Gender Roles in Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is violence or destructive behavior abuse by one person which usually is a male figure against another which in most cases is a female figure. In a domestic setting such as in marriage or cohabitation. Speaker Jackson Katz an Anti-sexism educator speaks on how gender violence is a male’s issue as well as a women issue. This gives men an excuse not to pay attention to women and they should stand with women not against them.

Katz first problem with people using women’s issues to describe violence against women is the issues of perpetration these acts “Take rape for example over 99% percent of rape is perpetrated by men, but it’s a women’s issue?” For another example in society we love to use victim blaming against not only women, but men. Like saying what was she wearing, what time of night was she out, or saying he’s too big to get sexual assaulted, and why didn’t he fight back. With that being said, we should all seek a higher level of empathy and understanding.

Also Katz recognizes that violence against women can have profound effects on other men and boys as well as society as a whole. This is an issues in society that both men and women must be engaged in. Katz explains, “The same system that produces men who abuse women, produces men who abuse other men.” Society only seeing men as perpetrators and women as victims, or vice versa. During the viewing Katz main topic was that the goal is to get men who are abusive to challenge men who are. He stated “We need more men who have the courage and the strength to start standing up with women not against them and pretending that this is somewhat a battle between the sexes and other kinds of nonsense.

We live in the same world together.” For decades men have been left out of the equation of women violence due to them being the cause of it. However, Katz made a lot of statement in this viewing that there are many strategic of activism to increase men’s participation in ending violence against women. One of the main strategic a man can do to ending women violence is speaking up and not turn the cheek when they hear a another man speak poorly on a women or making a sexes joke. Like the movement The White Ribbon Campaign for men and boys to take a public stands against violence for women and girls. This is showing great character for men and stopping society thoughts of them being against women and actually them actually standing with them.

Lastly, Katz made great points on how there’s been an awful lot of silence in the male culture. He stated that “All I’m saying is that we need to break that silence, and we need more men to do that.” Now, it’s easier said than done, because it’s challenging for the male culture to be leaders. That being said I feel like men are only holding their tongues because, society makes it hard for them stand up for women. There’s awful lot of men who care deeply about us women and the issues that we face, but caring isn’t enough according to Katz.

In my option men should be our protectors because, we as women already provide in many ways like providing for our spouse, children, and working jobs. I also believe that not only should men be our protectors, but we should be theirs too. We shouldn’t expect men to carry this burden alone. We shouldn’t assume that women can’t share the role of protector. As Katz stated “I hope going that, going forward, men and women, working together, can begin the change and the transformation that will happen so that the future generation won’t have the level of tragedy that we deal with on a daily basis.” The message that Katz gave explaining that we all as women’s culture and male’s culture should work better together and to make our environment a more safe place and to stand up for each other for the upcoming generation.

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