WATCH: We Need Male Leaders Against Gender Abuse

Jackson Katz PhD is an anti-sexist activist, filmmaker, author and educator. In this TED talk he discusses his “bystander approach” to eradicating sexist abuse, in which witnesses of abuse – and male ones in particular – are called upon to condemn it.

He begins by arguing that our thinking about semantics is wrong: when men hear “women’s issues” they subconsciously assume it’s not their problem. Our sentence structure has a similar effect; we talk about women being battered or abused, making them the subject of passively constructed sentences which take the focus off perpetrators. The upshot is that we ask the wrong questions, wondering why women were dressed provocatively in the wrong part of town, or why they are attracted to “bad boys” who beat them. We should be asking – and this seems obvious – what’s wrong with the men who abuse women. This is why women’s issues and gender issues are often, in fact, men’s issues, and why men need to pay attention when these things are discussed.

The problem transcends the individual, argues Dr Katz: perpetrators of abuse are not isolated monsters, but ordinary guys who are societally conditioned to think certain attitudes are OK. The same systems produce male-on-male as well as male-on-female abuse, and here Dr Katz cites child abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts of America and Penn State University. Even if this weren’t the case, most men will have women in their lives about whom they care deeply – mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives – so we all have an interest in taking a stand against these systems and attitudes.

We do this by being leaders in our peer groups, condemning casually sexist statements when we’re hanging out with friends until such statements cause the perpetrator to lose status. We owe this to the women we care about because – regrettably – they sometimes get dismissed as man-bashers or feminazis when they do it. Sexist attitudes give us credibility that women should have but don’t. We also owe it to younger men who look up to us – our sons or younger brothers – who never chose to grow up in a society where some institutions still teach an abusive ideal of masculinity.

So the next time you’ve got the guys together for poker or a few beers after work, and someone unthinkingly throws out a sexist comment, don’t just stew in that awkward silence – man up and shoot it down.

View more recommended videos here.