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Jackson Katz on Bullying: Inaction = Consent and Complicity
Jackson Katz believes bullying involves more than the victims and the perpetrators. He uses the category of bystander to get men involved, and encouraged his audience at Ohio University Lancaster to not be passive bystanders.
“’Bystander’ expands our thinking about who is implicated. Someone is acting out. What do you do about it?” Although how we behave is embedded in our relationships, there is a basic social justice concept: inaction equals consent and complicity and silence. We have a responsibility to the victim and to the perpetrator.
Katz also noted that bullying occurs across the lifespan and at all levels. “We celebrate lots of bullies in our society… coaches who win games, businessmen who deliver the goods.”
And who bullies? “We find that the typical bully is not some outlier, but is much closer to the norm and very popular, a complicated person.”
Katz knows he is introducing ‘big ideas’ and working against a culture. Take the ‘boys will be boys’ phrase many adults employ to explain behavior. “What an anti-male thing to say,” Katz said. “It’s offensive and I reject it.”
He believes we can effect big change over long periods of time. His multi-racial, mixed-gender Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program that he co-founded at Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society is the gender violence prevention program most utilized by college and professional athletes, has been implemented by many teams in the NFL, Major League Baseball, and NASCAR.
The creator of “Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity,” “Wrestling with Manhood,” and “Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies and Alchohol,” Katz published The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help in 2006. His articles have appeared in numerous academic journals and trade newspapers, and he blogs on culture and politics for the Huffington Post. In addition, Katz has appeared on many radio and television programs, including the CBS Evening News, ABC News 20/20, Good Morning America, Montel Williams, Lifetime, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
In responding to audience questions about fighting in men’s sports and the dialogue generated by projecting film clips, Katz said bluntly, “Violence begets violence. Aren’t we desensitizing and normalizing violence? How much damage has been done to [the male] psyche? Are we deadened to brutality? Are we setting them up for a lifetime of challenge?” During his group training sessions Katz doesn’t tell people what to do; he offers options. He believes in violence only in self-defense or in defense of others. “Consider a set of choices that stop short of violence. If you have a whole range of choices, you are more likely to act.”
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