by Jackson Katz
In many schools prevention programs are initiated by one impassioned person, usually a woman, who devotes personal time above and beyond her professional obligations. Some of the most effective efforts I have observed were initiated by women (and rarely, men) who held no formal positions of institutional power. However, administrators bear a disproportionate share of responsibility for what goes on (or does not go on) in their schools. It should not fall solely on the shoulders of health educators or public safety personnel to make sure the school is doing all it can to prevent trauma and harassment in students’ lives. It is true that educational leaders face numerous, and sometimes overwhelming, pressures. This is particularly true in resource-poor areas, where educators confront numerous and seemingly intractable social problems daily. The challenges—and the opportunities—for educators in those systems have been powerfully addressed by numerous academic as well as popular writers. In recent years, school administrators have faced the added burden of conforming to the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which makes it difficult for schools to devote time to subjects that are not measured by state administered tests. But gender violence is one of our most urgent and far-reaching social problems, and it affects impoverished city schools as well as wealthy suburban school districts.
Some male principals, superintendents, athletic directors, college presidents, and deans have devoted significant resources, including personal time, to gender violence prevention work. Unfortunately, however, many male administrators, even those who support gender equity efforts and are generally responsive to feminist concerns, do not often recognize the extent of their potential for anti-sexist leadership. Instead, they see it as their responsibility to delegate administrative authority in this area to a woman. Their explicit or implied rationale is that it is more appropriate for women to be handling “gender-related” issues.
The leadership of women, of course, has made possible the very discussion of how men should be involved. But pandemic rates of men’s and boys’ violence have persisted despite these feminist efforts. And while we cannot ascribe this persistence to any single factor, one factor is surely the absence, society-wide, of effective anti-sexist male leadership, including active male involvement in primary prevention education efforts aimed at boys. Administrators have to cater to the concerns of various constituencies, including school boards, faculty, students, parents, and community groups. It would be unfair to minimize the political sensitivity of their position. But anti-sexist leadership, in professional as well as personal spheres of life, requires men to make decisions and take actions that might be personally uncomfortable, unpopular, or controversial. Exercising this leadership can sometimes feel very lonely. Men who have the courage to stake out a position as bold anti-sexist leaders may sometimes feel as if they have little support, especially among their male colleagues. One of the consequences of breaking the historical conspiracy of men’s silence about sexism is a certain degree of isolation. You risk being seen as having “broken ranks” with your fellow men, many of whom do not appreciate being held accountable to other men about the way they treat women—either in the school setting or in their private lives.
As a result, too often men in positions of influence, instead of speaking out about the sexist attitudes and behaviors of boys and men, leave it to women—mothers, teachers, female colleagues, or coworkers—to raise concerns or try to hold abusive males accountable. For many male leaders this is an unconscious process; they have never been forced to think through their responsibilities as anti-sexist men in these situations. But counting on women is also a way of avoiding some of the difficult burdens of leadership. It is important to note that this phenomenon is not specific to education. Relatively few men in the corporate world, the professions, or in white- or blue-collar workplaces have distinguished themselves as powerful anti-sexist leaders. Most men are not abusive, but they have not spoken out about the sexism and abusive behavior of their peers and other males in their circles of influence.
Another reason for male administrators’ relative inaction might be that it rarely occurs to them that they have an extra responsibility as men to do something proactive about boys’ abusive behaviors. They might see themselves as administrators, with a set of professional responsibilities, and not male administrators with special obligations. For some of these men, the first big step toward action is to think about how they can use the influence, mentoring role, visibility, and resources of their professional positions to better serve the needs of their students, families, friends, and community. How can these men be most helpful? First and foremost, by doing whatever is in their power to support victims and hold offenders accountable. But male educators who wish to help stop gender violence before it happens can also be leaders in developing gender violence prevention programs in their schools. On a personal level, they can provide an invaluable service if they choose to engage boys and other men in critical dialogue—in assemblies, classes, on the playing fields, in trainings for faculty and staff, and in private conversations—about what it means to be a man, especially as this relates to attitudes and behaviors toward women. In facilitating this dialogue, they need to take risks and talk about their own thoughts and feelings about manhood—the downsides as well as the privileges they enjoy. They must also provide ample opportunities for young men, in safe and respectful educational spaces, to talk about their life experiences as boys and young men, not simply as “kids,” or “teens,” or “youth.” All of this is not easy, because both the educators and the students live in a culture that often misinterprets male introspection and vulnerability as weakness. Part of their challenge is to model anti-sexist masculinity as a stark contrast to the omnipresent cultural images on television, in movies, comedy, sports, and music that equate strength in men with power, dominance, and abuse toward women. One way of doing this is to coteach classes and co-facilitate workshops with women. When men and women work together they can model the very sort of inter-gender partnership and respect that stands in diametric opposition to sexism and abuse.
Walking the talk
Male educators who get involved in school-based anti-sexist efforts need to know that their personal behavior is likely to be more thoroughly scrutinized. A male principal, teacher, or coach who takes a public anti-sexist stance, which inevitably means talking about male responsibility and accountability, invites attention to his own “walking the talk.” Before he can teach a class, initiate programming for students or faculty, or otherwise provide anti-sexist leadership, he must assess whether or not his private life, personal history, or daily conduct in interactions with women in any way contradicts his public role. If it does, he invites the charge of hypocrisy, both from others and, if he is honest, from himself. Men in any visible line of work or profession who take a public anti-sexist stance must be aware of this dynamic.
In part because they are still a small minority of men, the personal motives of avowedly anti-sexist or pro-feminist men are constantly under suspicion. Of course, because of this, it is even more critical for those seeking to increase the number of anti-sexist men, inside and outside of schools, to be very cautious about embracing men who might have personal transgressions to hide. This does not mean that all men who want to be effective anti-sexist educators must have a perfect record. Young people can learn a lot from a man who openly takes responsibility for abusive behavior in his past, especially if he has done the personal work required to understand how and why he chose to act the way he did toward women (or gays, people of color, etc.). On the other hand, if he is not fully honest, he risks providing motivation for women or girls—from his past or present—to reveal the truth. This sort of unmasking not only causes pain and embarrassment to the parties involved, it also impacts the level of trust afforded all men who speak out against sexism, and deepens the skepticism of those who wonder why a man would really care about these issues in the first place. Admittedly, this degree of mistrust is not unfounded. There have been more tha
n a few cases across the country in the past few years where seemingly supportive male educators, clergymen, coaches, politicians, and business leaders have sexually assaulted and/or harassed either young girls and boys, or their own female peers.
Fortunately, most potentially active anti-sexist male educators are not paralyzed by fears of being found out. Most men have never assaulted a woman. Rather, their reticence to get involved has more to do with a selfcritical appraisal. Some men have confessed to me that they feel reluctant to “tell other men how to behave” on account of their having had “politically incorrect” experiences, such as use of blatantly misogynistic pornography. There is clearly a need for much more honest dialogue among men, and between women and men, about the sometimes hard-to-define distinctions between sexual attraction, objectification, and abuse. It is also important that men are honest with themselves and confront their own sexist attitudes and behaviors. In the meantime, however, scandalous rates of rape, battering, and sexual harassment continue, and few men speak out. For this reason, it is important to mention that for men to be effective anti-sexist leaders, they must dispense with self-righteousness—and the idea that they must be free of any ideological inconsistencies or inevitable human contradictions.
In addition to being able to “walk the talk,” male educators need to have an adequate personal-comfort level in talking to other males about these issues. Considering the intensely competitive male hierarchies in which most men are socialized, this is easier said than done. There are many personal reasons why men might be uncomfortable talking about issues that may hit close to home. What if a man grew up in a home where his father abused his mother, and he has never talked about it outside of his family? What if he has an abusive relative or friend, and has never confronted him? What if a woman close to him is a rape survivor? What if a male educator is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse or some other sort of violent mistreatment? How do these life experiences affect a man’s willingness to talk to young people about these issues? Some men are silenced by their continuing shame at having been bullied, as kids or even as adults. One embarrassing secret of many male high school teachers is that they are intimidated by outwardly tough male students. The popular discourse about teachers being intimidated by students typically conjures up the setting of a decaying urban high school with a teacher scared of his or her young black or Latino students who might have access to knives or guns. So societal fear of boys of color—not just “boys”—shapes people’s perceptions. But this phenomenon is present in upper-middle-class white towns as well.
As Bernard Lefkowitz reports in Our Guys, his book about the 1989 gang rape of a mentally retarded girl by a group of popular white high school male athletes in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the inside clique of abusive “real jocks” in the school intimidated everyone around them:
The peacock image they projected was not something they had picked up overnight in high school. They had spent years perfecting it. For these young men, the essence of jockdom was a practiced show of contempt for kids and teachers alike. They tried to humiliate any wimpy guy who got in their way, but they reserved their best shots for girls who ignored them or dared to stand up to them.
Lefkowitz reports one incident where a girl tells of being grabbed by the arms and legs by two of the boys, who began dragging her through the hallway of the school.
They are carrying me off the ground, and they’re trying to pull off my pants. I’m screaming my head off, and this teacher sticks her head out the door and she doesn’t say anything because none of the teachers wanted to deal with them. So nobody did anything until they finally let me go.
In this case the intimidated and irresponsible teacher was a woman, but Lefkowitz makes it clear that these aggressive young men silenced male teachers, administrators, and coaches as well. This type of abuse by young males is hardly unique to suburban New Jersey; it occurs across the country. In the face of this sort of bullying, is it surprising that many male educators hesitate before jumping into overt anti-sexist advocacy? A related question concerns men’s body politics. For example, how does the anti-sexist teaching strategy of a man who is short and slight of build differ from one who is tall and muscular? How does a male physical-education teacher and coach, wearing a warm-up suit, differ in the way he talks about issues and is responded to by students from a math teacher who is less athletic but perhaps more bookish and cerebral? Each can be effective, but perhaps for different reasons. If men in every ethnic and racial group are, in the words of the anthropologist Alan Klein, “in a dialogue with muscles,” how does that dialogue influence pedagogical choices in gender violence prevention education efforts?
Consider the following scenario. A male English teacher is leading a discussion of a book or short story with an explicit gender theme. In the course of conversation, a charismatic and aggressive male student says something sexist or victim-blaming (e.g., a woman who was raped was asking for it). The teacher does not respond directly, challenging the sexism of the statement, but instead moves on to another point. Some of the female students quietly fume; the teacher gradually develops a reputation for being insensitive to girls. I have heard variations of this very situation from many female educators, as well as from students about their high school teachers or college professors. The women often assume that male teachers are silent in these circumstances not because they are insecure or unprepared to respond, but because they agree with the sexist statements. This might be true, but there is another, perhaps more subtle, explanation for the teacher’s silence. He might appear to be a mature, confident adult man, but in truth he is frightened by the sexist student and his male peers, and he also worries about what other male faculty will think of him. This intimidation, from students or colleagues, rarely takes the form of a physical threat. Rather, it has to do with the teacher’s confidence and security as a man and whether or not he can withstand potentially overt or covert ridicule. For male teachers in their twenties and thirties, memories of sexist and homophobic male high school and college peer cultures might still be fresh. They might have experienced these peer cultures as oppressive, but never had the strength or standing to speak out. If they have not yet addressed the issue of their silence and insecurity in the male group dynamic, they will be much less likely to respond to other men’s sexism, inside or outside of a classroom. Male teachers who do not meet the stereotypical standards of a “man’s man” might also be compromised in their ability to confront belligerently sexist male students. They might even, in some circumstances, feel physically threatened or bullied. Closeted gay teachers might not want to risk being outed by the inevitable gossip that follows anti-sexist men. (“He must be gay, a ‘real man’ wouldn’t be talking about ‘masculinity.’”) Many homophobic heterosexual men also chafe at this sort of gossip. Some men are so policed by their own internalized homophobia that just the possibility that others will think they are gay is enough to keep them silent, even if they are uneasy in the face of other men’s sexism. There might also be relevant racial and cultural factors. African American men who teach in majority white suburban schools, for example, have to be prepared to deal not only with the sexism of their students, but potentially with their racist beliefs about black male sexuality. Asian American male teachers who dare to challenge young men’s macho posturing may have to be self-confident enough to overcome their stereotypical image, in the words of the Japanese American actor Mark Hayashi, as “the eunuchs of America.” On the other hand, white male teachers who have a large percentage of students of color might be hesitant to confront sexism out of fear of being accused of ignorance or insensitivity. It is very difficult for any educator, male or female, to maintain a strong anti-sexist position in a discussion when you are being forcefully told, “you don’t know what it’s like in my culture.”
In any cultural setting, teachers who are privately anti-sexist might not want to risk losing whatever credibility or popularity they have acquired in the school’s dominant male cultur
e, whether it be jock-centric or not, by calling some boys out on their sexism, or calling girls out on their complaisance. In some cases, the motivation might be related to concerns about career advancement. There is little reason to suspect that men who challenge the male power structure are likely to be speedily promoted as a reward for principled dissent or ideological independence.
It is one thing for educational-policy makers to agree, in principle, that more male participation is needed in school-based gender violence prevention education; but who would decide which men? What if the majority of current male faculty, for many of the reasons outlined above, resists taking on these issues? Can a small minority of concerned men in a school system make a sufficient impact to affect the school climate? If so, who trains them? Out of whose budget? The most common model of gender violence prevention programming in schools consists of a mix of various components, including classroom presentations, forums for teens, theater troupes, peer leadership programs, and support groups for at-risk students. While there is no comprehensive data documenting the sex of faculty involved in this work, there are, to be sure, male educators who have been teaching and mentoring students, attending trainings and conferences on gender equity and violence issues, and providing other sorts of anti-sexist male leadership. But we are a long way from this sort of participation being the norm.