Writer’s note:
Given all the hype and controversy around Chris Brown’s alleged beating of Rihanna, I feel compelled to post this essay I originally wrote in late 2007, so that some of us can have an honest jump off point to discuss male violence against females, to discuss the need for ownership of past pains and traumas, to discuss the critical importance of therapy and healing. Let us pray for Rihanna, first and foremost, because no one deserves to be beaten, or beaten up. No one. And let us also pray that Chris Brown gets the help he needs by way of long-term counseling and alternative definitions of manhood rooted in nonviolence, real love, and, alas, real peace. And let us not forget that Rihanna and Chris Brown happen to be major pop stars, hence all the media coverage, blogs, etc. Violence against women and girls happen every single day on this planet without any notice from most of us. Until we begin to address that hard fact, until we all, males and females alike, make a commitment to ending the conditions that create that destructive behavior in the first place, it will not end any time soon. There will be more Rihannas and more Chris Browns.
In my recent travels and political and community work and speeches around the country, it became so very obvious that many American males are unaware of the monumental problems of domestic violence and sexual assault, against women and girls, in our nation. This seems as good a time as any to address this urgent and overlooked issue. Why is it that so few of us actually think about violence against women and girls, or think that it’s our problem? Why do we go on believing it’s all good, even as our sisters, our mothers, and our daughters suffer and a growing number of us participate in the brutality of berating, beating, or killing our female counterparts?
3 comments:
HELLLOO!
Where are the men's voices in this?
Thank YOU for speaking out against violence against women. It is the silence here that is the silence everywhere that = complicity with such insidious crimes. I am sick and tired of hearing in the news EVERY DAY about women who were killed by men. Coward criminal losers!
Please---Stop the violence--speak out. Read Male Voice, go to a Men's Resource Center, redirect an obsessed male friend who can't take no for an answer from a woman and move on.
Still no response to this but so much to someone giving someone else an STD. Well, here is how MEN are taking a stand in my community that I hope will inspire you:
*
WHITE RIBBON CAMPAIGN -- STAND UP AND BE COUNTED
Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 1pm at the Mullins Center
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Open to the public and wheelchair accessible
The UMass White Ribbon Campaign – Stand Up and Be Counted event will take place
at the Women’s Basketball game in the Mullins Center on February 22 at 1pm. At
halftime, men and boys in attendance will be asked to congregate on the court
and take a public pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about men’s
violence against women.
Tickets to Women's Basketball games are free for UMass undergrads, $2 for UMass
grad students and $4 for general admission.
For more information contact: Tom Schiff 413-577-5181
Sponsored by the Health Education Department of University Health Services, the
Department of Sports Management, the Office of Fraternities and Sororities, and
Everywoman's Center.
with international women's day on the horizon, here is a link to a new film resource that honor women around the world:
http://www.apowerfulnoise.org/
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