Let’s Have a Conversation About ‘All Men’

The ‘Good-guy’ Narrative is a Lame Excuse for a

Lack of Involvement in Social change

We shared a post on our social media platforms as part of keeping the conversation open on why we need to more assertively address the social issue of gender-based coercive control. To expand on this topic, we’re bringing this to our blog platform to speak more deeply about this social issue.

Let’s get into this.

Jackson Katz

If you have not picked up on the many references we make to Jackson Katz on our pages, here is another opportunity to do so. Katz is one of the greatest proponents of what he refers to as ‘gender-based violence’ as a men’s issue. We applaud his work and hope that more people will rise up to change the conversation landscape of social safety across the globe. 

Click on the link in the subtitle, where you’ll hear Katz speak to the men on social change. He is spot on when he says that it requires nothing of men to ‘be one of the guys.’  In fact, the majority of men benefit by the silence of the other men around them. 

Social Permission

The issue with this tacit approval of silence is that there is no social obligation built into the male conversation. They don’t have to – that’s part of the agreement. It does not matter that there hasn’t been an actual conversation about it in the various men’s groups, sports games or bars. It is assumed that it is someone else’s problem – even if there are degrees of abuse committed silently inside the homes by these same men. Just don’t talk about it.

Male Bystander Power

The power of the male bystander – the collective of men who pretend nothing is happening around them, by their fathers, brothers, friends, church members, work colleagues – is to have the collective gendered heads in the sand. 

Men don’t need to care if they can feign a lack of awareness to what is going on around them .

It is inconceivable to even consider that there are so many men choosing to be the kind of human who refuses to even see it. To be a man like this in this world makes those of us pleading for your awareness to begin to ask difficult questions about what right you should have if you are going to collectively pretend it isn’t your problem.

We have men – and women – going to war to defend our country, but those of you at home (and those of you globally) refusing to see what is going on in your families, neighborhoods, social and religious groups right in your communities; men with the apathy and abnegation abdicate social responsibility because you don’t think you are a part of the problem – make you the problem!

You Are The Problem, Gentlemen

If you think that it is not all men, if you think that you have never abused a woman or child, if you believe that there isn’t anything you can do – you are the problem.

Coercive control and abuse of women (children and men) is the problem of every man on this planet – regardless of whether you have ever abused or assaulted a woman. If that position keeps you out of the conversation – you are the problem.

You are the problem because silence is what keeps the world declining the way it is.

Katz on ‘Leadership’

It is very likely the majority of men across the globe have had a leadership message delivered in their various organizations – maybe even in your church, however, those are quite suspect, and a topic for a Part II of this discussion.

One of the definitions of the word, ‘leader’ in Webster’s 1828 dictionary is – ‘one who goes first.’ What an amazing mind shift men around the world should be taking on this issue. Leadership is not about bullying or compelling people to comply with a forced change. It is about mentoring and emulating the way and you build together.

Men need to socially conscript themselves, mustering their own groups to rally around an action plan because men are the problem. Men commit 99% of rape (Katz, 2026) – which is why violence is a men’s issue – men are committing these vile acts.

Understanding How to Speak Into the Issue

To be a leader, you may need to get on board with the facts, not what you believe is happening. One of the best ways to do this, according to Katz, is to speak directly to the issue. If we cover language with passive, inactive terminology, such as referring to a woman who has been beaten by her husband as a battered woman, the perpetrator is missing in the conversation. This is how men get out of the problem they are creating.

This same pattern occurs in homes where the abuse and coercive control of a wife by the husband has become so common, so overlooked, so ‘normal’ male behavior that men are socially immune to what this really is. 

Not only are you socially immune – you are socially and personally allergic to the conversation.

Adult Men With Power Need to Be True Leaders

To be transformative on the social front across the world requires men to be action makers, rather than just sticking their community toe in the conversation. We are past talk.

Action is years, decades late. You need to show up, Gentlemen.

You need to push back against the contempt of men who have attempted to bring the conversation forward on abuse and coercive control of women. The power of manosphere-adjacent culture supports the silence to protect the proverbial ‘man box’ where men don’t mock and belittle other men who have engaged in the work. What used to be the shame of boys for running or throwing like a girl, has gone high octane in our day.

We are Aware of the Potential Disadvantage of Speaking Out

The fact that this is complicated for those men who do engage in this much needed social change cannot defer others to avoid the social cost of change. The cost of a better world means there is going to be pain in the change. 

To do nothing is to tacitly agree that your silence is more important than the abuse being committed on women. 

Regardless of the pushback you may have when this topic is approached, doing nothing means the problem will get worse. Full stop!

Addressing Feminism

Until all men – yes, ALL MEN, understand that feminism and gender equality are intrinsic to men’s liberation and to peace and freedom in the world at large — we will continue to decline as a people.

Being angry at the women’s movements speaks more about you, as men, than it does about what the movements were attempting to change – for everyone. Men who are angry at topics of feminism teach the world that they believe they will lose out if they ‘get in line’ with equality. 

These attitudes, while potentially politically dangerous for you to speak out loud, are coming out sideways in the way you push back against the pleas women have cried for generations. 

If you think only in terms of loss, you blind yourselves to the gains the change will bring about.

Bringing Men to the Solution

There are innumerable ways that solutions can be approached. The first step is to try something. Speak to your HR leaders, or company managers. Talk to your preachers and pastors. Do more than just write to your community and state leadership – go meet with them, and every time you are with your friends or men’s group – bring up the problem and shut down the gendered slurs that disrespect any group, but especially those that are violent or degrading of women.

Men are great fixers. Why are you not bringing all these skills to the table? Bring your own solutions for social or work dynamic change. Do something about the pornography that is overlooked in your offices or worksites. We know it is there and we know it’s condoned. 

Those of you who are solid on protecting schools – those former military and police – who are willing to use your weapons to protect the safety of children, and have yet to hold the conversation on the stages inside those schools on how boys see and treat girls. 

Get involved with groups like, “The X For Boys”. We need these adjacent to every school – and every church across the globe. 

To not take action, it can be assumed that you are getting something out of the violence you all commit. Again, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t abusing or coercing your wife – your silence in a world that has accepted abuse and coercion – you commit gender-based violence by your silent consent. 

Men maintain the abuse and violence in our world – regardless of whether you are willing to see this or not. 

The Global Neighborhood

If it isn’t inappropriate to borrow from the beautiful words and emotion in the song intended to help a horrific crisis in Africa, “We Are the World” (Richie, Jackson, 1985) speaks beautifully into the crisis we face now.

There comes a time

When we heed a certain call

When the world must come together as one

There are people dying

Oh, and it’s time to lend a hand to life

The greatest gift of all

We can’t go on

Pretending day by day…

…That someone, somewhere will soon make a change

We are all a part of God’s great big family

And the truth, you know, love is all we need

There’s a choice we’re making

And we’re saving our own lives

It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me

We are the world (one world)

We are the children (our children)

We are the ones who’ll make a brighter day

So let’s start giving (so let’s start giving)…

The Battle Isn’t For an Either/Or – it is For the Both/And

The future of every man and woman, every boy and girl is in the hands of the men of today. It is in the hands of every human being to change the landscape and the social echo chamber across the world of what is intolerable behavior. 

If you are a perpetrator of gender-based coercive control and “Targeted Partner Abuse” we invite you to participate in our Men’s Year-long Program.

If you are a victim/survivor of a husband’s abuse of you, please join us in our groups and community at Center for Peace. 

We can change the way we see and treat one another. We can become a people of integrity and dignity.