I had the opportunity to attend a very thought provoking
workshop presented by the KC Metropolitan Bar Foundation. Jackson Katz was the
presenting speaker.
Jackson Katz is an educator,
author, filmmaker and social theorist who has long been
recognized as one of America's leading anti-sexist male activists. Mr. Katz
spent four hours discussing men’s violence against women in our society and how
our language and actions have continued to perpetuate this grave and serious
problem. I would like to spend some time in October, Domestic Violence
Awareness Month, discussing what I learned from the lecture. I have been
working in the domestic violence field for a long time and I still found myself
learning new things and hearing new thoughts on how to approach this very old
and growing problem in our society.
The first thing I took away from
the lecture was his thought that we don’t really need an Awareness Month for
domestic violence. Our society is very aware of the issue of domestic violence
but what we need now is action. Let’s take action which will lead to the end of
the violence. I found this interesting and thought provoking. How can we make
this happen? What can I do to lead this type of movement?
Mr. Katz spent the first part of
the lecture discussing our language as we discuss domestic violence or, as he
says, “Men’s Violence Against Women”. Yes, there are other types of violence—men
against men, women against women, women against men—but the overwhelming
majority of domestic violence is men against women. He says let’s call it what
it is. But he also acknowledged that is difficult to do. Programs that are
struggling cannot risk alienating supporters who may not be comfortable hearing
those terms. They fear push back from partners in the community who might not
want to be so forceful in the messaging. It is a balancing act and one that can
come with a price.
He described how our language
doesn’t hold men accountable for their violence. When talking about victims and
perpetrators, we degender the perpetrator and gender the victim. What does that
mean? It means we call victims, women, she, her or assign a gender to the
victim. When discussing perpetrators we don’t do that. We call them
perpetrators, abusers, or assign their profession, stockbroker, laborer etc. No
gender assigned. What happens if we say he, men, husband when discussing the
perpetrator. Assign a gender and it takes a more active approach and doesn’t
hide accountability. For example notice the difference in the language below
taken from a scenario presented at the conference:
John beat Mary
Mary was beaten by John
Mary was beaten
Mary was battered
Mary is a battered woman
What
happened here? Focus and accountability moves away from John and Mary as the
victim becomes the only focus. In the end, John is gone completely and we are
only focused on Mary as the victim. I found this extremely powerful.
I
left the workshop with a renewed sense of passion to do this work. I noticed I
am looking at it differently and being more aware of my words. How do I speak
of men’s violence against women? How am I playing a part in perpetuating the
cycle of not holding him accountable for his violence? I encourage you to go to
Mr. Katz’s website to learn more about his thoughts and what he has done to
bring attention to the issue of men’s violence against women jacksonkatz.com. To learn more about what
Hope House is doing or what you can do to get involved, visit our website: hopehouse.net
