V-Men
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column curated by Mark Matousek
Last summer, when Eve Ensler asked me to write something about violence against women -- from a male perspective -- I went to my desk feeling skeptical, and not at all sure that I had anything significant to say on the subject. Although I had grown up in a house where female molestations of various kinds happened on a regular basis, and had spent a good deal of my adult life (and therapist's time) sorting through the emotional rubble left behind after witnessing so much misogynist violence, I felt doubtful that my experience mattered -- for the simple reason that I was a man -- compared to the traumas I had witnessed in the lives of my mother and sisters... more >
Rob Okun
Wanted: Men to Change Masculinity Narrative
Citizens around the country grieved, were furious, or shook their heads at the inevitability of it all. Another mass killing: six murdered and 13 wounded in Isla Vista, CA. And, the killer took his own life, leaving another grieving set of parents. Commentaries noting Elliot Rodger’s association with the men’s rights movement followed, as did sound bite analysis of his 137-page manifesto of hatred of women (and heterosexual men in intimate relationships). Amid all the sound and fury, two key points remain largely obscured...more >
Rob Okun
Profeminist Men and "The Great Turning"
"Our daughters, our sisters, our wives, our mothers, our grandmothers have every single right to expect to be free from violence and sexual abuse. No matter what she's wearing, no matter whether she's in a bar, in a dormitory, in the back seat of a car, on a street, drunk or sober — no man has a right to go beyond the word ‘no.' "...more >