It was amazing to hear Jackson Katz speak on Monday night. He is on the road doing very important work in terms of changing the paradigm on “women’s issues.” Traditionally, sexual violence prevention and awareness is considered a women’s issue. Even in my talks on these topics in the classroom, in other classrooms, and fraternity/sorority meetings, I ask if they’re used to seeing a man in front of the room talking about these issues. Of course I’ve never heard anyone say yes.

Rape and sexual violence is a men’s issue, it is a problem epidemic of the way in which men are taught to perceive their role as men in society today. Further, if the violence is going to stop (or diminish in any way) men need to be involved. If women are responsible for less than one percent of rapes, that means that men are responsible for over 99 percent. And this is a women’s issue? This line of thinking is exactly opposite and that is why the violence continues unabated.

Men get very defensive when I talk about this as a men’s problem. Most men don’t see themselves as inherently violent. In fact, most men are not violent. But many are, and the culture supports and reinforces this in many ways. As Katz said, “it is no longer enough to claim yourself as a good guy simply because you don’t rape women.” Men need to be active advocates instead of passive bystanders to this bull-shit masculine front that subjugates women and keeps men in a shallow, narrowly defined, one-dimensional generic box. When in fact, of course, men are just as complex and thoughtful as women.

And it is hard for men to step out of their constructed discourse and, even as a reaction to a sexist joke, simply say, “hey, you know what? That’s not funny.” In doing so, that man has placed himself outside of that predicable “boys will be boys” response to sexism and can predictably be gripped back to his senses when the others define him in opposition to them (What are you, a fag? A sissy?). I myself have been punched in the face.

Most of the time though, I think men will be surprised by the kind of support other men will give them. I think, sometimes, other men are dying for someone to stand up and say something to validate their own response, which, for whatever reason, they haven’t built up the courage to verbalize. Men need to confront the fact that they too have strong emotional connections to these issues. Beyond the fact that victims of sexual violence are our sisters, mothers, aunts, and best friends, in a culture where over 25% of women will be raped in her lifetime, do you know how many men have girlfriends and partners who are survivors of male violence? Do you know how many men out there are also survivors of male violence, whether through crime on the street or abuse as a child? The answer is an incomprehensible number.

Here is a clip from Katz’s late nineties film, Tough Guise.

By the way, Katz is currently working on Tough Guise 2. As he was signing my book, The Macho Paradox, I was making small talk and told him about my thesis (which is: in figuring out a way to combine masculinities, the environment, and rhetoric: I’m analyzing the rhetoric of pick-up truck advertising….it’s been a lot of fun. I see a lot of crucial connections between our culture’s rendering of masculinity and the degradation/objectification of the environment). Katz said he is researching pick-up truck advertising for his new film and wants to read my thesis when it’s done. He said if he can use any of it in the film, I will be mentioned in the credits! Word! That’s just the motivation I needed during these last few weeks of school.

Anyway…

I’m thankful today that my mother wouldn’t let me watch pro-wrestling when I was a kid. It’s garbage. It’s always been garbage, though I was drawn to it as a child (as many kids were) because the characters were almost like comic book characters or cartoon-like. Slowly but surely, through the decades, pro-wrestling has lost this cartoon image and have embodied the worst kinds of violence to the point where misogyny, homophobia, and violence against women has become “part of the show” or simply “entertainment.” What does it say about our culture that watching women get beaten on stage is entertaining?

Here is another film clip, Wrestling with Manhood, which illustrates what I’m talking about (Warning: When Katz showed a couple of these clips during his talk, this is when tears broke out all around me. It is graphic, though 95% of the footage was simply taped off of cable television). I’m posting it here because I think it is important.

I often think feminism needs a new word. We’re obviously talking about much more than women’s liberation and struggle for autonomy, but we’re talking about the larger infrastructural aspects of our culture that need to be addressed…..everything from globalization and exploitation of workers for labor and resources to the power structures that exist around all of us in every sector of society. Men are scared of the word feminism because it has become such a loaded word, wrought with misconceptions and stereotypes. As the only man I know getting a graduate certificate in women’s studies, I’ve heard it all: But Kyle, I thought you were straight? Kyle, how can you be in a field of study that hates men? You’re betraying your gender. I wish it wasn’t called women’s studies also, because people automatically assume that it has nothing to do with the lives of men. And that’s crap.

I think most people (as the saying goes) who have a beating heart and a functioning brain are, at their core, feminists, even if they don’t identify with the word. I’ve heard people try the word “humanism,” but I don’t think that is adaquate either as it undermines the importance of animal rights….and phrasing my response like that undermines the fact that we’re animals. Animalism? How about calling it “remembering what it means to be human studies,” or “rediscovering empathy studies,” or “responsibility to the community studies,” or….

I’ve also heard women say that men cannot ever claim themselves as feminists because it is “not their word.” And men who call themselves feminists is just another example of patriarchy undermining women’s identity. I think that mindset is damaging. If half of the population is excluded from the struggle to treat everyone equally, that seems pretty counter-productive to me. Men’s involvement has never been more crucial and it really doesn’t matter to me what it’s called and it certainly doesn’t matter to me what people think of the words currently used to describe this work. As long as people join in. Now I’m just rambling and avoiding all the work I have to do today.

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