OAKLAND MEN

The women’s movement and a 1978 national conference in SanFrancisco on violence against women were our immediate Inspirations. For years, women’s groups had been responding to the needs of women survivors of male violence by operatingshelters and rape crisis centers. One result of this organizing was to
Make the public aware of the tremendous need for shelter, counseling, advocacy, and legal intervention. During this periodthe devastating effects of the violence on women, children, andeven on men became more and more visible.Some men began to see that we could no longer discount sexual harassment, battery, and rape as women’s problems.

These were clearly part of a nationwide social problem. We could see that the effects of past violence and the threat of future violence was keeping women off the shop floor, out of the corporate office, and out of public office. It was keeping them in dangerous marriages and in poverty. Some women said, “You’re doing the violence. You are men. Take responsibility for your actions and address other men

There was a lot of attention paid to the question, “Why are men violent? “Some people argued that men are unalterably gressive because of their genes, hormones, chromosomes, or just because all males are “that way.” None of these “theories” had any scientific legitimacy, however. Male behavior is immeasurably variable. Most feminists wanted to hold men responsible for their actions and looked to male power and male socialization as sources of male violence. The huge amount of violence promoted in popular
Culture led them to the conclusion that boys learn male roles, and violent behavior was part of that learning.

Women were hurting from the violence. They were angry at the men who committed violence and the men who condoned it by their silence. We assimilated much of their anger. Partly motivated by self-hatred, we took the anger directed toward us and directed it at other men for not seeing what was happening to women. We used that anger to encourage other.