When Privilege Goes to Far: A Follow-Up

Since I posted last week about violence against women, folks have sent me a number of links to clips, resources and posts on the topic. Today I want to share two particularly quality clips with you.

First, enjoy this clip of actor Patrick Stewart (Star Trek’s Captain Picard). Stewart shares about his personal experience watching his mother suffer from domestic violence at the hands of his PTSD-suffering father. As a way to in some way redeem both experiences, Stewart now spends time with both anti-violence organizations and with pro-PTSD groups. Stewart’s testimony is terrific, and the hug at the end is just bonus.

Next, in this TED talk Jackson Katz calls for us to reconsider our perspective on gender violence issues. In particular, he invites us to think of gender violence issues as men’s issues instead of just women’s issues. One particularly insightful observation from Katz is that in our culture we tend to correlate the word “gender” with women. In that way, men essentially get locked out of the conversation.

The thing I appreciate about both Stewart and Katz is that they are calling for men, and particularly men in power, to step up in this area. Katz says, “there has been an awful lot of silence in male culture about gender violence.”

He’s right, and it’s time for that to stop.