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Name what you see or experience
I experience you as.
- Interrupting her
- Criticizing her family
- Yelling at and intimidating her.
Name how it affects you-how you feel.
- I'm surprised you'd use that language
- That frightens or concerns me
- I feel less respect for you.
Name what you think and want.
- You can't assault her and still claim to love or respect her.
- I want you to stop interrupting her and to hear what she says.
- She may challenge you, but nothing can make you hit her or yell at her.
If his behavior is part of a pattern, say so.
If his behavior is a crime, label it.
What you can do
Get others involved.
- If he committed a crime, call the police.
- If he is religious, involve the clergy.
- If he is harassing her at work, involve her
employer.
His abusive behavior will stop when we no longer tolerate it.
What you can expect
- He may ignore you, or berate you. He may try to insult you by comparing you to
women or gay men.
- If he takes you seriously, he will work to change.
Why step in
We intervene because it's the right thing to do-not because we are
guaranteed he'll change.
Typically, it has seemed unthinkable that men would say or do anything about
men's violence against women. We've said things like,
- It's not my business.
- I don't know his side of the story.
- I'd like to kick his …, but…
We have left it up to women to try to make it safe.
We can join in creating safety for women.
- Without telling women what to do.
- Without attacking men physically or
verbally.
- Without telling a woman what the problem
is.
Saying and doing something to challenge him feels hard, but it is what a friend would do.
You can challenge him because you care about her.
You can challenge him because you care about him and respect him.
Men batter because it "works"
- Violence, or the threat of it, stops her from doing something he doesn't like, or gets her to do
something he wants. Battering is a pattern of physical and emotional abuse
designed to keep him in charge.
Men batter because they learn it.
- Men learn to batter by seeing other men do so.
- Men learn to hold women in contempt by hearing other men do so.
Men batter because they can get away with
it.
- They hide it, by choosing when, where and whom to batter.
- The community hides it, by ignoring, justifying or condoning it.
Why men can be effective in challenging battering.
- In public, men commonly say, "I was taught to respect women," or "I love women." Yet upon further
reflection, men find deeply held messages of disrespect for women: "Women can't be trusted; women
are manipulative."
Men learn to degrade women primarily from other men; men will
learn respect for women from other men. |
