Excellent TED-talk: "Violence & Silence"

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Jackson Katz, Phd, is an anti-sexist activist and expert on violence, media and masculinities. An author, filmmaker, educator and social theorist, Katz has worked in gender violence prevention work with diverse groups of men and boys in sports culture and the military, and has pioneered work in critical media literacy.Katz is the creator and co-founder of the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program, which advocates the 'bystander approach' to sexual and domestic violence prevention. You've also seen him in the award winning documentary "MissRepresentation."

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To learn more about Jackson Katz, please visit http://www.jacksonkatz.com

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“Calling gender violence a ‘women’s issue’ is part of the problem.”

Jackson Katz, an anti-sexist activist who works extensively with the military and university sports culture, gave a TED Talk in February about men’s role in what has largely been built as a “women’s movement.” He asks, “Why do so many men abuse, physically, emotionally, verbally and other ways the women and girls and the men and boys that they claim to love? What’s going on with men?”

Using linguistics and logic, Katz directly challenges anti-feminist mentality and reframes gender violence prevention as a men’s issue. His “bystander approach” aims to create a culture in which gender violence is categorically unacceptable in the peer culture, among men and women alike. That includes violence of all kinds perpetrated by men against women, men against children, women against men, and men against one another.

“This isn’t about individual perpetrators. That’s a very naive way to understand what is a much deeper and more systematic social problem…How can we change the socialization of boys and the definitions of manhood that lead to these current outcomes?”

His conclusion is powerful and inspirational:

“We owe it to women, there’s no question about it, but we also owe it to our sons. We also owe it to young men who are growing up all over the world in situations where they didn’t make the choice to be a man in a culture that tells them that manhood is a certain way. They didn’t make the choice. We that have a choice have an opportunity and a responsibility to them.”

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.

What we know about Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a gender-based crime with women being more likely to experience domestic violence than men. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) about 1.5 million women are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, which measured only physical assaults, "there were 691,710 nonfatal violent victimizations committed by current or former spouses, boyfriends, or girlfriends of the victims during 2001 (Rennison, 2003). Of these, 85% were against women (Rennison, 2003). The NVAWS also found that 22.1 percent of women surveyed, compared to 7.4 percent of men, reported being physically assaulted by a current or former partner in their lifetime (Rennison, 2003 ).

Women also report suffering more severe physical violence than men. Women are 2 to 3 times more likely to report minor physical attacks (pushing, grabbing, shoving) than men (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). By comparison, women are 7 to 14 times more likely than men to report serious physical attacks (beating, strangulation, threats of weapons or use of weapons) ( Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998 ).

In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner, while 440 men were killed by an intimate partner (Rennison, 2003). A more recent BJS study suggests that 33% of female victims compared to 4% of male victims were killed by an intimate partner.

Victims of domestic violence experience many barriers when leaving abusive relationships. These include fear of the abuser, believing the abuser will take their children, hoping the abuser will change, embarrassment, shame and self-blame about their situation. Limited financial options, lack of transportation, lack of knowledge the services exist, and lack of proximity to those services are also factors.

Specific communities that experience multiple forms of disadvantage can experience additional barriers. These include language barriers, exclusion from their community, fear of deportation and a lack of culturally relevant services.

Not all incidents of domestic violence are reported to authorities. The NVAWS found among women over the age of 18, "[a]pproximately one-fifth of all rapes, one-quarter of all physical assaults, and one-half of all stalking perpetrated against female respondents by intimates were reported to the police" (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000 ).

It is important to note that surveys may not capture homeless individuals or those living in institutional settings such as homeless shelters or battered women's shelters (Rennison & Welchans, 2000).

Who are the Victims?

Breakdown by Gender and Age

Women

1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed rape; 2.8% attempted rape).

17.7 million American women have been victims of attempted or completed rape.


9 of every 10 rape victims were female in 2003.


Lifetime rate of rape /attempted rape for women by race:

All women: 17.6%
White women: 17.7%
Black women: 18.8%
Asian Pacific Islander women: 6.8%
American Indian/Alaskan women: 34.1%
Mixed race women: 24.4%

Men

About 3% of American men — or 1 in 33 — have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.

In 2003, 1 in every ten rape victims were male.
2.78 million men in the U.S. have been victims of sexual assault or rape.

Children

15% of sexual assault and rape victims are under age 12.

29% are age 12-17.
44% are under age 18.3
80% are under age 30.3
12-34 are the highest risk years.
Girls ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.

7% of girls in grades 5-8 and 12% of girls in grades 9-12 said they had been sexually abused.

3% of boys grades 5-8 and 5% of boys in grades 9-12 said they had been sexually abused.

In 1995, local child protection service agencies identified 126,000 children who were victims of either substantiated or indicated sexual abuse.

Of these, 75% were girls.
Nearly 30% of child victims were between the age of 4 and 7.

93% of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker.

34.2% of attackers were family members.
58.7% were acquaintances.
Only 7% of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim.

On average during 1992-2001, American Indians age 12 or older experienced annually an estimated 5,900 rapes or sexual assaults.

American Indians were twice as likely to experience a rape/sexual assault compared to all races.

Sexual violence makes up 5% of all violent crime committed against Indians (about the same as for other races).
Offender/victim relationship: 41% stranger; 34% acquaintance; 25% intimate or family member.


Effects of Rape
Victims of sexual assault are:

3 times more likely to suffer from depression.

6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.

26 times more likely to abuse drugs.

4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.


References

National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women Survey. 1998.
U.S. Department of Justice. 2003 National Crime Victimization Survey. 2003.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Offenses and Offenders. 1997.
1998 Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls. 1998.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. 1995 Child Maltreatment Survey. 1995.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2000 Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement. 2000.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. American Indians and Crime. 1992-2002.
World Health Organization. 2002.
U.S. Department of Justice. 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey. 2005.

There seems to be a kind of statistical dyslexia that people get when feminists start talking about male violence. The statement “Most violent crimes are committed by men” is often misheard as “most men are violent,” or even with a kind of gender dyslexia, as “women are never violent.” Thus radical feminists find themselves in conversations like this:

“Most of the violence around the world is committed by men.”

“You can’t say that! My friend Jim isn’t violent!”

“Nevertheless, the Bureau of Justice statistics show that over 85% of violent crimes in the U.S are committed by men.”

“Are you saying women are never violent? Because I read about this one woman who...”

“I guess her crime would be one of the 15%…”

“Some of us don’t think men are that bad, you know.”

The conversation usually stops there, stuck in rounds of denial and accusation, while the defensive person accuses the radical feminist of man-hating, male-bashing, and unfairness, and of wanting to alienate half of the population. The conversation never goes on to examine what it is about men that causes the violence, what we could do to help men stop their violence, or anything else constructive.

This reluctance to talk about men’s violence is widespread and seems to amount almost to a taboo. The news media report that “a woman was raped,” but never say “a man raped a woman.” Analyses of school violence talk about “kids killing kids,” ignoring the fact that it is almost exclusively boys committing the violence. Terms like “domestic violence” mask the fact that most of this violence is committed by men.
Feminists and feminist organizations also fall into this pattern by using the term “violence against women.” This wording puts the focus on women as victims and hides who is perpetrating the violence. If we can’t even say who is doing most of the violence in the world, how can we hope to stop it?

Why do both men and women resist naming male violence? One reason is that we are afraid to insult, alienate, or anger male family members and loved ones—and men are often angered by discussions of male violence. Men are notoriously reluctant to accept responsibility or apologize for anything they do on an individual level. When it comes to taking responsibility on the society-wide level, we encounter this fragile male ego writ large. Of course not all men are like this. But the unapologetic male is a pervasive cultural theme that we are all aware of. And it is true enough, often enough, that on a case-by-case, experiential level both women and men know to avoid stirring up that male defensiveness. When feeling accused, a man may lash out by raising counter-accusations, confuse the issue, deny the wrong-doing, become sullen and withdrawn, or even, dare I say it, become violent.

Another reason men resist naming male violence is that men tend to think of the male as the default human. This means they can’t see male patterns as male—they just see them as human. So male researchers and theorists often write about “human” aggression, “humanity’s” wars, and so forth. But can we stop “human” violence without acknowledging and examining the fact that it is disproportionately committed by men? I think not. For example, doing research on violence in both men and women together, without looking at differences between the sexes, would result in skewed results in which women’s different reasons for committing violence and women’s decreased propensity for violence would mask the male data, decreasing the chance that meaningful, usable findings would result.

We need to stop debating whether men are more violent or quibbling about whether women could be as violent as men if they had the chance, and take accurate stock of the evidence: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe data show that in the U.S. and Europe, 85%-100% of people convicted of assault are men. And 90% of murders are committed by men. Men are by far the principal perpetrators of rape, war, torture, incest, sexual abuse, sexualized murder, and genocide. We need to investigate what it is about men and masculinity that is so conducive of and associated with such a wide range of violent behavior.
We need to talk about male violence. The sooner we stop denying that men are the ones who commit most violence and begin to examine what it is about men that causes this, the sooner we start to solve it.

We need terminology that will break through the statistical dyslexia and the resistance surrounding the term “male violence” and allow us to focus on the problem. I think we’d have more success with a phrase that could not be misinterpreted as “all men always do it.” For example, most people can understand that “male-pattern baldness” is a male problem and that when women do have thinning hair the pattern and etiology are usually different. What if we start calling male violence “male-pattern violence” as distinguished from “female-pattern violence”? (http://www.offourbacks.org/malepat.htm)

The study investigated the widely held beliefs that physical violence against partners (PV) in marital, cohabiting, and dating relationships is almost entirely perpetrated by men, and that the major risk factor for PV is male dominance in the relationship. The empirical data on these issues were provided by 13,601 university students in 32 nations who participated in the International Dating Violence Study. The results in the first part of this paper show that almost one-third of the female as well as male students physically assaulted a dating partner in the previous 12 months, and that the most frequent pattern was bidirectional, i.e., both were violent, followed by “female-only” violence. Violence by only the male partner was the least frequent pattern according to both male and female participants.

Now, how did I know that you were going start quoting statistics?

Jono, that wasn't a response to you. The statistics were though, because the amount he mentioned women's violence in a talk about masculinity was entirely proportional to the statistics. But mostly I just posted them to have them in this thread.

Because I'm autistic?