Discussion night: Violence against women as a men’s issue

Location: Atria
Drinks: tea and coffee are available
Cost: we suggest a €2 donation
Code of Conduct: www.thefeministclub.nl/coc Please read these rules if you wish to attend our meeting.

This venue is wheelchair accessible. If you need any assistance coming to our event, please send an e-mail to thefeministclub@autistici.org. We can for instance help you with paying for your public transport fair or with accessing the building if you have a disability.

This discussion night is being organised in collaboration with Emancipator.nl, a Dutch organisation working towards gender equality through engaging with men and boys and transforming harmful masculinities. We will ask the question, should violence against women be seen as a men’s issue, and what kinds of activism we might be able to plan to engage more men in this topic.

Although we would like to focus the discussion on affirmative and constructive talks on the topic, we will inevitably be discussing issues which may be triggering. The articles and videos we ask you to read and watch in advance of the night also discuss various forms of violence against women. Links to the sources can be found below.

We’re sure no one here needs to be told that violence against women is a human rights problem of pandemic proportions. It affects women of all backgrounds, across all cultures, in all countries in both public and private spaces. It includes physical, sexual and psychological forms of abuse. Although the vast, vast majority of cases are perpetrated by men, the campaigns, media attention, debates and talks on violence against women rarely include a mention of men alongside the alarming statistics that usually accompany these discussions. Men, and the way they’re socialised in the world, are largely erased from the issue, and so it’s often considered a problem for women to solve.

Every year in November, there’s a 16 day UN campaign to end violence against women. We’d like to use this discussion night as a platform to start thinking about an action, activity or campaign that we could plan in the coming months and run in November.

This night is for anyone who is outraged by the countless injustices of violence against women. But we especially encourage men to attend, if you are willing to acknowledge that as a man, you enjoy privilege that largely protects you from being directly affected by the issues we will be discussing. And acknowledge that even the most loving, caring and kind men in the world are still socialised into a patriarchal world in which their existence can feel threatening to women. So come to listen, engage constructively, be respectful, and hopefully come up with some badass activism against the world’s most pervasive and unjust human rights abuse.

Please study the following sources in preparation for the discussion night

Jackson Katz, gender equality campaigner, talks about violence against women by asking what’s going on with men? (with Dutch subtitles):
https://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue/transcript?language=nl

Owen Jones writing in The Guardian ‘Not all men commit abuse against women. But all must condemn it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/08/men-abuse-women-condemn-male-violence-masculine?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

16 days of activism against gender abuse - a Guardian report before last year’s campaign
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/nov/25/how-will-you-mark-16-days-of-activism-against-gender-abuse-share-your-stories

UN Women facts and figures
http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures

We look forward to seeing you!