10/01/2026
Important to go back and review
He asked a roomful of men one simple question: "Why do you teach your daughters not to get r***d instead of teaching your sons not to r**e?" The silence that followed changed everything.
Jackson Katz stood in front of a conference room full of male college administrators, coaches, and student leaders. It was the early 1990s, and he'd been invited to talk about preventing violence against women on campus.
But Katz wasn't there to give the usual speech about respecting women or being a "good guy." He was there to blow up the entire conversation.
"Let me start with something," he said. "A woman was beaten by her husband last night. Now, I'm going to ask you some questions about this."
The room leaned in.
"What was she wearing? Had she been drinking? Why didn't she leave him? Why did she stay?"
Heads nodded. These were the questions everyone asked.
Then Katz paused.
"Now let me ask you this: Why did John beat Mary? What's wrong with John? Where did John learn that violence against women was acceptable?"
The room went silent.
For forty years, Jackson Katz has been asking men to stop asking the wrong questions.
Because when we ask "why didn't she leave?" we're focusing on the victim's behavior. When we ask "why did he beat her?" we're focusing on the perpetrator's behavior.
And that changes everything.
Katz grew up watching the violence prevention movement treat violence against women as a women's issue—something women needed to solve, with some good men helping out. Self-defense classes for women. Safety tips for women. Advice for women on how not to get assaulted.
"We were essentially telling women: 'Here's how to avoid being victimized,'" Katz explains. "But we weren't asking men: 'Here's how not to be violent.'"
The entire framework was backwards.
So in 1993, Katz created the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program—the first large-scale violence prevention program designed specifically for men. He started in college locker rooms and military barracks, places where "locker room talk" was considered harmless and "boys will be boys" was an excuse for everything.
His approach was radical: stop treating men as potential perpetrators or protectors, and start treating them as empowered bystanders who could change their peer culture.
He taught them to recognize the moments when violence begins—not in the assault itself, but in the joke that demeans women, the comment that objectifies them, the culture that normalizes disrespect.
"If it takes a village to raise a child," Katz says, "it takes a village to raise a ra**st."
Perpetrators don't emerge from nowhere. They're created by a system that excuses, minimizes, and sometimes celebrates abusive behavior toward women.
And here's what Katz understood that others missed: most men actually aren't comfortable with their peers' behavior.
In workshops, when Katz asks men privately whether they've witnessed other men saying or doing things to women that made them uncomfortable, nearly every hand goes up.
Then he asks: "How many of you spoke up?"
Almost no hands.
"Why not?" Katz asks.
The answers are always the same: fear of losing social status, fear of being mocked, fear of retaliation, fear of being seen as weak or uncool or not "one of the guys."
So Katz reframed speaking up.
He didn't call it being sensitive or politically correct or "white knighting" for women. He called it leadership. Strength. Being a good friend. Being a real man—not the fake version that requires putting others down.
"The guy who speaks up when his friend makes a r**e joke isn't weak," Katz tells rooms full of young men. "He's strong enough to risk his social status for what's right. That's actual courage."
It worked. The MVP program spread to hundreds of colleges, high schools, and military installations. Athletes, fraternity members, and military units went through the training. Studies showed it worked—participants were more likely to intervene when they witnessed disrespectful behavior.
But then something shifted in American culture.
Katz watched as the internet created spaces—Reddit forums, YouTube channels, social media accounts—where men who felt "aggrieved" by women's progress could find each other. Where "men's rights activists" could spread the idea that feminism was the enemy. Where the "manosphere" could radicalize young men into believing they were victims.
"We're witnessing a global backlash against women's progress," Katz says. "The past fifty years have seen unbelievable challenges to patriarchal norms. And there's a segment of men who are terrified of being de-centered."
Then came Trump.
A man found liable for sexual abuse. A man caught on tape bragging about grabbing women. A man who paid millions in damages for defamation related to sexual assault allegations.
And America elected him president. Twice.
"It had a normalizing effect," Katz says quietly. "It sent a message: you can treat women this way and still be rewarded with the highest office in the land."
The manosphere went mainstream. Andrew Tate became an icon to teenage boys. Podcasts celebrating misogyny got millions of downloads. "Your body, my choice" became a taunt hurled at women after the 2024 election.
Katz saw the culture he'd spent forty years trying to change sliding backward.
But he hasn't given up.
"We on the other side need a bigger microphone," he says. "We need more men standing up and saying: 'Not in my name.'"
Because here's what Katz knows: the future isn't determined yet.
Every father who teaches his son that women are full human beings is fighting back. Every coach who shuts down locker room talk is fighting back. Every young man who tells his friend "that's not cool" when he demeans a woman is fighting back.
"We can't tell boys that bullying is bad and then reward bullies with power," Katz says. "We owe it to the next generation—boys and girls who didn't choose to be born into this patriarchal society."
His message is simple: men need to create a peer culture where abusive behavior is unacceptable not because it's illegal, but because it's wrong.
Where the guy who speaks up is respected, not mocked.
Where boys learn that real strength means protecting others, not dominating them.
Where violence against women is understood as a men's issue that men must solve.
"There's been an awful lot of silence in male culture about this ongoing tragedy," Katz says. "We need to break that silence. And we need more men to do that."
Forty years ago, Jackson Katz walked into a room full of men and asked them why they were asking the wrong questions.
Today, he's still asking. Still teaching. Still believing that men can be part of the solution instead of the problem.
Because the alternative—staying silent while misogyny becomes mainstream—isn't acceptable.
"It's our moral, ethical, and human duty," Katz says, "to help in this struggle together."
Not as saviors. Not as heroes. But as human beings who understand that violence against women is everyone's issue.
And it's time more men started acting like it.
