Working with Men to Prevent Violence Against Women: An Overview (Part One)

There is a growing awareness that men, in partnership with women, can play a significant role in ending violence against women. This has led to an increase in programs and activities that focus on men’s roles in violence prevention. Men should take responsibility for preventing violence against women because of the untold harm it causes to women in men’s lives and the ways in which it directly hurts men. Violence against women hurts men when it results in women being afraid of or suspicious of men due to fear of potential victimization and when it perpetuates negative stereotypes of men based on the actions of a few. The behaviors and attitudes that cause violence against women may also be a cause of men being violent towards other men. These same behaviors and attitudes may also keep men from having close and meaningful relationships with each other. Finally, while only a minority of men are violent, all men can have an influence on the culture and environment that allows other men to be perpetrators. For example, men can refuse to be bystanders to other men’s violent behavior. For all of these reasons men have a stake in ending violence against women. To do this, men must accept and examine their own potential for violence and take a stand against the violence of other men. In recent years, a number of authors have argued persuasively that men need to take responsibility for preventing men’s violence against women, both in the United States (Berkowitz, 2002a; Funk, 1993; Katz, 1995; Kilmartin, 2001; Kivel, 1992), and internationally (Brienes, Connell, & Eide, 2000; Flood, 2001, 2003; INSTRAW, 2002; Kaufman, 2001). This paper provides a brief overview of what is known about effective strategies for involving men in violence prevention efforts from the perspective of men who are recipients of anti-violence programs as well as from the men who provide them. It defines the term “prevention” for men’s violence against women, reviews best practices for involving men and for tailoring programs (for men in general and for particular groups of men) and, in Part Two, offers examples of prevention program formats and pedagogy. These examples are provided to illustrate best practices rather than to describe specific programs, as this review is not intended to be exhaustive or comprehensive of all violence prevention efforts involving men. Finally, in order to be useful to practitioners and educators the paper provides references to websites containing information about men’s anti-violence organizations and programs. While the conclusions and trends noted here are applicable to the prevention of all forms of men’s violence against women, the preponderance of literature cited is from the rape prevention field where there has been more research conducted on this subject.