Gendered violence, which includes domestic and sexual violence, is a people’s issue, not just a women’s issue, according to a website launched by two Syracuse University graduates.

‘Men have to step up and join women in the movement in order to stop it because historically men have been absent from the movement,’ said Sacchi Patel, co-founder of the website MasculinityU and a 2009 SU graduate.

Patel and Marc Peters, who graduated the same year, came up with the idea of MasculinityU in October 2010, Patel said. Patel was talking to Peters about sexual and domestic violence perpetrated by men. Both thought it would be a good idea to create change by stimulating a discussion about it in a space where men are not confined by masculinity, Patel said.

The website currently features a blog that has been up since October 2010 and gets approximately 250 hits per day. The blog features topics such as bullying; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, intersexual and questioning suicides; and the heteronormativity of Valentine’s Day.

Men tend to be scared of what it would mean to join the movement against gendered violence, said Kate Friedman, a staff writer at The Daily Femme and Patel’s former classmate. Some men think confronting this issue puts blame on all men, which is not the case, she said.

‘Their website would create a space for conversation,’ Friedman said.

That space would allow men to enter the movement, and it begins with expanding the definition of masculinity, Patel said. Society has constructed a narrow definition of what a man should be, and anything less is not considered masculine, Patel said.

Men have to be tough and brave, and they cannot cry, according to what Patel calls the ‘man handbook.’ Characteristics that depart from this are immediately pointed out and ridiculed, he said.

These limitations prohibit men from joining women in the fight to end gender-based violence, Peters said. Issues such as these do not fit into the dominant narrative of what defines a man’s role, he said.

‘Men need to step out of what is considered the boxes we have been put in,’ Peters said. ‘Our purpose is to broaden this definition.’

Eventually, Peters said he would like MasculinityU to expand beyond a website. He would like to have lectures and forums on college campuses to help reduce sexual violence on campuses, he said.

‘Nonprofits limit the ways you can advocate your issue because of funding,’ Peters said. ‘So we will probably be incorporated as a limited liability corporation in order to have more freedom in the work we can do.’

Peters and Patel said they both became aware of gendered violence issues and started talking about them during their time at SU. Both joined a group called A Men’s Issue at SU, Patel said.

AMI’s philosophy is that sexual violence is a systemic issue that needs to be acknowledged as a men’s issue. AMI provides opportunities for discussion about masculinity and how sexual violence is prevalent.

Patel and Peters have always been advocates of these issues, said Friedman, the staff writer at The Daily Femme.

‘The work they are doing is quite remarkable because they are standing up and saying that men should be included,’ Friedman said, ‘because they are a main component in preventing violence and ending these negative stereotypes.’

hmbehre@syr.edu

 

 

 

 

 

   

Published on February 16, 2011 at 12:00 pm