by Jackson Katz
In the meantime, schools that want a knowledgeable, confident, anti-sexist male presence realistically will have to bring in educators from the community. Currently, only a few communities in the U.S. have anti-sexist men’s groups that provide this service. Battered women’s and rape crisis programs often have youth outreach programs, but many more men are needed to cofacilitate classes with the women who typically present the material. Unfortunately, chronically underfunded women’s programs rarely can provide compensation for these positions, unless they are fortunate enough to obtain funding through sources such as the Violence Against Women Office at the Department of Justice. There are also significant drawbacks to the model of male community educators coming into the schools. Time limitations are always a factor. Even if they can gain the respect and attention of the students, community educators are only briefly in the school. And if they can manage to be effective despite the constraints, sometimes the very teachers and coaches who brought them in can undermine their influence. At one urban high school where two of my colleagues were conducting a series of allmale workshops, a student told them that his football coach had called him a “fucking pussy” for not diving to block a punt. At another session in the same school, a physical education teacher in his late twenties was handing out passes to students about to participate in an MVP workshop. He said to one boy, “You’re not only a member, you’re the president of the fag club.” This was in front of my colleagues, who were there to talk and facilitate dialogue about men’s sexist and abusive behaviors. Amazingly, this same man told my colleagues later that day, “I’m so on top of these issues, I could have done this training myself.” While this is highly debatable, what is not in question is whether enough male educators have accepted the responsibility of full participation in gender violence prevention efforts. Clearly they have not.
Can women teach boys?
Many women who provide sexual assault and teen dating violence education in schools wrestle constantly with the question of whether their approach is effective with boys. They often report that in mixed-gender settings, where most of this education takes place, they know they are reaching the girls, but they are not sure about the boys. Many women have shared horror stories with me about boys ignoring them, joking at inappropriate moments, or openly defying them. This prompts the question: is it possible for women to educate boys about gender violence, especially when this education involves the examination of sensitive and loaded questions about masculinity, femininity, power, and control? Clearly some boys and young men are capable of learning new insights about manhood from women. In fact, I have no doubt that the majority of men in the gender-violence prevention field have been profoundly influenced by women writers and educators. Many have female mentors who played an indispensable role in their evolution into anti-sexist men.
Just the same, many boys and young men are too immature and insecure to truly listen to a woman they perceive to be challenging their manhood—especially in a school setting in front of their male—and female—peers. By mid-adolescence, some boys have already learned to devalue what women say. Boys might be uncomfortable with the very idea that a woman has something to teach them about how a “real man” is supposed to behave, a discomfort that parallels a process that is going on at home with their own mothers. Early-to-mid adolescence can be a time of great tension in mother-son relationships, because of cultural pressure on sons to push their mothers away, and pressure on mothers to disengage emotionally from their sons if they want them to be successful in the world of men. (Where presumably there are no “mama’s boys.”) Feminist theorists have maintained that this pressure is not a law of nature, but is rather a cultural belief that needs to be examined and transcended.
Regardless of the reasons, more than a few boys are not open to learning about relationship abuse and sexual violence from women educators. For these boys, it can help to have a man introduce the subject, especially a man they cannot write off as hopelessly out of touch with the realities of boy’s lives and the pressures on them to conform to masculine norms. Of course it can be very effective for women and men to co-teach, allowing them to model inter-gender collaboration. When no male educators are available, women who want to defuse criticism that they are “male-bashers” can use video clips of men talking about these issues—including public service announcements which feature anti-rape and anti-domestic violence testimonials from high-profile men, such as professional athletes. They might also get quotes from anti-sexist men, or articles by them, and have the class read and discuss them. The idea is to bring men’s voices (if not their actual persons) into the classroom to support the woman, and disarm the boys (and possibly girls) who might attempt to discredit the information the woman is presenting by impugning her motives. Another strategy for women who do gender violence prevention education with boys—in singlesex or mixed-gender settings—is to identify a handful of potential male allies in the class and approach them, say, one week before the class period when they are scheduled to raise testy issues. The women can tell the young men that they have noticed their maturity and thoughtfulness, and ask them to speak up in class and support them—if they agree with what the teacher is saying—when a controversial discussion is on the table.
The Role of the School Athletic Subculture
Sports culture is often accurately viewed as one of the key sources of sexist and homophobic male attitudes and behaviors. As the sport sociologist Don Sabo points out, sports, especially contact sports, train boys and men to assume macho characteristics like cut-throat competitiveness, domination of others, tendency toward violence, emotional stoicism, and arrogance toward women. Men and boys in the male-dominated school sports culture often have a disproportionate impact on what sorts of masculine styles and sexualities in that school are accepted or marginalized, celebrated or bullied. But while many critiques of the relationship between sports culture and gender violence understandably stress its complicity in covering up, if not actively promoting, men’s violence against women, the male sports culture can also be a source of creative anti-sexist strategies. As noted above, the dearth of male participation in gender violence prevention efforts over the past generation is partly a failure of male leadership. Due to the popularity, power, and privileged status of boys’ sports (particularly team sports) within many suburban, rural, and urban schools, the athletic subculture—in the persons of athletic directors, coaches, and student athletes—is in a position to provide some of that missing leadership. If one reason so few male educators have participated in this work is that it has been stigmatized as “unmasculine,” what better strategy than to enlist some of the most traditionally “masculine” men in the work?
Of course, this approach is not without its contradictions. One could argue that by utilizing the potential for leadership in the male sports culture, we reinforce its legitimacy, instead of diminishing its power. But if high status male student athletes (e.g., varsity members, team captains, seniors, allstars) were offered special anti-sexist training that focused on their role as leaders and did not target them as potential perpetrators, their leadership could help make this work more acceptable for males with less social standing. This is just as true for athletic administrators and coaches, who belong to their own peer cultures in the school and community. One promising initiative in this area is the Family Violence Prevention Fund’s campaign called Coaching Boys Into Men which recognizes the unique leadership platform of coaches, and highlights the positive role they can play in gender-violence prevention. For example, if coaches attend gender violence prevention trainings, cosponsor events with school-based health educators or community-based women’s programs, and otherwise endorse anti-sexist efforts, it is possible that their non-athletic peers on the faculty or in the administration would be more likely to get involved. Politically, the interdepartmental and community contacts fostered by these sorts of coalitions could also help indirectly to reduce the resistance of influential male athletic directors, coa
ches, teachers, and others to school-based gender-equity and anti-homophobia efforts.
My colleagues and I have given speeches and presented workshops in numerous schools where the athletic department has been a cosponsoring partner. In most cases, a woman administrator or teacher initiated the effort, and solicited support from the athletic department in part by emphasizing our sports backgrounds and credentials. The success of these partnerships is hardly assured. Many male athletic administrators, coaches, and student athletes resist efforts to get involved with these types of educational interventions, in some cases due to simple defensiveness. Some are angry about the widespread public perception that male athletes, at the high school, college, and professional level, are out of control generally, and are disproportionately involved in crimes against women. Advocates for African American male athletes are concerned that in the national media, black males are the implied focus of this discussion, thus allowing white male athletes and nonathletes to evade critical scrutiny. In some cases, it is necessary to defer talk about positive leadership and instead spell out how it is in the self-interest of athletic departments to get involved (e.g., to prevent student athletes from getting themselves, their coaches, and the school in trouble).
There are many other strategies that school systems, through athletic departments, can implement to help mandate and institutionalize male participation in gender violence prevention efforts. One is to provide regular training for coaches and student athletes. But it would represent great progress in the educational system if school boards, superintendents, and principals were to write job descriptions for prospective athletic directors that explicitly mention gender-based violence prevention programming as part of the job. Hiring preference would go to candidates, male and female, who had previous experience in this area or who had done related college or graduate work. Likewise, if athletic directors communicated, in their job postings for coaches’ positions, that undergraduate and graduate course work and other demonstrated knowledge of and interest in gender issues would help (male and female) candidates distinguish themselves, this would prompt many otherwise indifferent undergraduate or graduate students (who have an interest in the coaching profession) to take these kinds of courses. While there is no national uniformity in this sort of coursework, and no guarantee that education will result in an increase in commitment to non-violence and gender equity, one effect on men of taking gender studies courses is an increased awareness of the pervasiveness of sexism and all forms of men’s violence against women. Studying gender is also likely to lead to a better understanding, by men who are training to be leaders in athletic departments, of the potential abuses of masculine power and privilege. This insight, and the self-knowledge it often catalyzes, is one of the reasons why this education is still politically controversial.
Lessons about Accountability
In a just world, adults and adolescents should be held accountable for their behavior, especially when it harms others. But sadly, in recent years accountability—for adults or young people—has not been greatly in evidence in male sports culture. That is why an event that occurred at a school in Baltimore in 2001 was so notable. A sixteen-year-old junior varsity lacrosse player at St. Paul’s, a prestigious, predominantly white, independent school whose lacrosse team was ranked number one in the nation, videotaped himself having sex with a girl from another private school. He then showed the tape, made without the girl’s knowledge, to a small group of teammates, and a few nights later a varsity player showed it to two dozen team members. When the girl found out and her parents alerted the authorities, the reckoning was swift and sure. The school’s headmaster expelled the male student and suspended several others. Then, at a school with a long and proud lacrosse tradition, he sent an unmistakable message to the rest of the team. He canceled the varsity season.
The girl suffered a traumatic event whose effects she might feel for a long time. She immediately withdrew from school. For the young men on the lacrosse team, some of whom have by now graduated from college, this regrettable episode provided one of those life lessons that coaches like to talk about as one of the benefits of team sports. The lesson is about silence and complicity. There were many disturbing aspects of this case, but the one that probably caused the most second-guessing is the fact that numerous guys had prior knowledge of their teammate’s plans, but none said or did anything to prevent or interrupt them. Not even seniors or the team captains. Why not? One possible explanation is that few of the boys on the team grasped the extent of the harm they were doing. They had grown up immersed in a popular and pornographic culture where the sexual degradation of women is so common as to seem unremarkable. In that sense it should not surprise us that they did not stop to think about how humiliated the girl would feel.
There is another explanation. In organized team sports, leadership on and off the field is constantly invoked as a highly prized ideal. Yet when it comes to men speaking out about other men’s sexism or violence toward women, few high school boys, or adult men, have been willing to provide that leadership. This is not an insignificant failure. Several recent surveys have shown that 25 to 40 percent of teens know someone in their school who has been in an abusive relationship. Most gender violence is perpetrated by men who are not athletes. But when male athletes in high school, college, or the pros are caught treating women in stereotypically sexist, physically abusive, or sexually assaultive ways, because of their status and prominence in male culture they reinforce the idea that being disrespectful to women is part of the very definition of being a man. On the other hand, when individual male athletes or entire men’s sports organizations take an active public stance against gender violence, they set a powerful example for other men and boys. When respected athletes support the cause, more than any specific piece of wisdom they might impart, they send the message to other men that it is okay for them to speak out, too. If we want to reduce gender violence, we need to discourage men from being passive bystanders in the faces of their peers’ abusive behavior. Fortunately, it appears that a growing number of high school and college student athletes are getting involved in programs aimed at reducing teen-relationship abuse, rape, and sexual assault. But positive peer influence is not enough. Potential perpetrators need to know that there will be consequences for abusive behavior. Responsible leaders in the sports culture, including athletic directors, coaches, and general managers, increasingly need to display the kind of courage that the headmaster at St. Paul’s did when he refused to excuse the thoughtless cruelty of the lacrosse team. If we want our boys to become healthy men who treat women—and each other—with respect and dignity, we need to put an end to the rationalization that “boys will be boys” and demand a higher standard, because someday “they will be men.”
MEDIA LITERACY
In my educational video, Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity, I argue that media do not directly cause violence, but that violent masculinity is a cultural norm. In other words, when boys and men act out violently, we should not profess to be shocked; the culture teaches boys every day that part of being a man means being violent, or using the threat of force to establish or maintain power and control. Therefore, since media is the great pedagogical—or teaching—force of our time, it is critical to examine the stories we tell in media that link violence and masculinity.
Tough Guise is part of the growing media literacy movement. One of the chief goals of this movement is to assist people in developing analytic tools to understand how media works on their individual psyches as well as in their communities. Once people understand better the way media representations help to shape people’s identities and thus to affect their behavior, the negative images will have less of a pernicious effect. In order to help people analyze or deconstruct media messages, educators need to bring the images themselves into the classroom. In our media-saturated culture there is an endless supply of material for critical assessment. For example, teachers can ask students to analyze front
pages of newspapers, ads from magazines, song lyrics, and scenes from television programs they have taped or movies they have watched. The students need to consider many aspects of media culture: Who produces most of the images and stories in mainstream media? Whose interests do the producers of media images represent? Do they present a realistic or distorted portrait of people or events? What stories about manhood and womanhood do media convey? Sex and violence might attract audiences, but what kinds of sex? Whose violence? When do media representations merely reflect existing relations of power, and when do they subvert them? In the growing number of schools that have the technological capability, classes can view websites together and critically assess the benefits—and the drawbacks—of the revolutionary changes in the flow of information that have been catalyzed by the growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Media literacy is already a crucial aspect of some rape and domestic violence prevention education, and in the coming years it will only become more important. If we are going to achieve dramatic reductions in incidents of domestic and sexual violence, we must face squarely the roots of this violence in the system of gender inequality—otherwise known as “patriarchy.” A crucial component of the patriarchal system is the gender ideology that is transmitted to young people through media, and plays such a powerful role in their understanding of what it means to be a man, or a woman. How much can things change if successive generations of men are taught that part of being a man means dominating and controlling women? And how can we change that sexist and oppressive definition of masculinity unless we address the 24/7 media culture that reinforces it?