Gender and Justice Conference 2008-Jackson Katz

Friday I showed up to the first plenary session of the conference: Gender and Justice, sponsored by Vanguard University’s Center for Women’s Studies and the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force. Jackson Katz opened with an introduction to the influence of media on gender issues. Proposing that the word gender is generally related to women’s issues, he supported his argument by drawing attention to the fact that a very small percentage of men were present. Hee also noted that the word race carries semantic emphasis relating to African American issues, as if race was not applicable to every person. In the same regard, the word gender is applicable to both male and female.

Social justice must begin with an understanding of who needs to be educated on the issues at hand. Answer: EVERYONE! For Katz, ‘everyone’ most definitely includes men. “It’s not enough for a male to say, ‘I’m a good guy because I’m not a rapist,’” Katz states. Many men don’t understand that they have the power to affect other men in their social circles with the result of heightened accountability. And if they are silent, men are contributing to the problem. The single largest reason for the need for male involvement is that rape and abuse prevention is impossible for a woman. A woman will never choose to become a victim of rape or domestic abuse. So, we teach our daughters risk-reduction. While this is good, it is not enough. Katz calls out for an answer among men, believing that men should take a stand in order to change the issue from the demand side.

Katz emphasizes the role of media in influencing social the normative. The media uses journalistic language to gender women and de-gender the men involved in these violent crimes. Language in news reports and political presentations becomes passive, explaining the impact of the crime on women and girls, as if the violence simply happens, without a specified, or gendered perpetrator. Perpetrators are not only gender unassigned, they are barely categorized in context of social roles. While both males and females have perpetrated crimes of violence, the vast majority of perpetrators are historically men. The reason for this clever allusion? Men historically and traditionally hold power. Power is preserved in remaining neutral, invisible. Remember the “Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz”? The allusion of power is best preserved by “pay(ing) no attention to the man behind the curtain.” So, who is responsible when the observer sees only a curtain behind a broken victim? The camera flash goes off and media points to the victim. Katz proposes that we look more critically. The question that should be asked is, ‘Who’s behind the curtain?’ “You’re not a very nice man,” Dorothy says.

Social change happens in cooperation. Katz’s approach to placing the burden of change wholly on men was challenged. It seemed that female attendees of the Gender and Justice Conference were concerned that a pendulum swing is avoided. Women want to take an active role in changing the social norms in a holistic way. The unavoidable question of responsibility comes up. “Isn’t a woman responsible for making poor decisions in remaining in an abusive situation with a man?” Katz explains that this response in itself is a paradigm that he believes must change if the problem of gender and justice is to be resolved.

Katz spent the last hour of his presentation on the symbolic influence of media on gender issues. Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum, strongly influenced by his step mother, an advocate of Women’s Rights in America and contemporary colleague of Susan B. Anthony, revealed the power of strength in the Wizard of Oz by revealing the “Great and Powerful Oz” as a mere man behind a curtain. The power of the invisible remains a valuable resource to male culture. Over the past 60 years, movies have portrayed male muscles and their guns progressively larger and stronger, while women have shrunk, diminishing in comparison. Pornography and strip culture portrays women as vulnerable and sexually available, while men are presented as powerful and erotic. This sexual socialization leaks out through the media and impacts growing young men in our culture.
“The issue is degradation and violence and the normalization of sexual misconduct.” Katz persists.

Jackson Katz is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in gender violence prevention education with men and boys, particularly in the sports culture and the military.