Transcript Meeting Them Where We Were… Findings from the Engaging Men

Beyond The Choir
Jonathan Grove
Pacific Lutheran University
Men Against Violence
Erin Casey
University of Washington, Tacoma
Social Work Program
Agenda
1. Strategies for engaging men: implications
from a qualitative study of men involved in
anti-violence work (Erin Casey)
2. A continuum of readiness: A framework for
thinking about engaging men at different
“stages” of awareness (Jonathan Grove)
3. Questions and Discussion
Engaging Men Study – Erin Casey, UWT
• To examine the factors associated with recent
initiation into anti-violence work or activities
• To identify current engagement strategies, and
assess participants’ perception of their
effectiveness
• To learn about how anti-violence involvement
has impacted men – particularly when
negotiating “bystander” moments
The study particulars…
• The sample
– 27 men: 16 in (or recently in) campus-based efforts, 11 in post-college
/ community settings
– 1 identified as Latino, 26 as White
– Ages 20-72
– 1-30 months of anti-violence involvement
– From several communities around the U.S.
• Procedure
– Participants recruited primarily through listserves, announcements at
meetings and by leaders of anti-violence organizations.
– Participants contacted the researcher
– Semi-structured interviews: 9 in person, 18 over the phone
– Qualitative analysis using Grounded Theory
Limitations
• Almost exclusively a White sample
• Biased by participant self-selection
• Small, non-random sample limits generalizability
• Focused primarily on engaging men to address
“violence against women.” Does not address antiviolence/anti-oppression allies more generally.
I. Men’s Pathways
Men’s Pathways: A Model
SENSITIZING EXPERIENCE
OPPORTUNITY
EXPERIENCE
Disclosure / witness
Social justice consciousness
Learning opportunity
Influenced by women
Hearing stories
Personal invitation /
nomination
Personal/ community
connections
Looking for community
Job/volunteer-position
seeking
MAKING MEANING
Compelled to action
Shift in world view
Joining with others
ANTI- VIOLENCE
INVOLVEMENT
Meanings
Compelled to action
Charged with a mandate
Seeing an addressable need
Identifying own strengths
Shift in world view
Awareness of vulnerability of women
Using a structural analysis
Reassessing the past
Joining with others
Feeling connected
Doing masculinity differently
Action
Charged with a mandate
“Instead of seeing isolated incidences of people that I knew who
had been assaulted, [I] started looking at that as a systemic
issue. And I think once I started doing that, it was like, okay,
how can I not? … And I think once I started putting that
together… that it’s a generalizable experience. Even people
who haven’t been assaulted experience some of this fear. I
just knew what side of that I wanted to be on, and I knew
that… not being active about it was being silent about it, and,
therefore, in a sense condoning it.” (MAV27)
World view
• Reassessing the past
“My part in DV work is part of my redemption, a part of reconciliation with my
violent past. Not guilt or shame, but redemption.” (MAV31)
“In my senior year, the girl I was dating was actually sexually assaulted [by
someone else], and there was a lot of gray in the sense that I didn’t really
recognize fully what had happened at the time… I was really affected by
that, and I felt very powerless. You know, I wasn’t able to help her. I
certainly blame myself a little bit for not realizing what had happened
when it initially did.” (MAV2)
Joining with others
• Doing “masculinity” differently
It was something about just sitting in a circle with a couple of guys and talking
about, you know, how men dance compared to women, like how it’s not
okay to put your hands above your head when you dance or something
[laughs]. Just things like that, that you would never talk about just walking
through campus or anything… and I thought that was really unique and
really just honest, and it kind of lifts the weight off of your chest. Because I
think a lot of the times, men walk around with this shield up, this… or we
talk about the male stereotype box that we’re always living in. Even if we
don’t want to, we’re still put into that box, and that was the first time in
my life where I didn’t have that box around me. And I liked it. It was fun.
(MAV30)
II. Strategies for and Barriers to
Engaging Men
Barriers to gaining access
• Non-personal approaches (media, large
events, presentations)
• Male privilege / “This doesn’t apply to me”
• Negative approach to men
• Men not identifying with the messenger
• Ambivalence about “feminism”
• Structural barriers
Barriers to access…
“I think that me being an older student, and having lived a little bit of life, I know that
just about anything that is very honest about the problem turns men off. It’s not
something we want to admit to. It’s not something we want to acknowledge. It’s
not something that we willingly want to be confronted with.” MAV14
“I think that in terms of getting involved in women’s issues, one of the hesitations is I
think a lot of guys think the guys that are involved are like my friend… meek, ponytailed, soft-spoken, Birkenstocks…. And they don’t want to be associated with that
kind of like, asexual, sort of meek stereotype.” MAV3
“…when people talk about this kind of stuff, I mean often women, some men too, when
they talk about this kind of stuff to men, [the men] are being made to feel guilty as
a man. Like, ‘All this sexism exists, and… it’s your fault.’ I think that’s what a lot of
men are hearing. Regardless of whether that’s what people say, that’s what a lot
of men are hearing.” MAV19
STRATEGIES FOR DELIVERING THE
MESSAGE
• Strategies used by participants to engage men they have
access to:
– Meeting men where they are
• Tailoring conversations
• Using masculinity
• Men see themselves reflected
–
–
–
–
–
Use of Self
Positive approach to men
Survivor stories
Embedded in broader conversations about relationships, sex
Creating compelling communities
Delivery: Meeting men where they are
• Tailoring the message
“I don’t really go in with a set strategy of how I’m going to work with a
person. I kind of go in, I feel out the situation, I see what’s going on, and
we might not even get into that first day. It might just be me making
friends with them that day and then talking about it at a later point. But I
always go back to it.” MAV15
• Using masculinity
“It may even be a cultural stereotype in and of itself, but I think guys tend
to…they tend to like challenges and respond to them in a positive way for
the most part. So if you can sort of frame it in that idea that, ‘We don’t
want you to go against the norm simply for the sake of going against the
norm; we want you to step up because this is something that we think is an
important issue. Hopefully we’ve convinced you that it’s an important
issue, and you know we want to challenge you to be the one to take a
stand.’” MAV2
Delivery: Meeting men where they are
• Men see themselves reflected
“I think it’s really important to show that the men that are already involved in
this subject are average, normal people… Because I know that when I had
heard presentations before I could never really relate to the person giving
the presentation about sexual assault, and it’s never someone that I could
see as someone who’s really similar to me. And so … the main thing I think
has worked for us is that we’ve shown the men on our campus that the
people, the men of [anti-violence group] are average Joe type guys. Like
they’re a lot like you. They like to go out. They’ve been to a college party
before. They have friends, possibly have girlfriends. And it’s because of
either they know a victim of sexual assault, or they have girlfriends, and
they don’t want a sexual assault to happen to them is why they get
involved. And I think like if you could show men that it’s all right to speak
up about this subject, more men are going to get involved.” MAV12
Delivery: Use of Self
“I will kind of just allow myself to become emotional and just say, ‘You know
today was really rough at the meeting… when we talked about this one
woman that was sexually assaulted on our campus.’ …Or I’ll say, ‘You
know it’s just sometimes so scary thinking about raising a daughter when I
know that...one in five women will be physically or sexually abused some
time in their lifetime.’ …Or if I get a really intense call on the hotline, you
know I’ll come back and say… ‘I got a call from [a woman] and she was
saying how her boyfriend is stalking her and how she’s scared he’s going to
become violent towards her.’ You know? I do it because I want…like I want
people to know that those issues are real, and …they’re in front of our
face.” MAV28
III. Enacting Bystander Behavior
Enacting ally (bystander) behavior
• How frequently did the participants respond when
confronted with sexist or abusive comments or behavior
(determined qualitatively)?
NEVER -- 22%
RARELY – 8%
SOMETIMES – 44%
MOST OR ALL OF THE TIME – 26%
• No significant differences in intervening by length of
involvement. Non-significant trend towards college
participants intervening more frequently than non-college
based activists.
Influences on anti-violence
bystander behavior
CONTEXT
Notice the
event
Define event
as actionable
OUTCOME
EVALUATIONS
NORMS
* masculinity
* group
Take
responsibility
for acting
Self-efficacy
around
taking
action
PERSONAL
IDENTITY
Implement
action
Bystander considerations
There’s no flashing light or sign that says like, “Hey this is really going on.” You know,
in our conversation, we may just be joking around. There’s never some point
where an exclamation point appears over somebody’s head that says he’s about
to make a comment.” (MAV 2)
“So it gets really complex because… you don’t want to make people feel bad about
laughing. You don’t want to break up a flow of conversation. You don’t want to
sort of damage your relationships. There’s all these different things to weigh in
that moment.” (MAV28)
“The idea of the cock block is big in our college society today, that men don’t want to
be a cock block to another man. And so the idea of doing that to another man is
kind of like part of man law that you’re not supposed to prevent another man, no
matter if you know him or not, from hooking up with someone.” (MAV12)
“It’s almost easier [to intervene] when you don’t know somebody. It’s kind of a bell
curve. Like its easy [when you’re strangers] and then you get to know someone,
and it gets harder and harder and then at some point… you start to get so
familiar with that person that its easier again, because you know that it’s not
going to end your relationship.” (MAV30)
Some Observations…
• About 60% of men framed their involvement, or the issue of
violence against women in terms of anti-sexism or social
justice work. Participants fell along a continuum of
engagement with this issue, suggesting the need for multiple,
tailored strategies.
• Few participants spoke about their own behavior, or possible
complicity in sexism – they tended to talk about “other” men.
• Most men become involved because of or through their preexisting social networks.
• Although most men in the study had extensive training about
and opportunities to process “being an ally” most continue to
struggle with enacting ally behavior, and many identified this
as the “most” challenging part of their work.