Men's Violence Against Women in Maine

 by Hamish Haddow- A High School Student

One Friday in June, I got into the car with my dad to go on a college visiting trip.  We were headed for Colby, where he had gone to school, but before that we were going to attend a conference to which my dad had been invited as part of his involvement in a program called Boys to Men, based in Portland, in which I have also been very involved.  The conference was focused on men's violence against women in Maine, and the purpose of the conference was to inform the people in the room, who (other than myself) had been invited as leaders in their respective communities, about the presence of violence perpetrated by men against women in Maine.  Beyond that, the hope was that as a group we would brainstorm and put into action plans to engage men in each of the counties we represented in local efforts to address the problem.  I wandered into the meeting room with my dad and sat at one of a number of long tables, focused primarily on the warm muffin that I had found in the refreshment room.  I looked at the pamphlet that was lying on the table in front of me, and saw that there was to be an introduction by Attorney General Steve Rowe, a panel discussion featuring Maine men involved in violence prevention work, and a keynote presentation by Tony Porter, co-founder of "A Call to Men," a national social justice organization devoted to working for an end to men's violence against women. 

The Attorney General's introduction laid out the basic boundaries of the issue, focusing on how "well-meaning" men contribute to violence against women by failing to act against the social and cultural conditions that promote it.  The panel explored the issue with a little more detail, and brought out some personal experiences and opinions on the matter that helped give direction and interest to the discussion.  In my opinion, however, the keynote presentation was the most powerful part of the conference.  Using a series of vivid examples from advertisements found in the media to personal anecdote, Tony Porter drew out the metaphorical "Man Box", a set of expectations and rules that boys are pushed into from the earliest age.  It is the Man Box that dictates that men must not express hurt, sorrow, frustration, or strong caring for other people.  In the Man Box there are "manly" pursuits, like fighting, football, and drinking; outside it are distinctly less "manly" pursuits, like dancing, art, and figure skating.  One key function of the Man Box is to allow men to consider themselves to be on a different, generally higher plane from women.  It is this that allows men in our society to feel that violence against women (and, incidentally, a lot of other violence as well) is acceptable.  The Man Box allows women to be degraded to possession status.

This dangerous view can be seen reflected in advertisements for almost anything "manly".  Perhaps the most notable example of this was a series of beer ads shown to the conference by Tony, which were based entirely around two women (supposedly twins) and their breasts.  The point of this ad was not, as I'm sure you could guess, that cool people drink beer and respect women as individuals with all of the complexities, feelings, and personality that they in fact have.  Instead, the ad did what many of its sort do, which is show women primarily as sexual objects, with no other distinguishable qualities.  Tony also brought the individual men in the room into the discussion personally, by asking them what they would do in certain situations.  The scenario I remember most clearly is this: a person in the food court at the Mall overhears a heated argument between a man and a woman and sees the man strike the woman.  The question asked of us was, what would you do?  Everyone in that room was dedicated to the effort to end men's violence against women, but not everyone (myself included) would feel entirely comfortable taking some sort of action in that situation.  As long as there is still a hesitance to act in this situation, there is still a cultural shield behind which domestic violence can hide. 

However, Tony made it clear that the most effective response from a person witnessing the kind of exchange he described would not be to walk across the room and deck the guy.  The point is instead to tell the man that his behavior is not acceptable to you.   The idea of walking across a room to someone you don't know and telling him that you see some aspect of his behavior as unacceptable, and then expecting him to say that he respects your opinion, thank you for pointing it out to him, apologize to the woman, and be more aware of his feelings in the future may seem hopelessly optimistic.  It is.  But then, tackling almost any challenge that affects a large group of people, arguably everyone, takes a bit of hopeless optimism.  Of course, if every well-meaning man were to set aside the belief that his actions make no difference and, gritting his teeth and wondering why he was doing it, stood up from his metal chair and walked over to speak with the man in Tony's scenario, the situation would suddenly change.  The vision that caught my attention was of not one man responding to an act of violence, but of a number of men.  Tony used the number ten, and I'm sure that would be enough in most situations, not to threaten the perpetrator of violence into compliance, but to make it clear that people in this society will not tolerate abuse of any person.

Unfortunately, we are not yet at that point, though we are closer than it may seem.  I can see this particualrly clearly in my peers, who are somewhat prone to discuss women as sexual objects.  "Well, of course they do, they're teenagers, that's all they think about." will be the response to that statement, but I beg to differ.  The reason that they do this in the first place is less because they actually view women as objects, though perhaps some of them do, than that part of the normal teenager/young adult image is to be obsessed with women as sexual objects.  In fact this is such a strong part of the self-images of my teen-aged male peers that anyone who does not take a willing part in these discussions runs the risk of having his "manhood" called into question.

 The same societal construct that allows domestic violence, specifically abuse of women by men, also has tentacles in many other issues of today.  I have found it difficult to narrow my view enough to write just about violence by men against women, as I'm sure you can tell, though this is a tremendous problem for our state.  I was asked to write about whether or not I thought violence by men against women is a problem in our state.  I do, and anyone who knows of its existence cannot reasonably disagree.  The important thing to take away, I think, is something that I see in my peers.  The young men I know are not cruel or evil.  Indeed, Tony Porter wouls call the vast majority of them "well meaning."  For all of their talk of women as objects, I have seen them do things of incredible kindness when they thought no one was looking.  I think that there is a facade maintained by most men most of the time.  The conference held in June was but one example of the removal of that mask to tackle the important question of what we can do if we leave the mask off for good.  When enough men stand and declare this violence unacceptable, many others will suddenly let go their stereotypes.  I believe that the time has come to deal with this issue, and with others related, and all that remains for us to be able to do this is for all of the truly good men in the world to step out of the Man Box.