalence of violence in girls’ relational lives is profoundly unsettling. A 2001 survey in Massachusetts done by the Harvard School of Public Health found that one in five teenage girls had been physically and/or sexually abused in a relationship. Extrapolated nationally, that would amount to millions of girls. Millions more experience subtle and blatant forms of sexism and objectification on a daily basis. When I address groups of adult male professionals, I often ask them to raise their hands if they have daughters. The goal is to remind them that gender violence prevention is not only their professional responsibility—it is in their personal self-interest. This is also true for parents of sons. Boys are clearly vulnerable to sexual abuse, often by men who earn their trust and then betray it. The signature example of this in our time has been the Catholic priest pedophilia scandal. But the challenge for parents of sons has an added dimension. Their responsibility is not just to shield their sons from harm; it is to raise sons who will not mistreat girls and women—or remain silent when their peers do.

  This is a challenging task for parents of sons, especially parents who want their sons to grow up as members of a new generation of anti-sexist men. The work of these parents is crucial to the success of gender violence prevention efforts, as energy in the field shifts away from the risk-reduction model for girls, and toward a true prevention approach that addresses head-on men’s and boys’ attitudes and behaviors. Some parental challenges cut across sex differences, while others are specific to fathers or mothers.

  Fathers

  Clearly one of the most important roles a father—or a father figure—can play in his son’s life is to teach by example. If men are always respectful toward women and never verbally or physically abuse them, their sons in all likelihood will learn to be similarly respectful. Nonetheless every man who has a son should be constantly aware that how he treats women is not just between him and the women—there is a little set of eyes that is always watching him and picking up cues about how a man is supposed to act. If a man says demeaning and dismissive things about women, his son hears it. If he laughs at sexist jokes and makes objectifying comments about women’s bodies as he watches TV, his son hears it. For years anti-racism educators have maintained that it is the responsibility of white parents to teach their children not to be racist. It is time more men became aware that they have a similar responsibility to teach their children not to be sexist.

  Fathers also need to teach boys that it is not acceptable to be silent when their friends harass or abuse girls. Among the many ways they can do this: by not remaining silent when their own friends say or do something sexist; by speaking out in their workplace; by encouraging dialogue about gender violence as a men’s issue at their church, synagogue, or mosque; or by using their platform as a coach of a youth soccer, Pop Warner football, or Little League baseball team to speak to the kids about sexual harassment and teenrelationship abuse. />
  Take the case of a twelve-year-old boy who wants his parents to buy him the wildly popular video game Grand Theft Auto. Perhaps his mother does not want him to have it in the house, because it is extremely violent and misogynistic, and she worries that playing such games will desensitize him to violence and the mistreatment of women. If the father reluctantly tells his son that he has to live without GTA in the house because “you know how your mother feels” about it, he sends a powerful message to the boy that the problem is not the sexist video game, or the fact that millions of boys—and grown men—find it pleasurable to play a game where they pretend to beat up a prostitute they just had sex with. No, the problem is his mom’s discomfort about all of this. Consider the impression he would make on his son if the father said this instead: “I don’t want GTA in my house because it is disrespectful to women. It teaches boys to think violence against women is just a big joke. Think about your mother, your sisters. You wouldn’t think it was harmless fun if someone hurt them, would you? You can play whatever video games you choose when you go out the door, but as a man I will not spend my money on this and I don’t want it in my house. You might not like it now, but I hope some day you’ll understand why I feel this way.”

  Men who grew up in abusive homes have a special set of concerns when they become fathers of sons. They may be intent on breaking the cycle of violence in their own family. Many of these men make a commitment to themselves, their wives, or their co-parents that they will not put their sons (and daughters) through what they experienced. Victor Rivers, the actor and spokesperson for the National Network to End Domestic Violence, is one of many courageous men I know who have done this successfully. In their own way all of these men are true anti-violence activists. Terry Real, whose 1997 book I Don’t Want to Talk About It was a groundbreaking study of men’s emotional lives, calls them heroes. But for some men, the effects of trauma they suffered as children can resurface later and wreak havoc in their adult lives. Unless they have done a lot of personal work—often including psychotherapy—some men can be at risk for repeating old patterns. It has become a cliché to say, “I always said I would never be like my father, but just the other day I was under a lot of stress and I heard myself say something nasty to my wife in front of the kids just like he used to, and it scared me.” For men with these kinds of concerns, one of the best things they can do for their sons—and all of their loved ones—is to give themselves permission to seek both personal and professional help and support.

  Mothers

  Women I know who teach college courses on gender report that some of their best male students are those who were raised by strong, assertive women, and maintained close relationships with them throughout adolescence. These young men are less defensive and more open to learning about sexism and women’s lives in part because they have already learned a lot from their mothers. In a sense they have already seen the world through a woman’s eyes. In a related phenomenon, I have found that in gender-violence workshops with college men, some of the most powerful moments come when young men disclose that their mothers have been assaulted. They know too well that the problem is real, but it has not yet occurred to many of them that there is a way for them to channel their sadness and anger into constructive efforts to prevent future violence—and spare other children the pain of having to go through it themselves.

  Whenever mothers bring their teen or pre-teen sons to one of my talks, I assume there is a back story. Are they single mothers who are eager for their sons to hear a man publicly denounce men’s violence against women? I know that is sometimes the case because the women often introduce themselves, or contact me later. The words of an anti-sexist man—even someone they do not know—can be an invaluable asset to a formerly battered woman who is trying to raise a son after she has left the boy’s father. One tactic many abusive men use to justify or excuse their behavior is to claim that they act the way they do because “that’s just how men are.” When men who do not agree say so publicly and without equivocation, it can leave a strong impression with boys, allowing them to see the fallacy in their father’s claims. This does not necessarily demonize the man, who is still the boy’s father, with whom the boy may want to maintain a relationship. But it helps the son to see his father’s rationalizations for what they are, and it might give him hope that he can become a man who does not repeat the same mistakes.

  Part of the reason why many women work to end men’s violence against women is out of love for their sons. They want to help build a society, and a world, where boys will not be forced to dominate others—and deny their own humanity—in order to “make it” as men. They want to build a world where their sons will not be brutalized and bullied in school or sexually abused by predatory men (or women). At the same time, because they work with the female victims and survivors of men’s violence, these women see on a daily basis the damage that some men inflict on women and children. It would be understandable if these women became thoroughly disillusioned with men. But part of what keeps them going, they often say, are their loving relationships with men—their sons, husbands, boyfriends, brothers, and friends.

  For mothers who are survivors of physical and sexual abuse by men—and there are millions of them—raising a boy can sometimes be an emotional minefield. Consider the experience of a woman I know, a college professor on the East Coast. One afternoon she overheard her fourteen-year-old son and his friend talking in the next room. The friend called a girl he knew, and at some point said to her, “If you don’t tell me what school you’re going to next year, I’ll track you down and rape you.” The woman asked her son’s friend if she truly heard him correctly, and he said he was only kidding around. She told him she took violence against women very seriously, and that he would not be welcome in their home if she ever heard words like that again. Her son later told her he was worried that his friend wouldn’t want to come over any more. To complicate matters further, when the woman’s husband came home and she told him what had happened, he pointed out that she could have used the incident as a “teachable moment” with both of the boys. The woman, who is a rape survivor, was upset that her husband did not immediately understand her reaction. As she explained it, when she heard the boy’s violent threat—even if it was meant in jest—at that moment she was not in educator mode. Her feelings took precedence over the boys’ need to be educated.

  Many women who became feminists in the 1960s and 1970s had sons, who are now in their twenties, thirties, and forties. These men grew up—one hopes—with an elevated consciousness about sexism and the oppression of women. They may or may not have chosen to get involved in social justice advocacy. But one reason for hope in the gender violence prevention field over the next couple of decades is that the sons of women who were at the forefront of a social revolution a generation ago are now by age, experience, and accomplishment moving into position to be part of a transformative generation of progressive men.

  MALE LEADERSHIP IN SCHOOLS: THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE

  Why is gender violence prevention education not an absolute priority in the schools? When you consider that some studies show as many as a third of high school- and college-age youth experience violence in an intimate or dating relationship, why isn’t teen-relationship abuse talked about in every high school in America? Why, when more than half of all rape victims are assaulted by the age of eighteen, and 29 percent are assaulted by the age of eleven, is there such a meager amount of anti-rape programming in high schools and middle schools—if not elementary schools? Sexual harassment is even more a part of students’ daily lives. One national study found 83 percent of girls in school have experienced some form of it. Nan Stein, one of the nation’s leading experts on school-based sexual harassment, writes in her book, Classrooms and Courtrooms: Facing Sexual Harassment in K-12 Schools, that this harassment has become “ordinary, expected, and public,” and that “normalized and public performances of harassment, assault, and battery in schools may have consequences” for stud
ents’ relationships later in life. In all of its various forms, violence clearly hurts students’ academic performance, can lead to depression and other emotional and physical illnesses, and can contribute to substance abuse and delinquency. Schools often cannot adequately address every important issue, and it is not fair to blame educators for their failure to solve deep and pervasive social problems. But schools play a critical role in the socialization of children and adolescents. What students learn and experience there can affect them for the rest of their lives.

  Most gender-violence prevention education has historically—and understandably—been initiated and implemented by women. Women have been the foremost pioneers, reformers, and guiding forces in this work. Their achievements are especially impressive when you consider that they have undertaken to educate not only girls but boys, too, as well as their male colleagues and friends. But since most formal positions of leadership in education, including a majority of principals and an overwhelming percentage of superintendents and athletic directors, are occupied by men, this is another area where men’s leadership has been sorely lacking. There are numerous possible explanations for this, but consistent with the theme of this book, I want to explore some of the gender politics of male educators. By “gender politics” I mean such factors as a man’s beliefs about proper gender roles for men and women, his level of self-awareness, his relationships with other men as well as women, where he stands in his peer culture, his body image, and his overall concept of what it means to be a man. How do these factors influence the exercise of a man’s educational role, especially his potential for activism in gender violence prevention? How do men’s gender politics contribute either to problems, or to potential solutions?