Belfast Conference is going to hear a call to encourage male leaders to speak out against all forms of gender-based abuse and violence.
U.S. educator Dr. Jackson Katz will be the keynote speaker at a meeting at the Long Gallery in Stormont on Tuesday organized by the Executive Office.
This will be the last part of a two-day series of engagements that include opportunities with key representatives of sports organizations and the education sector to look at their role in helping to foster a positive attitude towards women and girls.
Earlier this year, a survey conducted by the Women’s Resource and Development Agency found that more than 90% of women believe Northern Ireland has a problem with men’s violence against women and girls.
While the Stormont Assembly is still unable to function due to a political disagreement over the Northern Ireland Protocol, work is still underway to put in place a strategy to tackle violence against women and girls.
It aims to have a draft framework for an end to violence against women and girls by the end of 2022.
Dr. Katz, a pioneer of the Assistant Prevention Approach, who has worked extensively with the NFL and other professional sports leagues as well as all branches of the U.S. military, will address the event Tuesday.
He will also address events in Dublin later this week.
In an interview with the PA news agency, I explained the approach as encouraging leaders to speak out to change society’s attitudes.
Dr. Katz said he has been involved in activism since he was a 19-year-old college student in the early 1980s.
“Men’s violence against women is a huge problem, and there was and is a clear lack of men’s leadership on this subject … as a young guy I was pretty confident and I was a very successful athlete, so “I was not intimidated or worried that other men would make fun of me if I spoke out,” he said.
“When you have men who assault and harass women, it’s not about their individual pathology, they are individual actors who act on much broader social forces, and so how do you change those social forces – it has become my life’s work.”
Dr. Katz began the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program at Northeastern University in Boston.
It initially trained athletes from universities to speak.
“My thought was not that there was a problem in athletics, it was that we have this global problem of men’s violence against women and we need more men who are willing to talk,” he said.
“I thought if we get men who already have some status in their peer culture like athletes, if we get them to talk, it will open up space outside of athletic culture and make it more acceptable for men and young men to talk about it. talking about things and engaging and supporting women’s efforts. ”
He said the MVP program became the largest program of its kind in college sports and then in professional sports in the U.S., before switching to the U.S. military.
“In the 1970s and 1980s, when people did what they called the prevention of sexual assault, most of it was focused on women and girls.
“They called it prevention, but it was actually risk reduction where women and girls were taught things like not putting their drink down at a party, having a buddy system or having a man’s voice on the voicemail, he said.
“All that is still taught to girls and young women to this day, and that is good advice, but it is not prevention, it is risk reduction.
“When men were focused on it, it was almost always as offenders or potential offenders… the problem with that is that most men do not see themselves as such and they deny it and say it is not their problem… and so many men turned it on. out.
“It’s about how you behave 24/7 in a way that makes it clear to people around you that you are not going to go along with sexist or misogynistic behavior on an entire continuum ranging from sexist comments and jokes when there are no women. not. to actual acts of violence ahead of you.
“The Assistant Approach is about everyone else in a given peer culture thinking of some that they can constructively challenge or interrupt abusive behavior, support people who are the targets of that behavior and to the extent that they have any influence to help set the tone. in that group where abusive behavior is completely socially unacceptable, not because it is illegal or against the policies of the organization, but because it is the peer culture itself, says it is not acceptable, and the person challenging the abusive behavior, is a strong person and acts according to the best values of the group.
“We desperately need more men and young men with the courage and strength and confidence to speak out and challenge their friends, teammates, classmates, colleagues and co-workers when they see that other guys are not treating women with respect and dignity,” which is a complete remake of the existing dynamics. “