What Every Man Can Do to Help End Violence Against Women
Most individual acts of men's violence are a pathetic attempt to assert control over women, children, or other men. Paradoxically, most violent acts by men are a sign of weakness, insecurity, and lack of self-esteem combined with a capacity for physical or verbal domination and a feeling that they should be superior and in control.
Women are not immune from committing acts of violence. Women's groups have spoken out against the problem of violence against children, which is committed by both women and men, although most sexual abuse of children is by men. Women too can be violent against men or other women, but it is far less common than violence by men.
In many violent incidents, men have been drinking alcohol. This might be because alcohol unleashes feelings, fears, rage, and insecurities that some men, cut off from their feelings, cannot handle.
But alcohol doesn't cause violence. Genes don't cause violence. Ultimately, it is the attempts by some men to dominate women, adults' attempts to dominate children, and some men's attempts to dominate other men or groups of men. Violence is a way of asserting power, privilege, and control.
4. Wear a white ribbon.
Change will occur if we each accept personal responsibility to make sure it happens. As men who care about the women in our lives, we can take responsibility to help make sure women live free from fear and violence.
Each year men around the world are wearing a white ribbon from November 25, the International Day for the Eradication of Violence Against Women, for one or two weeks.
Wearing a white ribbon is your personal pledge never to commit violence against women. It is a personal pledge not to condone acts of violence, not to make excuses for perpetrators of violence, and not to think that any woman "asks for it."
It is a pledge not to remain silent. It is a pledge to challenge the men around us to act to end violence.
Wearing a ribbon provokes discussion, debate, and soul-searching among the men around us. The ribbon is a catalyst for discussion. It is a catalyst for change.
5. Challenge sexist language and jokes that degrade women.
Sexist jokes and language help create a climate where forms of violence and abuse have too long been accepted. Words that degrade women reflect a society that has historically placed women in a second class position. By reflecting this reality they once again put women
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