Excellent TED-talk: "Violence & Silence"

Post Reply New Topic

I watched the video. He still frames abuse as something "men do to others", with only a passing mention that women can also be abusive. I do agree though that traditional masculinity can encourage men to be violent.

Oh my god. So indeed the MRA mindset is so locked into their BS that not even this video can help things.

Before the incident, I was constantly jeered for not being man enough.
At the time I was not ready to have a girlfriend when all my friends did.
I did not tend the cattle or sheep, nor did I attend the initiation school [where South African teenagers are circumcised in traditional rites of passage].
This fuelled my daily jeers

A friend and my cousin pressured me to prove that I was man enough, by taking part in the rape of a teenage girl in the village.
This was termed "straightening her up", since she did not want to go out with any of the local boys.
I succumbed to this daily pressure and on the day of the incident, when they saw me trembling with fear, they ordered me to take marijuana and beer to defeat my fears.
I did just that and the two of us [my friend and I] proceeded to rape the girl.

This thread seems to be getting ignored and I think it's an important topic that needs more attention.

I think that this story is more on topic for what Jackson Katz was referring to with regards to masculinity. It's about a man in South Africa by the name Dumisani Rebombo who is a self-confessed rapist but who now heads a men's group to educate men about rape, masculinity and violence. Basically, he was peer-pressured at age 15 to take part in the gang-rape of a girl

[...]

What do think of this story?

This thread seems to be getting ignored and I think it's an important topic that needs more attention.

I think that this story is more on topic for what Jackson Katz was referring to with regards to masculinity. It's about a man in South Africa by the name Dumisani Rebombo who is a self-confessed rapist but who now heads a men's group to educate men about rape, masculinity and violence. Basically, he was peer-pressured at age 15 to take part in the gang-rape of a girl:



Full article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8115219.stm

What do think of this story?

Those initiation schools sound like a very bad idea. It just creates a divide between the "initiated" (saps who get their foreskin cut off) and the rest. Maybe I'm just biased buy I think cutting up children's genitals is sick.

Instead of looking for causes of rape, it might be better to look for the special circumstances where there is little rape. Historically rape was probably the norm. We need to find out what the countries with low rape rates are doing that works so well.