From members of the baseball team at the University of Massachusetts to the state’s Lieutenant Governor, Tim Murray, men are taking a pledge not to commit, condone or stay silent about domestic violence or sexual abuse. They are part of a week of activities that get underway statewide March 1 in advance of International Women’s Day on March 8th. A proclamation day gathering at the statehouse in Boston is being celebrated on March 2.

Why should men get involved in what many have called a “women’s issue?” It’s simple: domestic abuse and sexual assault against women are community issues impacting wives and partners, mothers, daughters, sisters—everyone. As men, White Ribbon Day gives us an opportunity to proclaim, “From this day forward, I promise to be part of the solution in ending violence against women.”

Dozens of men came down from their seats at a UMass basketball game last month to take the pledge read by Lt. Gov. Murray, a longtime advocate of domestic violence prevention efforts. The Massachusetts undertaking is part of the White Ribbon Campaign (WRC), an international crusade to engage men and boys to help end violence against women. Besides the baseball team, members of fraternities said no to violence at the halftime event.

Spearheaded in the Bay state by Jane Doe, Inc., the statewide coalition working to prevent domestic and sexual abuse, WRC is a powerful symbol of a social movement aimed at transforming men from perpetrators of—or bystanders to—violence against women, into advocates on behalf of girls’ and women’s safety. It was founded in Canada in 1991, after the Montréal Massacre on December 6, 1989 in which 14 women students at a polytechnical institute were brutally killed and 13 students wounded by a lone gunman. The first year 100,000 men across Canada wore white ribbons. The campaign is now worldwide operating in nearly 60 countries, and has gathered more than five million signatures of support.

According to Craig Norberg-Bohm, coordinator of the Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe, in 2008 the organization first organized the Massachusetts component of what now is an “international effort for human rights, engaging men to help end violence against women, men and children.”

The campaign focuses on men’s violence against women because of its fundamental connection to all forms of personal, economic and structural violence and oppression throughout the world. Not all men are violent and the campaign is not about individual acts of violence. It focuses, Norberg-Bohm says on “a broader framework that confronts unhealthy behaviors and promotes positive masculinity.” It has adopted an international human rights perspective, because, he believes, it “challenges us to change the ways in which male authority has been equated with power and control over others’ individual freedoms and liberties and the world around them.”

In my work with men, I have witnessed a slow and steady openness among a range of men to speak up about the minority of males who perpetrate abuse. Events like White Ribbon Day are raising the profile of this work. Across Massachusetts, Norberg-Bohm says there are nearly 400 White Ribbon Campaign “ambassadors” promoting the campaign and its message of nonviolence in Massachusetts.

Despite the harrowing cases of domestic abuse and brutal sexual assaults occurring in communities from small towns and cities in the U.S. to the Congo in Africa, antiviolence efforts by men are gaining adherents. It’s especially encouraging to see the number of college-age men initiating campus campaigns to challenge male violence. I met scores of them at a first-ever conference of campus males committed to gender equality in Minnesota last November, and was heartened to learn they are developing campus cultures that promote respect and safety for women and girls. They are the future—emerging leaders in the work of ending gender-based violence.

Any campaign that has as goals “changing societal attitudes and beliefs that perpetuate and make excuses for violence against women; promoting safety and respect in all relationships and situations; fostering a positive image of masculinity, and inviting all men and boys to join in a celebration of personal peace and cooperation” are ones everyone should get behind. I know I can.

To take the pledge or to learn about more go to www.janedoe.org/whiteribbonday.

For several minutes it was a teary-eyed father looking into his son’s eyes, holding him, transmitting love and care before an audience of millions. The high fivin’ and shuckin’ and jivin’ with teammates was playing second fiddle to a father beaming love to his son. We need lots more of that expression of manhood seen and celebrated, affirmed and acknowledged.

For so many dads that moment prompted memories of their own teary moments with their children, moments that were never televised but are just as real. We see too many images of men behaving badly–bad news seems to take care of itself–so every opportunity to put the loving face of fatherhood and manhood before the public should be celebrated. I’m not so naive to believe that, among the revelers in N’awlins “who dattin’” all over town, there are a few saying “You go, Drew!” to the Saints quarterback, winner of the MVD–Most Valuable Dad award–at least on a glorious Sunday night in Miami.

It was no accident that New Orleans was the site of the 10th anniversary of V-Day, a dizzying two-day celebration in April of the global movement to end violence against women and girls. The vibrant, pulsating city, though far from healed in the two and a half years since the levees broke, flooding the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, offered safe harbor for the slam poets, artists, writers, healers, hell raisers, and hope mongers — activists all in the struggle for truth, justice, and a new American way. I was part of the tribe that converged on the Big Easy, in my case to also speak at Tulane University and to visit one of my daughters.

While it was a far cry from Mardi Gras, colorful costumes, laugh-outloud T-shirts (“Viva las Vulvas” read one), Native American dancers, and the Mahalia Jackson Choir made for a celebratory mood. We needed all that upbeat energy as a counterweight to the grim stories of violence against women recounted from the main stage. It was both chilling and hopeful that V-Day was held in the Superdome where so many suffered, primarily New Orleanians of color who had no way to get out of the city after the storm. Transforming the space from a suffocating container of despair to a vessel of great hope was accomplished by imaginative art—installations suggesting vaginal canals and portraits of “sheroes” of the women’s and civil rights movements. Upper floors had places for women to go for free health care, a hair salon, and yoga instruction. An “activists’ lounge,” open to women and men, was filled with literature, art, books, and animated conversations.

An imaginative, urgent effort to raise consciousness and money, V-Day grew out of playwright-activist Eve Ensler’s wedding of art and activism. Her awardwinning play, The Vagina Monologues is expected by the end of 2008 to have been performed at more than 3700 V-Day events around the United States and the world. A star-studded performance of the play, featuring Jane Fonda, Julia Stiles, Salma Hayek, and Jennifer Beals, capped off the two-day gathering and included music by Jennifer Hudson, Faith Hill, and the New Orleans Gospel Choir.

Among the conversations Eve Ensler facilitated from the stage was one with women activists from conflict zones — Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and the Congo. The struggle for women’s lives in these war-torn countries was as heartbreaking to hear as it was inspiring to learn of women’s vision and small victories.

At V-Day, men were also visible, albeit a minority of all who attended. Some were activists working to prevent violence against women; others were eager to learn what they could do. A men’s panel featuring local and national figures in the antiviolence men’s movement held the attention of the audience with a sophisticated discussion of men’s roles in perpetuating and preventing violence.

As more men — from high school to middle age — are encouraged to examine (and break out of) the box of conventional masculinity men have been socialized to inhabit, a burning question looms large: How can we inspire more men to acknowledge that some men’s violence requires all men to reject any kind of abuse of women? There is no middle way. To paraphrase the current tenant of the White House, “Either you’re for the abusers or you’re against them.” We have to continue to challenge ourselves to find our voices and to shift our position from the “I’m-a-good-guy-I-don’tabuse-women” bystander to someone who won’t tolerate men who act abusively. Men’s participation in inspirational gatherings such as V-Day is a part of the strategy.

Perhaps the most compelling expression of the possibility for men in the movement to end violence against women was the conversation Eve Ensler conducted with Dr. Denis Mukwege, director and founder of the Panzi General Referral Hospital in Bukavu, in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The lone physician at Panzi Hospital, Dr. Mukwege said the hospital is the only center for victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo. The level of violence against women there is unthinkable: vaginas violated with bayonets, bottles, sticks. “This is not rape,” Dr. Mukwege said, “this is a decimation, destruction, the destruction of life force, of life.” At Panzi Hospital, he repairs and reconstructs that which has been destroyed.

After 10 years of the world knowing about these unprecedented assaults, why has there has been no real progress? Ensler asked Dr. Mukwege. “The world needs to be altered,” he said. “The world comes, sees, is moved and then forgets.” He said V-Day inspired him with the spirit of healing and hope it engendered. “I see the image of a snowball gaining momentum, of change coming.” To the question, “What about you, as a man, keeps you in the Congo, keeps you giving your life to women?” he answered: “We live with women. We understand the strength of women. Women’s work – unlike men’s — extends throughout the day. When you’ve been raped, when you are without your strength, it is necessary to help women regain their strength, to work beside women.” Dr. Mukwege is currently overseeing construction of the City of Joy, a refuge for healed women, survivors of torture and rape who have no family and no community.

Throughout the gathering, Dr. Mukwege’s words came back to me, like a call and response one might hear out on the bayou. “Every day… every day …Say no to violence, say no to rape… Say no to violence, say no to rape… In each community… In each community… Each individual should say No! Should stand up and say No!… Each individual should say No! Should stand up and say No!… If everyone would do that, things will change… If everyone would do that, things will change…

V-Day’s 10th anniversary brought together women and men of conscience from around the United States and around the world. By being held in New Orleans, symbol of struggle and possibility for a renewed America, the gathering radiated a moral urgency. Creating a world safe for women and girls means creating a world safe for boys and men. Women have long been doing their part; as men we must redouble our efforts to do ours.

“From this day forward, I promise never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women, sexual assault and domestic violence.” — White Ribbon Campaign pledge

Is that a pledge you can sign onto?  I hope so.

At the Men’s Resource Center for Change, we care about men and support men.  So it makes sense that from the earliest days of our organization that in addition to looking at how we could support men we would also want to address how we could compassionately but directly confront men who’d crossed a line in their behavior. Among the range of programs and activities we coordinate (including several drop-in support groups for non-abusive men), are batterers’ intervention groups in all four western Massachusetts counties. Why do we do this work? Because the epidemic of men’s violence against women compels us to do nothing less. Society needs to hold men accountable for their behavior, pure and simple. We also do this work because we believe in men. We believe in men’s capacity to grow, to learn, to heal, to change. (That’s why we also run groups weekly for non-violent men.)

Today we are committing to continue to that work by lending our name and experience to a new effort here in our home state of Massachusetts — the White Ribbon Campaign (WRC). White Ribbon was founded and launched in Canada, two years after the Montréal Massacre in which 14 women students at the Montreal’s École Polytechnique were systematically killed and 13 other students wounded by a lone gunman on December 6, 1989. One hundred thousand men wore ribbons across Canada that first year. Today, the WRC is a worldwide campaign in 47 countries, with well over 5,000,000 signatures and counting.

Our friends at the Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe, Inc. in Boston, and other colleagues and friends across the Commonwealth, have concluded that is “time for Massachusetts to join this international effort to engage men to help end violence against women, men and children.  It’s a chance for all men – heterosexual, gay, bisexual and transgender – to challenge the to challenge the notions of masculinity that equate strength with violence and control and instead foster positive images of masculinity that will help us create a world free of abuse.” We couldn’t agree more.

Through the Men’s Initiative — and with the assistance of organizations including the Men’s Resource Center — Jane Doe Inc. is launching an annual statewide White Ribbon Day Campaign in Massachusetts on next February 14^th.  Valentine’s Day was specifically chosen to launch the campaign to highlight the need to combine safety and respect with romance and love. (On Valentine’s Day 2005, the Men’s Resource Center organized a full-page newspaper campaign headlined “A Valentine’s Day Message from Men of Heart” in which 155 men signed on to a message that urged “… creating a society where women are safe from violence every day,” and encouraged men “to reject a masculine culture of violence and to support an egalitarian culture of peace.”   (To see the entire ad, which, provoked protest from some men who felt the ad’s text ignored abuse men experience, go to Men of Heart 2005).

Outlined below are the goals of the Massachusetts White Ribbon Campaign

• Invite men throughout Massachusetts to take the pledge (cited at the top of the page), put on a white ribbon and speak out against violence against women, sexual assault and domestic violence;
• Send the public message that men must and are taking responsibility to end men’s violence against women;
• Highlight the inspiring and creative work being done by and with men in nearly two dozen communities throughout Massachusetts and encourage their replication;
• Engage more men in transforming social norms that perpetuate and support sexual assault and domestic violence create an environment that promotes respect and equality by connecting them with their local Jane Doe Inc. member program and with JDI’s statewide efforts; and
• Raise funds to support the work of local victim services groups and the state coalition.

To learn more about how you can participate — including becoming a White Ribbon “Ambassador”, “Sponsor” or “Affiliate”, please visit Jane Doe or Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe Inc.

Can advocating for a new brand of masculinity find a place in the national conversation about next year’s presidential election? Manhood — even with the presence of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race — is still a central aspect of presidential politics. In post 9/11 America, the question, “Who is the toughest and strongest, firmest and most decisive candidate to best protect me from the terrorists?” is one most voters would admit, on some level, they are asking themselves. For many, “Who is thoughtful, deliberate, compassionate and collaborative?” is not. It’s not a question we read about in the paper or hear a talking head on a television news program ever raise, and rarely see blogged about online.

Gender, of course, is on display in the campaign; so is race for that matter. The candidacies of Senator Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have helped to assure us of that. But we’d be missing a lot if we only focused our attention there. Each has bowed under the weight of conventional masculinity’s strong grip: Senator Clinton sounding at times like Margaret Thatcher and, with Senator Obama’s strongly expressed sentiments about sending troops into Pakistan and/or Syria, he sounded a “No More Mr. Nice Guy” message. On the Republican side, all the candidates seem to share at least a common desire to be seen as tough, no-nonsense guys whose shoe sizes are big enough to fit into George Bush’s shoot-first-ask-questions-never cowboy boots.

Nothing out of the ordinary here and, of course, that’s the problem. There is very little questioning of the framework in which the manhood debate is presented. “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” still seems to be the subtext of political life in the United States, a life overrun by male bluster and blather. Candidate Dennis Kucinich, the longtime Ohio congressman, would qualify as an exception, but he continues to be marginalized, in part because of his advocacy for creating a Department of Peace. (What kind of a real man would sponsor a bill like that!?)

Senator Obama and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards have offered tantalizing looks at their “kinder, gentler” sides. Yet their campaigns have carefully studied what happens when they do so and more often than not they have retreated, fearful of the way they have been feminized — seen as too kind, too gentle. Blending the best of new ways for men to be—nurturing, vulnerable — with the best of conventional manhood — decisive and courageous (to carefully name a couple of attributes) creates a middle way, a path wide enough for a lot of different kinds of men to pass through. Whatever one thought of his presidency, for those interested in an example of a political figure representing this middle way blend, think of Jimmy Carter in the years since he left the White House. For those interested in a more contemporary example, think of Al Gore. Both spent time after leaving electoral politics learning more about themselves and sharing with the rest of us a lot of what they learned. Each presented himself as more vulnerable, more open, more real. Maybe not perfect examples, but certainly steps in the right direction.

Showing support for candidates at all levels of elective office who are, for example, actively involved fathers (and who acknowledge the stress running for office places on their role as dad) is one step we can take. Even if we don’t agree with other positions such candidates take — and we choose not to vote for them—we can raise the profile of a more balanced way to think of manhood by pointing to that aspect of their candidacies.

Just as the country as a whole has been well served by having the voices of women in leadership positions across the spectrum of government, so, too, will our future be more secure if the voices of new kinds of men are heard.

It’s up to us to help identify those men, to support them to know they won’t be denigrated for speaking from the heart some of the time. There is no aspect of society—education, sports and entertainment, medicine, the courts—that couldn’t benefit from an infusion of men committed to replacing bravado with humility. Male presidential candidates may not be willing to do so in this coming election, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t demand they do so anyway, or that we shy away from articulating what we want from men in the days — and elections — ahead.