Transcript long term change and the involvement of young men

Thinking about prevention: long
term change and the involvement
of young men
Prof Liz Kelly, CWASU, London Metropolitan University
Co-chair of the End Violence against Women Coalition
Stockholm
2014
Twitter:@ProfLizKelly
Prevention from margin to centre?
Layers of prevention
• With actual perpetrators – we work with a tiny
minority
• With potential perpetrators – been the way, so
far, young men and boys have been addressed
• With women and girls – contested, even selfdefence has been tarred with ‘victim blame’ responsibilised for our own safety, but all women
do ‘safety work’ (Kelly, 2012)
• With communities – more common in global
south, Tostan on FGM, WeCan India all VAWG
Gender theory
• R W Connell Gender (2008)
• How the social power held by men creates and sustains gender
inequality
– Both structures and actions/practices
• Gender order – the social organisation of gender as a hierarchy
• Gender regime – smaller more localised systems – universities,
families
• Gender relations – between individual actual women and men
• Rarely perfectly aligned – otherwise change/variation
impossible
• Yakin Ertuk (UN Special Rapporteur 2002-2009):
“violence and threat of violence are used as a legitimate
mechanism of enforcing and sustaining gender orders”
• Masculinities
The new VAW agenda: involving men
and boys
• Implication that there was a previous exclusion/
barrier- was there?
• Priority for UN
• Every INGO now has a webpage/campaign
• At least three presumptions
– most men do not perpetrate – is this the case if we include
the continuum of men’s practices?
– that approaching as allies is more effective
– that if we work with young men we can shift collusion to
intervention
• Challenges and tensions as is changing responses to
VAW and gender work
An example
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2011 report focused on ‘threats to
masculinity and the male role’
To include men in gender programming,
fund more projects that are not women’s
projects: ‘gender integration’
Some examples
• Engage women as partners in
enabling men to change in substance
abuse projects
• Develop men’s leadership in solving
their own problems
• VAW projects to include men as
victims
• Awareness that gender intersects
with youth programming [gangs
work]
• Examples of ‘men specific’
programming but no ‘women
specific’
Old wine in new bottles?
Concerns in humanitarian agencies since
VAW work is not yet embedded
LESSONS FROM ICONOGRAPHY
‘My Strength is Not for Hurting’
USING EVIDENCE/THEORY
Theoretical framework
• Drawn from Factors at play in the perpetration
of violence against women, violence against
children and sexual orientation violence
developed by Hagemann-White et al in 2010
[http://ec.europa.eu/justice/funding/daphne3/multilevel_interactive_model/understanding_perpetration_sta
rt_uinix.html]
Target interventions to change pathways
EXPLORING THROUGH A RESEARCH
PROJECT INVOLVING YOUNG MEN
The research project
• Commissioned by Office of Children’s
Commissioner as part of the child sexual
exploitation enquiry
• ‘Digital stories’ with young actors for use in online
survey, focus groups, interviews (604 took part)
– avoids speaking about own experiences
– echoes YouTube video diaries
– more context than ‘vignettes’
[http://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/content/pub
lications/content_744]
What we learned
• Variations across gender and age
• Paradoxes
– More said consent could have been given than think it
was not sought
– Fewer defined stories as rape than thought consent
had not been sought
– The more context creates ‘real life’ situations the less
clear young people are
– Both heterosexual and same sex encounters in bars
with relative strangers were more likely to be called
rape, any sexual attraction or relationship placed
young women’s behaviour under particular scrutiny
He said we do
it all the time
anyway, so he
wouldn’t really
be taking
advantage of
her would he
I wouldn’t
call it rape
as such , but
it is not an
ideal
situation
You cannot really call
that rape because
she is consenting to
it, she is saying she
will because she
wants to live
She had a choice,
she didn’t have to
stay there...she
went back to him,
knowing that’s
what she was
going to have to
do
I think that’s just rape
really, because she can’t
even remember what
happened, which shows
she couldn’t say yes or
no
She obviously got raped
in the toilet . But do you
know what I put that
down to. Girl went out
at a young age to place
she’s not meant to
be....To be honest I think
that’s her fault. But it’s
still wrong though
...she wore a certain
top to make her boobs
look bigger. So...
Maybe because she
dressed like that,
maybe she wants it in a
way
It gives the
wrong idea
the way you
are
dressed....
I don’t think he’s
really asked if she is
Ok with that, he’s
decided for her
She could
have refused
to do it... I
don’t think it
would have
been hard
I think that was
the best way of
doing it. Having
consent where
you are actually
talking about it
to each other
In this one
they both
agreed on
having sex but
when they
were ready
Non-consensual sexual practices
• The double standard is alive and well, only the words have changed –
sexually active young men are ‘legends’, ’dons’ and young women ‘skets’
‘hoes’ and ‘sluts’
• Pornography was a significant part of their lives
• That young men consume was taken for granted, although a few young
men were critical, seen as ‘weird’ for young women to do so alone or with
each other
• Young men sought to assert that porn was just ’entertainment’, but when
asked what they were looking for it was ‘seeing how to have sex’.
• Sexually harassed to send ‘sexts’
– Paradox since it means you are desirable but is experienced as pressure
– Betrayal and shame when they are shared without their consent or knowledge
– Three patterns of distribution without consent
• Young women’s ‘refusal skills’ become the focus (Kitzinger and Frith, 1999)
‘Man (lad) points’
• Ratings that determined status in peer groups
• Rooted in conservative biologically determined
masculinity – ‘doing young masculinities’,
including through exploiting young women
• Getting sexts from young women and sharing
without permission
• Having sex – including with young women
deemed ‘unattractive’
• All violence is not just a resource for men, but can
be used to gain ‘man points’
Gender and victim blame
• Sexual reputations – enhanced young men’s status,
shame(ing) for young women
• Extraordinary availability of blame towards young women,
even where actions were considered rape
• The inevitability of ‘boys behaving badly’ facilitated holding
young women responsible for protecting themselves
• Young women under scrutiny versus the freedom many
young men accord themselves and each other
• Still missing discourse for young women of female sexual
pleasure
• Restricted space young women have to act in within the
‘unwritten rules’ of heterosexuality (Powell, 2010)
Changing the discourse
• From giving to getting consent
• From ’no mean no’ to ‘an ‘enthusiastic and embodied
yes’
• Consent as an active, communicative process
• Naming young men’s non-consensual sexual practices
• Consent cannot be separated from gender construction
and victim blame
• Moira Carmody – sexual ethics, ‘promote negotiation,
consensual, reciprocal and mutually pleasurable sex’
• THIS IS THE AGENDA – BIGGER THAN THAT IN MOST
WORK WITH MEN AND BOYS
A new moment? A new
agenda?
• The conjunction of neoliberalism and neo-patriarchy
means that the equality
discourse can no longer deliver
positive change for women
• The changes that have taken
place in the public sphere and
the private have stalled, and
are even in some instances in
reverse
• A new agenda for change is
needed which requires
transformations in values and
relationships