Editor's Blog
To Prevent Violence Insist Men Stop the Abuse
By Rob Okun
In the drive to end violence against women, even well meaning allies can take a wrong turn. Such was the case with a recent editorial in a small city newspaper in the progressive community of Northampton, Massachusetts, two towns over from where I live. Northampton has a rich history of working to prevent domestic violence, including longstanding collaborations among a variety of stakeholders from battered women’s shelters and the police, the district attorney’s office and, at 22 years, Men Overcoming Violence, one of the oldest batterer intervention programs in the country.
“Seeking safety for women,” was the headline of the August 1st editorial published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette (www.gazettenet.com) in response to the life sentence domestic violence murderer David W. Vincent III received. The brutal 2009 beating Vincent inflicted on his girlfriend, Rebecca Moulton in Pittsfield, Mass. (including never calling for medical assistance between the nearly eight hours following his assault and his own brother’s intervention), undoubtedly left many hearts aching and minds enraged. Unequivocally, the responsibility for what happened rests with Vincent.
“When their partners turn violent,” the editorial reminded readers “women are at tremendous risk.” Fair enough. What missed the mark—by a wide margin—was the final sentence placing an onus on women that rightly belong with men. “Unless we all help women understand the danger they face from violent partners and insist they seek safety (emphasis added), these tragedies will continue unchecked,” the editorial concluded.
Huh? It makes little sense to place the burden of preventing violence on the woman. Why “insist” she seek safety instead of emphatically and unambiguously demanding violent men stop abusing?
Becky Moulton, a “funny, creative, smart and sweet” woman, as the editorial described her, is more than a symbol of the domestic violence epidemic that continues to plague society. Her senseless murder presents us with an opportunity to commit (or recommit) ourselves to preventing such acts. That opportunity will be a compromised, though, if nonviolent men are not part of the effort.
It’s time to shift the paradigm from women seeking shelter from men’s violence to insisting angry men stop abusing their partners. And, we need that shift everywhere—our educational system, media, sports culture, government, the courts, faith communities—so we can collectively lay to rest a damaging, outmoded view of men and masculinity. That shift also means teaching boys and girls (and men and women) to look at relationships through the lens of equality. The old-school belief of men dominating women—that sanctions misogynistic music videos, produces television shows that objectify women and denigrate fathers, and fails to confront privileged men (most often, white) flouting their entitlement—all must be loudly and relentlessly challenged.
We’ve come a long way from the days of police turning a blind eye to family violence perpetrated behind closed doors. Still, we have to do more than just arrest and jail perpetrators, or order them into batterer intervention programs. We have to begin educating elementary school boys and girls about respect in relationships before their ideas about gender solidify.
Imagine besides clergy, policymakers, coaches, parents and teachers articulating a vision of a better world, a healed society, and a cooperative community, that the final sentence of a newspaper’s domestic violence editorial read: “Unless we educate boys and men about healthy relationships—including teaching nonviolent, conscious communication—some men will continue to believe dominating and abusing women is acceptable behavior and domestic violence tragedies will continue unchecked.”
Women have a right to expect that they no longer have to work to prevent domestic violence alone. Since the majority of men are not violent it is time for them to speak out about the abuse a minority of men perpetrate. Doing so is one way to honor the memory of Rebecca Moulton and offer a small measure of consolation to her family. To repair a culture of violence where domestic abuse murders too often still occur, can we do anything less?
Fatherhood and a ‘Cure’ for Men Behaving Badly Syndrome
By Rob Okun
To follow the news the last few weeks suggests there’s been a virulent outbreak of MBBS—Men Behaving Badly Syndrome. But behind the lurid stories of privileged men acting with an audacious sense of entitlement is another story—men who do the right thing. Father’s Day is a good time to engage in a more nuanced discussion of manhood.
We don’t hear much about the good guys thanks to the media’s maxim: dog bites man no story, man bites dog, big story. What broadcast outlet, newspaper, or Internet blog would highlight a father who stays home to raise his children when they can cover a sex scandal?
Fatherhood, like manhood, is in transition as more men reject conventional ideas of both roles. That’s the bigger story. For more than three decades, a slow, but steadily growing movement of men—fathers featured prominently among them—has been charting a new course for manhood. Rather than being threatened by feminism, these men recognized that women taking action to redefine their role in society presented an opportunity for men to do the same.
Sure, initially most men were confused and angry when they realized women were serious about no longer accepting a playing field tilted in men’s favor. Slowly, though, some men got it: women rejecting their confining gender box meant men also could bust out of ours.
Many found in fatherhood a chance to rediscover our capacity to nurture—an ability drummed out of us early, beginning when we first heard the words, “big boys don’t cry.”
Why not cry? It is in our tears and fears that men rediscover our full humanity. It takes courage for men to express our vulnerability rather than our anger. But doing so opens us up to being labeled a mama’s boy or gay. So we go the other way—dominating others, often women, to try and nourish our sad inner lives. The result? Operating from below our waists rather than from within our hearts.
Most people empathized with the betrayal Maria Shriver felt when former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted he fathered a child a decade ago. We identified with the wife of former New York Congressmember Anthony Weiner, who finally confessed he’d sent those photographs over Twitter.
What does it say about some men that they risk their careers, reputations, and marriages for a roll in the hay, real or virtual? What insecurities are at play? What pressures are they experiencing? What feelings are they trying to keep at bay? We can season our outrage with a dollop of compassion and invite men who feel—and act—differently to stop being bystanders, to clearly articulate a different definition of manhood, demanding it have its day in the national conversation about men.
For eons society has condoned Men Behaving Badly Syndrome. But for the men who have rejected its main ingredients—privilege and entitlement—it is time to end our silence. A society that celebrates the stud more than the dad reaps what it sows. Fatherhood may not be sexy but it sure is real, awakening in men a capacity to access our highest angels—from cultivating empathy and patience to practicing sacrifice and humility. Not every man has to become a father to personally dig deep, but for many it has proven to be the doorway to growing up.
For too long, Father’s Day has been a caricature of a holiday. So sure, fire up the barbecue if you like but let’s use it to ignite a campaign to reclaim manhood. That’s the best legacy the child Anthony Weiner’s wife is carrying can receive from its father. And from the rest of us.
Rob Okun is editor of Voice Male magazine in Amherst, Mass. He can be reached at rob@voicemalemagazine.org
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