1. Supporting Male Family and Friends
Rus Ervin Funk, MSW
Coordinator of Mens Engagement

2. Intro to MensWork
Formed in 2007 to “engage, empower and organize” men to prevent all forms of gender- based violence
Key projects
Promoting gender respect
White Ribbon Kentuckiana
Combating the Demand
Recovering Masculinities
Become a formal project of the Center for Women and Families in 2014

3. Where we’re starting from
Understanding of “gender-based” violence
Women and girls disproportionately impacted by GBV
Impact of GBV on women in the social environment
Women are loved by men
Women are traumatized, men are harmed

4. Masculinities
How males come to understand ourSelves as “Men” is culturally and socially constructed.
This self-definition is at the intersection of our other identities.
Within a meta-definition of manhood
How these messages and lessons impact on men’s response to loved ones being raped

5. Being a “Man”
What’s Done to Men
What Men are Called
“Man Up”

6. What Men Understand About GBV
Legal definition
Media depictions
Through myths more than facts
More as sexual than an assault
As violent (not necessarily as power and control)

7. What Men Understand Who is victimized
“Those” women or men
…By “those” men
Victim “responsibility”
Focus on the physical harm

8. Intersectional Theory
“Our identity, how we come to understand or define ourselves, is at the intersection of various categories of identity (race/ethnicity, sexual/affectional orientation, gender, etc.) at a given moment in a particular context.”
(Funk, 2007, based on Crenshaw, 2001)

9. Implications for Advocacy
People experience GBV at the intersections of:
Their multiple identities
Their identities and the identities of the other person
Their identities and the various systems they come into contact with
Male’s interact with their loved ones through these intersections
Male’s interact with support systems through these intersections

10. What do you do to protect yourself…

11. Men’s typical relationship to GBV
None/foreign
Othering (“those men” perpetrate it on “those women”)
Sexualized/fantasy
Violence/harm
“Stranger danger”

12. How men learn about a victimization
From another source (police, hospital, etc.)
After the fact
Hesitant/reluctant disclosure
During another crisis/conflict

13. Supporting men in these moments
Listen actively
Recognize/identify feelings
Anger
Frustration
Sadness
Re-direct

14. How Men Typically Respond
Protective
Self-blame
Shame
Anger
Questioning
Confusion
Eroticization of the assault and of her/his response
The need to “fix” it

15. How men “know” to respond
Refer back to the manhood box…
To protect
“Going after him”
With anger
At their loved one
At the assaulter
At the situation
At the police/hospital/advocate

16. Helping Men Support Their Loved One
Encourage men to support themselves
Educate men to combat their mis-understandings and myths
Combat victim-blaming
Challenge self-blame
Focus their rage
Promote Emotional literacy

17. Addressing Protectionism
Educate about the control aspects of GBV
How his protectionism can come across as controlling
What’s beneath their desire to protect

18. Combating Self-blame
Assume he’s blaming himself and pro-actively combat it
“it’s not her fault” -- it’s not yours either
How self-blame diverts his attention from actively supporting his loved one

19. Addressing Anger Normalize Encourage expression Create boundaries
How to express
Express to who
Provide an outlet

20. Countering Victim-blaming
Assume this is going on
Normalize and challenge
Interrupt his “why” questions
Make sure he doesn’t ask “why”
Educate

21. Thank-you!
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