Men Organize to Fight Assaults on Women

Ask Craig Norberg-Bohm why he joined the expanding ranks of men working actively to end violence against women, and he’ll say it was just the right thing to do.

Press him a little, and he’ll recount the day his former girlfriend was raped.

His experience isn’t uncommon. More and more, the fathers, brothers, husbands and male friends of rape or assault victims are taking their cue from women’s groups and venting their rage productively--by organizing.

Across the country, men are setting up counseling groups and seminars to try to halt a growing number of rapes, wife beatings and domestic homicides.

Their goal: to help men understand the roots of their violence so they will stop. Their method: man-to-man talk that gets down to basics.

“I can say, ‘Listen guys, . . . let’s be honest,’ ” said Jackson Katz, who in 1988 formed an anti-violence group in Boston called Real Men. “That’s something women can’t do.”

Norberg-Bohm, a 41-year-old software engineering consultant, was in college when his girlfriend was raped by another man. The attack left her unable to be intimate, and the couple’s year-old relationship was shattered.

“When somebody is raped, all these trusts go away,” he recalled.

About 15 years ago, he helped start a counseling center for male batterers in St. Louis called Rape and Violence End Now, or RAVEN. The clinic helps men understand how society conditions them to be violent, but the emphasis is on holding them accountable for their actions.

“The man who comes in usually puts the responsibility on others,” said Norberg-Bohm, who now lives in Boston. “He says, ‘She put me in here.’ We want to change that.”

Often, men must first be persuaded there is a problem. Katz, who speaks at schools and colleges about violence, begins by drawing a white line down the middle of a blackboard.

On one side of the line he asks male students to list things they do each day to avoid being sexually assaulted.

“There’s giggling, if not blank stares,” Katz said. “Then someone says, ‘Nothing,’ and I say, ‘Thank you.’ ”

On the other side of the line he asks female students to list the same thing, “and the list goes on and on”--everything from having a man’s voice on the answering machine to not using parking garages.

In California, members of the Oakland Men’s Project have been holding anti-violence workshops everywhere from prisons to workplaces since 1979. Along the way, they’ve learned what works with men, and what doesn’t.

“The touchy-feely stuff doesn’t go over well,” said Allan Shore, the executive director. “Companies don’t like women telling them about this. The old boys’ network wants men to tell them about this.”

Not everyone is interested. Katz endures plenty of name-calling from men when he hands out leaflets on Super Bowl Sunday or at performances of comedian Andrew Dice Clay, whose brand of humor has offended women and minorities.

Also, it’s not clear that men talking to other men will effectively reduce violence. The few studies on such methods are inconclusive.

But men involved in the issue say they have to start somewhere.

“Our sisters, our girlfriends, our mothers can’t even walk to the store at night because they’re so afraid,” Katz said. “As men, we’re in a position to do something about it.”