An Evening With Jackson Katz
Jackson Katz, one of America’s leading anti-sexist male activists, believes that educating men and boys about gender violence and providing mentors helps prevent gender violence. Katz discussed the issue of gender violence and his preventive approach at 7:00 p.m., February 7, in Wake Forest’s Wait Chapel. His talk, “Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity,” was free and open to the public. Katz, also an author and filmmaker, is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work, particularly in the sports culture and in the military.
Jackson Katz began his lecture by relating some horrific stories of violence committed by men against women, illustrating one of his main points: we live in a culture that ignores the dominant group of people. In the stories he told, society ignores the fact that men are perpetrating crimes against women. Society does not see men as “gendered”; only women are gendered in the public mind. Consequently, violent acts such as rape, domestic violence, and child abuse are seen as “women’s issues.” Natalie Antoun (’07) Katz made the statement that rape is something which does not solely Stephen Clampett (’08), Samantha Spaeth (’08), Betsy Rives (’07), Jackson Katz, Wanda Balzano (WGS), Jessica Meister (’07), Devin affect its victims. It affects every person close to them, and thus, it is not solely the responsibility or the problem of women. Rape, instead, is a Kidner (’08), Melissa Washington (’07), and Karissa Flynn (’07) human issue, and he asked the audience to consider that if one in four women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their lifetime, that means one in four fathers, brothers, boyfriends, sons, have had their daughter, their sister, their girlfriend or mother raped or sexually assaulted. He cited the manager of the New York Yankees, whose mother had been raped, and still to this day is affected by it. In doing this, I believe he reached out to many of the men in the audience, and awakened them to a responsibility for which they had previously felt no obligation or connection… Katz explicated that the institution of patriarchy isn’t just unfavorable for women, but for men as well. He explained that it is the duty of men and women alike to help make things better, for everyone. And in response to men who feel feminism is incongruent with “American values” he asserted, “If you don’t believe in feminism, you’re un-American.” Nicole Russo (’09) Since hearing Katz’s presentation, and being so upset by the attempt society seems to be making to disguise gender violence, I have been trying to do my part to raise awareness and help people to realize that gender crimes really do affect both men and women, and we all have a responsibility to be both honest about the struggles and proactive in our efforts to find a solution. His presentation prompted me to start working as an advocate for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. As part of my training, I learned about the same things that Katz discussed: namely, that the perpetrators of gender crimes are overwhelmingly men and that the crimes don’t occur merely because a woman walks alone after dark or leaves her car door unlocked. One of the tragic consequences of the way these crimes are portrayed by the media is that they are painted almost as being the woman’s fault: if only the woman had been more aware of her surroundings, or if only she hadn’t been wearing such provocative clothing, then this crime allegedly would not have happened… In training to become an advocate, I learned that while women can reduce their risk of becoming a victim, prevention efforts must be directed toward men. Jessica Meister (’07) Jackson Katz attempted to show everyone at this event that portrayals of masculinity in the media are not something that should just be considered important in gender classes or to the females who are often the victims in the portrayals; instead, it should be a concern to everyone. The most disturbing aspect of the presentation to me came from the images of the wrestling programs that featured women being physically beaten by much larger men. The clips showed women beaten with chairs, slammed onto the ground, and all of the acts were sexualized. When a girl in the audience called attention to it and expressed her own pain at seeing the images, the atmosphere of the room was completely changed. While it was unfortunate that the audience needed to hear someone so moved and upset to actually think about what the images were depicting, I feel that it was a breakthrough. I know that it made at least a few people stop and say, “What are we thinking? We are students at Wake Forest. We will graduate as some of the most educated individuals in our nation and we aren’t taking this seriously? Something needs to be done.” And, as Katz put it, we are the people who have the “power” to do something about it. Carole Wyche (’07) Katz began his lecture by revealing the dominant role of masculinity and its apparent invisibility in our society. He argued that widespread violence in American society needs to be understood as part of an ongoing crisis in masculinity. Rather than examining deeper issues associated with crime and violence, the media tends to focus on institutional problems or other problems on the surface. This only perpetuates the crisis with male masculinity. Katz went on to show the expectations our society has of men—being super masculine, strong, violent, tough, and in charge. The media and even consumer products qualify this image in how they portray men. For example, Katz showed us an image of a G.I. Joe figure of twenty years ago. When compared to the new G.I. Joe, the figure is almost three times as small, the muscles are clearly not as big, and the guns are much bigger. We also saw troubling images of WWF wrestling, in which men threw women down or looked as if they were about to rape them. Again, this only validates the image our society has of masculinity. Katz’s icon for masculinity is far different though. He believes people should become educated and change their perception of the “masculine” man. Turner Dayton (’07) Jackson Katz is an anti-sexist male activist. According to Katz, the term “gender issues” has been misconstrued to mean issues pertaining to women. As a result, men have been socialized not to be overly concerned with these issues. Katz has dedicated his career to motivating the male population to take an active role in gender issues. When a person refers to social issues regarding race, sexual orientation, and gender, most people immediately think of African Americans and Latinos/Hispanics, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, and women. The dominant group remains unexamined as if Whites do not belong to a race, or heterosexuals do not have a sexual orientation, or men do not have a gender. Katz rightly proclaims that men are every bit as gendered as women. Velvet Bryant (’09) I appreciated that Mr. Katz acknowledged at the beginning of his lecture that his work and theories would not be possible if not for the work of thousands of feminists who began asking the important initial questions decades earlier. I believe that the actual “take-home message” occurred at the very end of the lecture. After being posed several critical questions, Mr. Katz paused to explain that his purpose in coming to Wake Forest and speaking at colleges in general was not to get everyone to start thinking in the same way, but rather to get people talking about these important issues. Patrice Clair (’07)
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