Men have a significant role in the prevention of family violence. This presentation demonstrates their importance, moves on to the significance of gender in family violence, the meanings of violence, processes that lead to violence, and strategies for prevention. Some of the content is difficult to think about..

1. Wimps, Punks, & Sissies:
Men’s Roles in the Prevention
of Family Violence
Jane F. Gilgun, PhD., LICSW
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities USA
http://ssw.che.umn.edu/faculty/jgilgun.htm
Keynote Address to the Dakota Fatherhood Summit 3,
Fargo, ND, May 22, 2003

2. Overview
 Importance of Men in Violence
Prevention
 Significance of Gender in Violence
 Meanings of Violence
 Processes that Lead to Violence
 Strategies for Prevention

3. "Men must now do
something themselves
about male violence."
Male Network, Governing Board of Save the Children Sweden, 1993
http://www.man-net.nu/engelsk/start.htm

4. Why?
 One of three women in the United States
experiences physical assault by a partner in
their lifetimes
 2-4 million women a year in the United States
are assaulted by an intimate partner
 About 2/3 of domestic abuse victims are
women; the rest are men

5. Why?
 more than 3.3 million children are exposed to
physical and verbal spousal spousal abuse
each year
 60% to 75% of families in which a woman is
battered, children are also battered.
 rape, physical assault, stalking and homicide
committed by intimate partners lead to health
costs that exceed $5.8 billion each year
(CDC)

6. Why?
 83% of arrestees for violent crime were
men
 Men 3 times more likely to be murdered
than women
 90% of the murderers of men are men
(Uniform Crime Reports, 2001)

7. Why?
 Hypermasculine attitudes and
behaviors are linked to perpetration of
violence
 Beliefs about masculinity are the single
most important factor in the perpetration
of violence

8. Why are men important?
 Men have credibility when promoting what it
means to be male
 Men control most resources—such as media
 Men enforce male gender roles
 Consequences of not measuring up can
be horrendous
 Men and boys are looking for models of how
to be men
 Male look up to other males

9. Example of Men’s
Credibility
 Spike Lee
 Promoted a college education to the Black
Expo in Columbia, SC
 Peers ridicule young black scholars as
“acting white.”
 “But if you’re on a corner, holding a 40,
smoking a blunt and holding your privates,
then you’re real.”
Role models not rappers (2003).

10. Resistance to Men’s
Involvement in
Prevention
“You must be very tired spending a whole
day trying to get us to talk about what
we don’t want to talk about. It’s just the
way it is.”
Adolescent boy in Fergusson (2002)

11. Consequences of Men’s
Violence on Children
 Silent victims: children exposed to
family violence
 At risk for depression and anxiety
 At risk to become aggressive adolescents
& adults
 These adolescents often depressed
 Often think violence is the natural way to deal
with others
 Require loving attention of caring adults to
learn to adapt to, cope with, & overcome
these adversities

12. Consequences of Men’s
Violence on Children
 Women victims of male violence
 More likely to physically abuse their
children
 More likely to be psychologically
unavailable to their children
 More likely to be ambivalent toward their
children

13. Consequences of Men’s
Violence on Families
 Women victims of male violence
 Suffer personally, socially,
economically
 May be charged with failure to protect
 Children may be placed in foster care
 Are at heightened risk to be murdered

14. Consequences of Men’s
Violence on Men
 Every man can be stereotyped
as physically violent
 Is that what men want?

15. Consequences of Men’s
Violence on Men
Men who harm their partners
 Damage the quality of family/partner
relationships
 Sometimes experience guilt
 Make themselves vulnerable
 to arrest and public shame
 to workhouse, jail, prison time
 to retaliation/self-protection from partner
and children

16. Consequences of Men’s
Violence on Men
 Other men may share their views
that sometimes women deserve it
 Helps their bonding with these men—
often takes place in men’s rooms,
bars, boardrooms, golf courses
 Shores up identities as masculine
men

17. Significance of Gender
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice,
That’s what little girls are made of.
What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails and puppy dog tails,
That’s what little boys are made of.
Mother Goose

18. Violence is Gendered
 Women
 When they hurt others, they tend to do so
with words that threaten relationships
 Men
 When they hurt others, behaviors often are
physical and when men use words, they
tend to be direct and aggressive

19. Women’s Violence
 Relational Aggression
 Harm or threaten to harm
relationships
 Sense of belonging
 Friendships
 Reputations
(Crick, et al., 1998, p. 77).

20. Relational Aggression
 Types of aggressive behaviors
 Silent treatment/ignoring
 Threat to end friendships
 Gossip
 Exclusion—or threat of ostracism
 Motivations
 Control others
 Feel superior
 Retaliation
” (Crick, et al., 1998, p. 77).

21. How do kids describe
relational aggression?
 Tell a lie about other kids
 Tell someone, “We’re going to be in a
group and you’re not going to be in it.”
 Pretend you don’t see another kid.
 Don’t talk to someone.
 Talk behind their backs

22. Relational Aggression
Among
Adolescents and Adults
 “Stealing” someone’s boyfriend
 Spreading lies or gossip
 Silent treatment
 Withholding love and attention
 Building a coalition against another

23. Effects of Relational
Aggression
 Serious adjustment issues
 Peer rejection
 Loneliness
 Depression
 Emotional distress
 Low self-esteem
 Conclusion: relational aggression is
harmful

24. Female Socialization
 Developing and maintaining relationships
 Emotional expressiveness
 Nurturing others
 Fears that direct expression of anger will
damage relationships
 Women’s Gendered Aggression: A reversal of
these socialization patterns

25. Male Socialization
 Competition
 Aggression
 Physical dominance
 Higher tolerance for distance in
relationships
 Less concern about expressions of
anger as threats to relationships

26. Male Socialization
 Use aggression to achieve a goal
 Do not have feminine qualities
 Do not be weak, a punk, a sissy, a fag
 Control:
 Threaten/beat someone up if the other person
does not comply with a request
 Shame another male in front of men to damage
his status in the eyes of other men (and some
women)

27. Father Involvement
Modifies Polarizations
 Girls: expressed more competition,
aggression and less intense fear and
sadness
 Boys: more expressions of
vulnerability, including fear and warmth,
less aggression, more empathy
Brody (1999)

28. Parents’ Socialization
 strong gender effects
 Boys more likely than girls to use
aggression to express both anger
and sadness
 Boys more often rewarded for
expressing these emotions
through attacks on others

29. Socialization in Families
 Girls more likely to display negative
emotions such as anger and fear if they
believe others will respond with
understanding and comfort
 Girls masked these emotions when they
sought to promote relationships with
others.

30. Socialization in Families
 Girls: socialized to use prosocial and
norm maintenance displays of emotion
 Boys: focus more strongly on
impression management—what
kind of image do they have?
 Are they being masculine?
 Assertive/aggressive/independent/daring/stoic

31. Male Socialization
 Fragile vs. flexible sense of how others
perceive their masculinity
 Anxiety vs. acceptance of self as
masculine
 Men define each other as as having
control over women and children
 Deep fear of being perceived as not
masculine

32. Peers as Enforcers
 Punish each other for “inappropriate”
gendered expressions
 Concern over how others perceive them
 Status for boys: competition & control
 Taking risks
 Winning in competitions
 Maximizing aggression, mocking others
 Minimizing fear, warmth, vulnerability

33. Peers as Enforcers
 Status for girls
 Goals: intimacy and affiliation
 Mutual vulnerability through self-disclosure
 Priority is not to get into trouble
 Emphasis on equality
 Bragging less acceptable compared to boys
 More exposure to women
 More expressiveness of warmth & vulnerability
 Works for both girls and boys

34. Peers as Enforcers
 Even 4-7 year olds are aware of
status differences between males &
females
 In play,
 girls who play boys are more directive
 Girls who play children are more
directive with “mothers” than with
“fathers”

35. Media Depictions of Men
 Research shows media influences on
learning of gender roles and aggression
 Portrayals of anti-social behaviors are
wide-spread
 Violence depicted as justified
 Targets of violence portrayed as
 Deserving of violence
 Weak

36. Social Constructions
of Gender in the Media
 What it means to be “manly” is
exaggerated
 Being manly includes contempt for
things female
 Scorn for “bleeding hearts”
 Mastery/Suppression of emotions such
as
 fear, distress, joy
 Hypermasculine role models for viewers

37. Social Constructions
of Male Gender
 Men pursue
 Excitement
 Danger
 Thrills
 Violence is manly: normative and
acceptable
 Toughness valued
 To be masculine is to be not feminine

38. Social Constructions
of Male Gender
 Culturally-based systems of meanings
and practices are
 descriptive and
 prescriptive for individual men in
particular situations

39. Social Constructions
of Male Gender
 Individuals enact cultural themes and
practices and
 do so in their own way
 Therefore, individuals enact and
create culture

40. Enacting
& Creating Culture
 Use violence to show others
you’re not weak
You can't think I'm a joke. If you
underestimate me, if you think I won't
do it and you think I'm a weak punk, I'm
going, I'm going to go to any extreme to
show you… Don't mock me or
somebody's going to die. (Alan)

41. Aggression &
Achievement
of Manhood
“One day he came home drunk and, it
was like enough is enough. I threw a
punch and knocked him down. And he
said, ‘Okay, you’re a man now.’”

42. Needed
 More wide-spread alternative definitions
of what it means to be masculine
 Wide-spread challenges to
understandings what it means to be
male
 Examination of processes that lead to
rejection of hypermasculine values
 Examination of processes that lead to
violence

43. How?
 Increased involvement of fathers in
child care from infancy to adulthood
 Increased awareness of men
 of their own vulnerabilities
 Of the centrality of human connection
 Bring this awareness to work

44. Some men are so afraid…
of not being masculine
they do not see that it takes courage to
challenge unrealistic, dangerous standards.
Being called punk, wimp, & sissy is not
easy

45. Meanings of Violence

46. What Violence Means
to Perps
 Understanding what violence means to
perpetrators provides the foundation for
action
 Violence means many things
 All are linked to gender roles

47. Emotional
Gratification
 Littleton, CO
 "every time they'd shoot someone, they'd
holler, like it was, like, exciting."
 "They were laughing after they shot. It was like
they were having the time of their lives.“
 14 year-old Barry Loukatis
"It sure beats algebra, doesn't it?" as he
stood over a dying boy who was choking on his
own blood.

48. Emotional
Gratification
 Sexual abuse of children:
“warm, comfortable, gentle.”
 Rape
 “I would be shaking, physically shaking. Teeth would
chatter, and I couldn't stop.”
 "The excitement is worth giving a whole bundle for."
 Burglary
“It was like Christmas....Sometimes I got so excited I
had to have a bowel movement.”

49. Gratification &
Power
 Intimidating others
 “It's a, it's like a rush, it's like shooting your arm
full of dope…. It's like a total body rush.”
 “They're giving me this high, this, this feeling of
control or power...I got power now, over these
people. Look, you know, and they telling me,
‘Oh don't hurt him, don't hurt him.’”

50. Power, Gratification,
Image
 “You know man and, and I've got this power.
You know and I love that. You know I love, I
love people to dress me up.”
 “…I wanted to fight, shoot at people. I don't
know just play like Al Capone, I guess.”

51. Image & Pride
 “ ‘What are you trying to do, you're trying to
shame me, you're trying to embarrass me.
You, you're not giving me any respect.’ Those
are my famous words.”
 “I be trying to instill that fear in everybody's
mind that's around me and say, hey look, if you
fuck with me, this is what's going to happen to
you.”

52. Image & Pride
 “I've seen guys who killed for less than a
quarter you know, and how people talk about
that. I wanted that hero image . To me that
was the key word.”
 “I don't want to be embarrassed and say
aww...you got your assed kicked.”
 “Can't be disrespecting me and insulting my
pride...this is righteous anger.”

53. What They Don’t Do
 “I don’t know why I’m getting the feeling
of I don’t want to burden nobody or
come to nobody with my little old, you
know, (chuckle) emotional whatever I’m
going through.”

54. Relief
 “The more destructive that I've been toward
material things, I've tore them up, it's given me
relief. Even when I hurt people it gives me the
relief.”
 “Like an elephant dropped off my back.”

55. Feeling Victimized
& Not in Control
 “I get into a relationship and when I wasn't in
control of the relationship, that's when I
thought, I felt like I was a victim again.”
 “People pushing my buttons, you know, parole
officer telling me to do this, go live in this
halfway house or do this, don't do that. It was
like I didn't have no control over my life at all.”

56. Feeling Victimized
 “All I want to do is get my point across that I'm right,
you're wrong. I guess what it was is I was feeling kind
of persecuted.”
 “It gets to the point where I just can't, I can't find
anything in myself that's, that's worth a diddly‑dang.
And the way I've learned is, and it sounds like an
excuse maybe, the way I've learned to take care of it
is to abuse someone else.”

57. Feeling Victimized
 “He never touched me after that. I think right at
that point in time, I think I finally felt like I won. I
think he had a sense that he lost.”
 “There's power in, well all that comes out of
hate is rage. Anger and rage, and there's a
rush in that for me, without a doubt. There's
power in anger and there's power in rage
….When I feel like a victim, I perpetrate.”

58. Control
 “You're going do every damn thing I tell you to
do and you have no choice.”
 “I got control. You know I can, I can handle
this. I can deal with you. And you get that
adrenalin rush you know. Get all pumped up.
But then I get so pumped up my ears start
ringing.”

59. Boredom
 "Life was boring, nothing, go to school, go
home, get drunk, got home to hear parents
fight, listen to friends verbally abuse me. That's
why."

60. Violence as Survival
 “If you're not violent, people will walk all
over you. Violence keeps people away.
It's safe.”
 “…they have to stand up for theirself
because they don't want to be considered
weak.
 “Now if I let somebody put their hands on
me I'm gonna feel like a coward, a punk.”

61. Survival
 ‘You whip a man good enough so he
don't never want to come back after
you.”

62. Death Wish: Whose?
 “I wanted to end it all.”
 “I've felt really bad in my life. Sometimes I
wished I was dead.”
 “I was going to end my pain. I was going to end
the kids' pain.”

63. Ownership
 “Your body is mine, you know. You can't. We
get this tripped out thing about once a woman
gives herself to us, she can't ever give herself
to anybody else.”
 “Then it would run in my head that she's mine
and always will be...It would run in my head
that she always will be mine.”

64. Take What They Want
 “Sex. I wanted sex. I wanted sex.”
 “I wanted attention from them. The only way I
knew attention from a woman was sexual. I
want this woman just automatically to give into
sex.”
 “I think I was more interested in my own need
or my own desire than I was in whoever I was
hurting."

65. Retaliation
 “...and I believed do onto others before they
do onto you. I was taught if you, if I get the
first lick in, the person doesn't have time to
retaliate.”
 “I do think about hurting people when they
do wrong to me.”

66. Scapegoating
 “I wasn't mad at my victims, I was mad at
somebody else.”

67. Processes That Lead
to Violence
Case Studies

68. Moby Dick Bites Ahab’s Leg Off
 Ahab is flooded with anger,
rage, and hatred
 Powerlessness
 Incompetence
Worthlessness
 These responses experienced
through gendered, cultured
lenses

69. Responses
 Fantasies
Revenge
Self-aggrandization
Self as scum
 Memories triggered
 Other noxious events
recalled

70. How Long?
 Temporary
 On-Going
 Periodic

71. Human Agency
 Ahab has choices about how to deal
with these strong responses
 He wants to feel better
 Powerful
 Competent
 Worthy
 He can do so
 Pro-socially
 Anti-socially
 Self-destructively

72. Pro-Social Responses
 Core response: return to a secure
positive base
 Internalized processes
 Behaviors
 Forgiveness
 Adapt and learn
 Cope positively with the remaining
“soul” wound

73. Anti-Social Responses
 Revenge
 Solace and relief
 Some sexual abuse/rape
 Some physical violence
 Some destruction of property

74. Self-Destructive
Responses
 Use of chemicals, food,
shopping, gambling
 Cutting
 Put self at risk
 Ruminating

75. Basic Principles
 Competent people have capacities
for effective self-regulation of
emotions, cognitions, and
behaviors.
 Basic value: do no harm
 To be human means we experience
anger, rage, and hatred.

76. Basic Principles
 Cognitions and emotions are
integrated processes.
 This idea is so novel that we don’t
have a word for it.
 Cultures of anger, rage, and hatred
exist
 Organized in a variety of ways
 geography, ethnicity, gender,
ideologies, and values

77. Basic Principles
 How we regulate these powerful states
depends upon how we think we are
supposed to regulate our emotions
 Emotions, memories, cognitions, psycho-physiological
processes
 Internalized gendered ideas about our
entitlements and “oughts”
 Who our audience is
 Our perceptions of situations

78. Basic Principles
 Many people have capacities to bypass
gender role prescriptions that lead to self
harm and harm to others
 Many of these prescriptions are
“gendered”

79. Case Study
 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

80. Dysegulation & Outcome
Noxious Event
Dysregulation
Search for Coping Strategies
Human Agency
Outcome
Pro-social Anti-Social Self-destructive

81. Entitlement & Outcome
Perception of Wanting Something
Appraisal of How to Get it
Human Agency
Outcome
Pro-social Anti-Social Self-destructive

82. Both Types
 Draw upon gendered cultural themes
and practices
 Conclusion
 Significance of challenging and
transforming what it means to be male

83. Family violence is one
of many ways that some
men measure and
maintain their
dominance.

84. What to do?
 Gender equality
 Gender balance

85. Humane Expectations
About Boys and Men
 No matter what traumas a boy or
man has experienced
 No matter how seriously victimized
 No matter how psychologically
damaged …

86. Gender Balance
Violence would not exist if
we transformed social
constructions of gender
 Father involvement in
families is key

87. Gender Imbalance
 Most men do not see themselves
as having power
 Yet men world-wide dominate all
social institutions, including families

88. Gender Imbalance
 Men in positions of dominance rarely
articulate the ideologies that drive their
choices and behaviors
 Gender equality can be attained
through collaboration between women
and men

89. Gender Balance
Will Lead Fathers
 to think of themselves as
 important parents
 competent parents
 to share
 In the responsibilities of parenthood
 In the satisfactions of parenthood

90. Emotional
Expressiveness
 We need to create blueprints saying
that boys are real men when they
confess their pain, deal with it, and let it
go.
 My research tells me that boys risk
severe punishment for sharing such
personal, sensitive material.

91. Male violence would
not exist if we had
humane expectations
for boys
and men.

92. The Rejection by MEN of
Male Violence
Nearly impossible for many
men
Dominance & control at heart
of male self-definitions
Consequences of departure
too dire

93. Near Impossibility
 Men benefit from unequal distribution of
power, privilege and prestige
 Men don’t want to be thought of as
 Wimps
 Punks
 Sissies

94. You’re not man enough to do
it.
You don’t have the guts.
You throw like a girl.

95. What’s Needed for
Prevention
 Transformation
 What it means to be male
Definitions of masculinity
 What it means to be female
Transform misogyny
 Promotion
 Gender balance

96. What’s Not Enough
Create a culture
 does not tolerate domestic violence
 holds offenders accountable for their
actions
 punishes criminal behavior.
 Provides victim services

97. What’s Enough
Transform Gender Roles
 Create balance—challenge both
extremes
 Promote father involvement in families
 Promote balanced men into positions of
power
 Welcome balanced women into
positions of power

98. Strategies for Prevention
 Take the experiences of boys and men
and girls and women as starting points
 Be even-handed in dealing with
aggression that is characteristic of both
genders
 View violent behaviors as processes
that have numerous points along which
the process can be interrupted

99. Strategies for Prevention
 If individuals enact and create cultural
themes and practices
 Why can’t men create new cultural
themes and practices?
 In fact, many men are

101. Mentor Violence
Prevention Program
 By focusing on bystander behavior, MVP
reduces the defensiveness and hopelessness
that many men and women often feel when
discussing men's violence against women.
 MVP aims to construct a new vision for
society that does not equate strength in men
with dominance over women.

103. Depression Common Among
Men with Histories of
Violence
 Why?
 If violent men are hypermasculine, how
does this affect their relationships?
 What makes life meaningful?
 Why is men’s depression untreated?

105. Some Key Issues
in Preventing Male Violence
 Glorification of violence
 Humane expectations about boys
and men
 Gender equality
From the Male Network, 2003, http://www.man-net.nu/engelsk/start.htm

107. Men Stopping Violence
 Shift norms that support subjugation of
women
 Asserting oneself as male does not
have to involve proclaiming self not
female

111. Effective Prevention
 Gender is central in any prevention
program
 Gender is a proxy for power
 Power related to ethnicity and
social class central to prevention
programs

112. Effective Prevention
 Start where participants are
 Understand their values that support
violence
 Understand the worlds they’ve constructed
 Do participants have
vulnerabilities in addition to
values that support
violence?

113. Effective Prevention
 Deal with vulnerabilities
Fears of being sissies, punks,
& wimps
Fears of exclusion
Sense of self as defective
Self-defeating inner working
models

114. Effective Prevention
 Particular situations bring out different
aspects of gendered behaviors
 Expectations of consequences central
to how persons enact gender and the
power attached to male genderisms
 Each person struggles with mulitipe
identity issues
 We cannot reduce each other to gender
stereotypes

115. Effective Prevention
 Parent education
 Involved fathers have children
whose gender roles are more
flexible and less stereotyped
 Involved fathers provide role
models for gender equality

116. Effective Prevention
 Enlarge choices
 Understand schemas/scripts
 Seek to change schemas/scripts
 What do participants value?

117. Effective Prevention
 Each person struggles with multiple
identity issues
 We cannot reduce each other to
gender stereotypes
 Human agency
 Choices that are contrained

118. Effective Prevention
 Increases range of choices
 Provides schemas of what can be
 Promotes interpersonal
connections
 Promotes direct expression of
emotion
 Leads to clarity in relationships
 Negotiated sense of who we are and
what we want from each other and for
ourselves

119. Effective Prevention
Balance
Start where participants
are

120. References
Brody, Leslie (1999). Gender, emotion, and the family. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Fergusson, Muriel McQueen (2002). Worlds apart…coming together:
Gender Segregated & integrated primary prevention implementation for
adolescents in Atlantic rural communities. In Berman, Helene & Yasmin
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