Deconstructing Male Violence Against Women

This essay is a reading summary & reflection paper. For this paper I have attached an article from Sage Publications titled Deconstructing Male Violence Against Women: The Men Stopping Violence Community-Accountability Model. The other source is from the book “Forsaken Females by Andrea Parrot & Nina Cummings. For this source use only material from Chapter 11 of the book pages 201-207. For this paper please write a summary & analysis from both sources. Please reflect upon what you’ve read and connect both sources together while raising questions that could be addressed in a discussion. Below is the article from Sage Publications is you do not have access to their articles. Deconstructing Male Violence Against Women : The Men Stopping
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247
Authors’ Note: This model and the accompanying ideas presented here are the result of 24 years of work
by the Men Stopping Violence community. The authors would like to acknowledge the leadership of
founding Executive Director Kathleen Carlin and current Executive Director Shelley Serdahely, whose
contributions made this work possible.
Violence Against Women
Volume 14 Number 2
February 2008 247-261
© 2008 Sage Publications
10.1177/1077801207312637
http://vaw.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Deconstructing Male Violence
Against Women
The Men Stopping Violence
Community-Accountability Model
Ulester Douglas
Dick Bathrick
Phyllis Alesia Perry
Men Stopping Violence
Men Stopping Violence (MSV), a 24-year-old metro Atlanta-based organization that works
to end male violence against women, uses an ecological, community-based accountability
model as the foundation of its analysis of the problem of male violence against women and
of its work with individuals and in communities. The MSV community-accountability
model of male violence against women offers a view of the cultural and historical mechanisms
that support violence against women. The model, and the strategies and programs
that have grown out of it, demonstrate the potential for disrupting traditions of abuse and
dominance at the individual, familial, local, national, and global levels.
Keywords: community accountability; ecological model; male violence; prevention
Beyond Batterers’ Intervention
Since the last quarter of the 20th century, classes offered through batterers’ intervention
programs (BIPs) have become a common strategy for working with men to
intervene in cases of violence against women. Although Men Stopping Violence
(MSV) offers a 6-month BIP for men, this program represents only part of the larger
work of the organization. MSV’s analysis of male violence against women indicates
that greater involvement by men who are not identified as batterers—involvement in
the course as well as in other MSV programs—has the potential for increasing the
safety of the women who live in those communities. In addition to the BIP, a significant
segment of MSV’s work is identifying, educating, and organizing these male
allies and potential male allies and includes such efforts as
Advocate/Activist Note
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248 Violence Against Women
1. The Because We Have Daughters™ initiative, which helps men look at life through
their daughters’ eyes, heightening their awareness of the culture of violence and
beginning the dialogue necessary to create change. The program is a series of fun
and educational activities for men and their daughters but also provides opportunities
for them to talk about difficult and challenging issues.
2. Community education and training: MSV provides an average of 30 community education
presentations yearly to religious institutions, colleges, criminal justice organizations,
other nonprofits, corporations, government agencies, and civic organizations.
3. The Community Restoration Program (CRP), which provides a setting in which
volunteers and men who have successfully completed the BIP continue to give and
receive support, complete community projects, and educate the community about
violence against women.
4. The MSV Internship Program, for young men who are interested in becoming
allies in the work to end violence against women. MSV provides mentors who
demonstrate how to deconstruct long-held notions of manhood and support young
men while they do the hard work of self-examination and advocacy.
5. Parenting classes, which MSV offers to address the needs of families in which
violence has destroyed the fabric of healthy parent–child relationships. The
program teaches effective, nonviolent parenting skills and emphasizes a collaborative
approach.
6. The Mentor Training Program (MTP), which trains male college students to mentor
high school boys who are having disciplinary problems and are at risk for
dropping out. The MTP focuses on training mentors to rely on strategies that
value education and reflect healthy definitions of masculinity.
Why a Community-Centered Approach?
In developing its programs and strategies, MSV uses an analysis of the global
patriarchal system to educate men about the causes of male violence against women.
This analysis uses a definition of patriarchy that closely parallels that espoused by
author and activist bell hooks (2004), who writes that patriarchy is
A political–social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to
everything and anyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right
to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various
forms of psychological terrorism and violence. (p. 18)
MSV’s analysis views this political–social system as an ideological, global one
that is sustained and strengthened by smaller, related systems at the familial, local,
and national levels. The analysis focuses on the roles of interconnected community
systems in both socializing men and reinforcing patriarchal male behavior.
MSV advocates a shift of focus from intervention to prevention strategies that seek
to educate a critical mass of men to work in their communities. In this way, not only
men who are identified as batterers but all men can become potential change agents.
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There are a number of reasons for this community-based focus. First, research
indicates that nationally, the number of men attending BIPs represents only a fraction
of those who commit violence against women; most BIP participants are courtreferred,
but a significant number of incidents of violence against women never
make it to the courts. The National Institute of Justice has reported that approximately
80% of the men participating in BIPs surveyed nationwide were courtreferred
(Healy, Smith, & O’Sullivan, 1998). At MSV, at least 50% of men in the BIP
at any one time are court-ordered. However, information gathered by the Bureau of
Justice Statistics shows that between 1993 and 1998, an average of 47% of the incidents
of intimate partner violence that occurred in the United States (about 400,000
incidents) were never reported to the police (Rennison & Welchans, 2000). Given all
of these reasons, there is a need for solutions that engage a greater number of men
in order to increase the safety of those women and girls who do not turn to the criminal
justice system for relief.
Also, the make-up of intervention classes, including those conducted by MSV,
does not reflect the demographic diversity of men who batter. While domestic violence
crimes are committed by men in all race and socioeconomic categories, men of
color and working-class men are arrested and prosecuted for domestic violence
crimes in disproportionate numbers.
Second, in interactions with men in BIP classes over the years, MSV facilitators
have come to believe that community-based strategies are key to affecting lasting
social change. BIP classes, therefore, are not closed and confidential but focused on
men in relation to their communities. That is why the process of deconstructing the
context of men’s sociocultural reality has taken a central role in the work that MSV
undertakes in the BIP. MSV facilitators believe that without knowledge of how interconnected
familial and community systems rooted in patriarchy have influenced individuals,
men cannot be in possession of the tools needed for true change of their
behaviors and attitudes. MSV works on the premise that gaining insight into the way
their life patterns are formed and informed by patriarchal systems allows men to disrupt
those patterns by coming together to support each other in the process of change
and hold each other accountable for abusive and sexist behaviors.
However, even those men who are somewhat successful in changing their attitudes
and behaviors through work in the BIP deal with the ongoing challenge in
resisting socializing patriarchal messages. This speaks to the need for a nonpatriarchal
cultural paradigm and to the need for men who will create it.
MSV’s answer to these challenges is to develop programs outside of the realm of
batterers’ intervention such as Because We Have Daughters and the CRP that create
a climate of community accountability. The organization seeks out, educates, and
supports men who demonstrate both the interest and the will to take on the work of
ending violence against women.
Douglas et al. / Deconstructing Male Violence Against Women 249
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The MSV Community-Accountability Model
The MSV community-accountability model of male violence against women is a
representation of the context in which violence against women occurs and the foundation
of a strategy that seeks community-based solutions to addressing that violence.
This ecological model is central to the work MSV does with men in the classroom
and in communities, because it offers a view of the cultural and historical mechanisms
that support violence against women. Being able to view these mechanisms in relationship
to each other assists in creating intervention and prevention strategies that
have the potential to disrupt traditions of abuse and dominance. It indicates that corrective
actions at every level of community—individual, familial, local, national, and
global—have the potential to shift cultural norms toward a more egalitarian standard.
This model allows MSV to view men—batterers or not—not only as individuals
who sometimes engage in “bad” behavior but as people in relationship with their environment
and with other individuals and groups that perform socializing functions.
MSV’s work seeks to not only intervene at different community levels to encourage
individuals to change but also to train men to become catalysts who shift social norms
toward nonviolent, nonsexist, nonpatriarchal manifestations. MSV views community
accountability in this sense as more than sanctions imposed by the criminal–legal
system, social service agencies, and other government entities. MSV strategies seek to
augment intervening actions from these official systems with nongovernmental actions
initiated by individuals making up a number of different kinds of communities—for
example, family, the workplace, faith communities, and schools.
Interlocking Communities
The MSV Community-Accountability Model depicts five levels of community
influence: the individual, the primary community, the microcommunity, the macrocommunity,
and the global community. The individual male, his actions, and the
forces that act upon him, are represented by the smallest ellipse in the model (see
Figure 1). The primary community is that group just outside of the individual, consisting
of his family of origin, school friends, clubs, gangs, or any group that fulfills
a familial role. Beyond this is the microcommunity (faith communities, school systems,
civic groups, social service agencies); the macrocommunity (religion, governments,
mass media, high level courts such as the U.S. Supreme court, corporations);
and the global community (patriarchy and colonialism).
The arrows indicate the flow of energy and influence among these communities
and how they act upon each other and how actions at each level influence the other
levels. Energy and influence flow not only from the global community through
smaller levels down to the individual, but also in the opposite direction; actions that
occur in each community have the potential to affect change in other communities
or to maintain the status quo.
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251 Figure 1
The Men Stopping Violence Community-Accountability Model of Male Violence Against Women
© 2006 Men Stopping Violence. Reprinted with permission.
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The patriarchal cultural system upheld by interactions between communities
ensures that boys and men encounter powerful messages establishing male
supremacy as the historical and cultural norm. Men and boys of every race, nationality,
ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation internalize the notion of male privilege
and use it in their everyday lives. Major and minor norm-setting institutions send
explicit and implicit messages to boys and girls, men and women, about the superiority
of men. Girls and women also internalize the message that male dominance is
an established norm that must either be accepted or resisted, and neither choice
ensures a woman’s safety from male violence.
The Classroom as Catalyst for Change
The MSV community-accountability model views the individual male who acts
abusively and violently as being obedient to a cultural mandate to dominate and control
women and willing to defend the structure of the patriarchal system. Although
most male behavior toward women and children cannot be legally defined as battering,
most men and boys are highly competent in the use of dominance and control in a variety
of conscious and unconscious ways. Protecting this male privilege takes many
forms, of which physical and sexual violence are at one end of the continuum. Men not
identified as batterers support the destructive mythology of patriarchy by using emotional
manipulation, economic control, sexist behaviors and language, threats and
intimidation, or by merely being silent in the face of other men’s sexist and violent
behaviors. Though he may not physically abuse women, the nonbatterer can contribute
to the climate in which violence occurs, and he lives as both a tool and a puppet of a
culture that devalues women’s lives.
African American men and men in other marginalized groups also encounter powerful
cultural messages and internalize the notion of male privilege. MSV’s analysis
recognizes that these men may be victims of racism, classism, and heterosexism and
simultaneously exercising male privilege in relationships.
Based on this analysis, MSV uses programmatic tools to influence change at the
individual level, change that in turn has the potential to shift norms at other levels.
The 6-month BIP, which is open to all men, focuses on the causes of male violence
against women; the responsibility of men to be accountable and hold each other
accountable for violent, abusive, and sexist behaviors; and on strategies that any man
can use to encourage both personal and systemic change.
Learning about violence against women and its historical and cultural context invites
individual men to shift the way they view the world and their place in it. They are taught
that the use of coercion, dominance, and control in relationships with women reflects
their internalization of social norms that have been communicated to them through their
day-to-day interactions within primary communities, microcommunities, and macrocommunities.
They are challenged to accept responsibility for making choices that prevent
destructive behaviors.
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The coursework requires participants to hold each other accountable within the
classroom and also requires them to bring men from their communities, workplaces,
and families into class as witnesses who will act as accountability partners outside of
the classroom. The aim of inviting these community witnesses is, in part, to help men
who complete the program to sustain change. But just as important, the inclusion of
men from outside the program provides those men with opportunities to question and
challenge themselves and exposes them to the work of ending violence against
women. For example, the experience that Bill, a man from suburban Atlanta, had in
the BIP changed him and changed the dynamic of his family life, but his experience
also affected the lives of the four men from his church whom he brought to class to
witness his work. When Bill died, two of those men spoke at his funeral about the
changes Bill had made in his life. Bill’s family invited MSV facilitators to speak at
the funeral, and his wife and daughters also talked about the changes that they had
seen in him because of his involvement with MSV. Bill’s personal transformation
created a ripple effect that touched his family, his friends, his workplace, and his
church. His willingness to examine his beliefs and behaviors changed his life, but just
as important created changes in awareness at the primary and microcommunity levels
that continue to affect those communities long after his death.
Updates to the curriculum that are presently under way will take this community
involvement further by requiring program participants to create community projects
that address violence against women.
The Primary Community
The acceptance of male privilege may be so deeply embedded in a man’s identity
that separating himself from cultural definitions of manhood is often a wrenching
and frightening experience, especially because he first learns them within the circle
of family. At the level of primary community, which includes familial and fraternal
groups such as gangs, clubs, or Greek-letter organizations, spoken and unspoken rituals
teach gender-determined behaviors and responsibilities.
These groups provide the blueprint of the socializing process for males and
females, and in doing so establish explicit rules about how to see and treat those who
are labeled superior and inferior, whether because of their gender, race, sexual orientation,
or some other label. Familial groups are the primary rule makers and a
direct link to a male child’s knowledge about his place in the world.
In this process, boys and men are socialized to be aggressive. War imagery and
language are well integrated into everyday cultural life, and boys learn primarily
from male models that there are rewards for exhibiting certain behaviors—lack of
emotion, aggression, hardness, detachment, and unquestioning obedience to authority.
These same behaviors—cultivated in boys on the field of sports, in the classroom,
or in relationships—are the same as those used to train men and women in the military.
Essentially, the culture prepares boys to go to war.
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One of the biggest challenges for men who complete the course is attempting to
retain a worldview in which manhood is not defined by aggression. The BIP seeks
to ensure that a high percentage of men who complete it engage in specific actions
that make their environment safer for their partners and for other women in their
communities. They are then invited to not only anchor themselves in nonviolence but
also to become agents of community change.
As previously mentioned, men are invited to seek out other men in their lives who
may become part of a support network while still involved in the BIP. They are
required to bring male visitors to class—for example, family, pastors, coworkers, and
fraternity brothers—to witness the work they are doing to end violence in their lives.
These are some of the men who make up an individual’s primary community, and
merely having witnesses to the work going on in the BIP can change what happens in
that community. For example, in cases where sons witness the work that their fathers
are doing, men in class will have the chance to hear directly how their violence has
affected those close to them. In this way, the individual, personal transformative work
a man does begins to affect the primary community, in this case the family of origin.
In addition, men visiting the class will most likely recognize things about themselves
that feed the culture of male dominance and violence or be inspired to take
action in ways that affect change in the primary community and beyond. One such visitor
to the MSV classroom, a minister, was inspired by what he experienced during that
one-time interaction to begin a ministry in his church dealing with violence against
women; he made educating his congregation about the issue a priority. Therefore, one
man’s involvement in that program (individual level) inspired another man in his
personal circle (primary community level) to bring the work to a larger community
(microcommunity level).
The CRP, made up primarily of men who have completed the 6-month program,
engages in a number of activities to affect change in the primary community, microcommunity,
and macrocommunity. This group acts on a number of levels—as a men’s
accountability group, as support for other MSV programs, and as a community group
concerned with issues of women’s safety.
Another program that addresses primary community messages and socialization is
the parenting class, which gives men who have completed the BIP tools to help address
damage to family life caused by their violence and to establish healthy parent–child
relationships. The program emphasizes effective, nonviolent parenting skills and a collaborative
approach to providing positive guidance and creative limit setting for children.
The Microcommunity
The terms of male socialization into the familial environment are supported and
further mandated by the microcommunity—religious entities, social service agencies,
the legal system, the workplace, and educational and other community institutions.
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These arbiters of what’s moral and immoral, sane and insane, profitable and wasteful
enforce patriarchal codes in communities. They are the immediate interpreters of
what it means to be male and female in their community and what means should be
employed to maintain and reinforce gender-based social roles. It is still primarily men
in faith leadership positions who define and interpret what is right and wrong for their
congregations. It is primarily men, white men, who define and interpret the meaning
of the medical model and how to “treat” the “ill” in social service agencies as well as
who manage and set policy for most workplaces.
However, among the men who are part of these microcommunity entities are possible
male allies who have the potential to challenge social and cultural norms.
Those men who have completed the BIP have an educational foundation that has
prepared them to take on that role. They—along with other men in the community
who have an interest in ending violence against women—are invited to join the CRP.
In its function as a community group, CRP works on projects that educate the community
about violence against women.
Most of the men in CRP have been involved in the BIP. But in many ways, the
bigger challenge has been involving men who are not identified as violent. Early on
in the development of community-based programs, MSV recognized a number of
obstacles to identifying potential male allies and providing the programmatic structure
that would successfully involve those men in the work.
One way in which Men Stopping Violence met this challenge was to undertake,
through the Internship Program, the education and training of young men, particularly
young men of color who are often underrepresented in programs that focus on male violence
against women. The creation of meaningful and relevant ways of engaging young
men and the development of relationships with partner agencies and female advocates
have allowed MSV to mentor more than 30 young men, including 9 who went through
intensive summer internships in 2005 and 2006. A number of the men who completed
the internship have committed to continuing social justice work related to violence
against women, including two who work at the Georgia Commission on Family
Violence, the agency that certifies family violence intervention and prevention programs
for the state. Other young men who have completed the internship have taken their
advocacy education into careers as lawyers, ministers, and military officers as well as
back to college campuses.
A young man who recently completed the Internship Program helped launch
Because We Have Daughters, an MSV initiative designed to broaden men’s understanding
of the culture that women and girls have to navigate while trying to stay safe.
Fathers and daughters participate in a series of activities and outings that, although fun
and informative, have the potential to provide sufficient motivation for men to become
change agents in the work of ending violence against women. The aim of this program
is to not only deepen fathers’ understanding of and interactions with their daughters but
also to spark a shift in how those men interact with other females in their lives, including
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those they encounter outside their family. This is microcommunity influence that has
the potential to reach far beyond the men’s primary community.
Other work that MSV does at the microcommunity level includes trainings and presentations
to churches, workplaces, those who work with the legal and criminal justice
systems, colleges and universities, community groups, and others. These trainings
involve taking principles out of the BIP and into environments that quite often are
unrelated to standard batterers’ intervention. These trainings almost always provide a
catalyst and an opportunity for men in the community to become involved in the work
of ending men’s violence against women. Presentations to Morehouse College
students, for example, have resulted in young, African American men seeking volunteer
opportunities with MSV and other groups.
The Macrocommunity
Microcommunity institutions both support and are supported by the macrocommunity—
governments, mass media, corporations, and high-level courts such as the
U.S. Supreme Court. Institutions at this level of power and influence serve as gatekeepers.
Policies created by these institutions maintain racial, gender, class, and other
inequalities by defining and controlling what is considered normative. Furthermore, the
structures of these entities—how they are organized, their missions, their mechanisms—
are based on principles of race, gender, sexual orientation, and class inequalities that have
been in place for millennia. Patriarchy not only drives the ships of commerce, media, and
government, it determines who sails and their destinations.
Because laws and policies also have been created by governments, business, and
other organizations to counteract the effects of sexism, racism, classism and, to some
extent, heterosexism, especially in the last half of the 20th century, it might be easy
for people to dismiss the argument that these barriers still exist. At least it would be
easy for people not affected by sexism, racism, classism, or heterosexism to dismiss
them for any number of reasons. But the gains of the past generation by women and
other marginalized groups have not erased hundreds—indeed, thousands—of years of
oppression and its effects. In 2004, women still earned only 77 cents for every dollar
earned by men. Latinos, as a whole, earned 70 cents for every dollar earned by
Whites, and African Americans, as a whole, earned 62 cents for every dollar earned
by Whites (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Lee, 2005). Although women make up 51% of
the U.S. population, in 2007 only 16 U.S. senators (16%) and 71 U.S. representatives
(16.3%) were women (Center for the American Woman and Politics, 2007). People
of color are also underrepresented. For example, African Americans make up about
12% of the U.S. population but only 1% of the U.S. Senate and about 9% of the U.S.
House of Representatives (U.S. Senate, 2007; U.S. House of Representatives, 2007.)
One way that MSV seeks to influence change at the macrocommunity level is
through the work of the CRP. Its members regularly speak in favor of pending state
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legislation that promotes safety for women and against bills that do not. Recently,
men in the CRP helped organize and implement a successful campaign to support
federal legislation reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). CRP
members formed the core of a Georgia group called Men Supporting VAWA, which
worked to heighten awareness and organize meetings with Georgia’s U.S. senators
and representatives to lobby for passage of the reauthorization bill. The bill passed
and was signed into law in early 2006. So it is that CRP, an initiative originally
designed to affect change at the microcommunity level, expanded its role by actively
advocating at the macrocommunity level, that of national government.
Another way that MSV works at this level is by providing interventions, trainings,
and presentations to both microcommunity and macrocommunity institutions. MSV’s
work within the microcommunity provides a foundation for and strengthens its work
with macrocommunity groups such as corporations, national church organizations, the
U.S. military, government entities such as the Department of Defense, and health organizations
such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These interactions
create opportunities for small shifts in the entrenched culture of patriarchy that
open the door for greater change at all levels. MSV also has conducted trainings on
coordinated community response, organized by the U.S. Department of Justice’s
Office for Violence Against Women. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges
involved in those trainings have reported that MSV’s trainings encouraged them to
make changes in how they do their work in their own microcommunities.
Trainings can also help make social change possible for macrocommunity religious
institutions. In the early 1990s, MSV conducted a training with national church
denominational leaders working to end domestic violence in their congregations.
Afterwards, individual denominations began to request additional training. One of
those trainings was with high-ranking clergy in an international church organization,
including seven women. During the training, several of those women disclosed
that when they were young they had all been sexually abused by a high-ranking
church leader and theologian in their organization. MSV’s training then became that
of working with those denominational leaders, principally the men, on how they
could, in collaboration with the women, hold that man accountable.
The first step was teaching the principles of what it means for men to take responsibility
without jeopardizing women’s safety so that they could be prepared to confront
a powerful man in their church. Next, beginning at the training and continuing
over a number of months, the men and women developed an action plan that led to
a confrontation with this church leader and theologian and his eventual resignation
from his position. Ultimately, he was disciplined by his church.
This macrocommunity intervention was possible because of foundation-laying
work at the individual, primary community, and microcommunity levels, where principles
and practices have been examined, reexamined, and refined over many years
of development.
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The Global Community
Every act of violence against a woman is undergirded by thousands of years of
male privilege. The institutions we are familiar with at the macrolevel and microlevel
were established on a global foundation of male superiority that informs the histories,
social mores, and mythologies of cultures around the world. Patriarchy’s long history
is a large part of what gives it its power and authority.
The tradition of patriarchy is deeply rooted in the human story. Institutions were
built on this historical model, which has been adapted to fit the needs of governments,
media, businesses and corporations, and legal and court systems.
Although matriarchal and matrilineal societies may have existed in the ancient
and prehistoric past, the patriarchal model is the direct antecedent of today’s global
society. Surviving matriarchal and matrilineal societies are often marginalized.
MSV’s work at all of these levels of influence has the potential to influence global
change. In recent years, MSV staff members have traveled to Taiwan, Great Britain,
Canada, and the Caribbean to meet with other advocates and to exchange information,
emphasizing the importance of viewing violence against women as a problem
that must be the responsibility of the global community.
On one such trip, MSV was invited by the government of Taiwan to spend 8 days
there in April 2004, training 320 judges, law enforcement officers, BIP providers, and
advocates on effective interventions with batterers.
In December of that same year, MSV traveled to Great Britain and participated on
a training team that provided 2 days of technical assistance to 40 British government
officials, advocates, and batterers’ intervention providers. An MSV team returned to
Great Britain in March 2005 at the request of the government, bringing with them
their analysis as represented by the community-accountability model. While there,
the team shared expertise about organizing men and exchanged best practices and
lessons learned with those working on the issue of violence against women at the
community, local, and national levels.
The acts of individual men in maintaining male privilege are rewarded by normsetting
institutions at the primary, microcommunity, macrocommunity, and global
community levels. These institutions also punish those who deviate from the “norm,”
exerting enormous pressure to conform at every level. The interactions of all of these
entities and factors ensure that the system is self-sustaining.
The MSV Model in Relation to Other Ecological Models
Ecological models have been influential in sociological and psychological
research and the formation of social policy since psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner
began his work on human ecology using a model that showed the ways in which
family, culture, and environment shaped how children developed into adulthood. An
encyclopedia entry describing Bronfenbrenner’s work asserts:
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He calls these the microsystem (such as the family or classroom), the mesosystem (which
is two microsystems in interaction), the exosystem (which is a system influencing development,
i.e., parental, workplace), and the macrosystem (the larger cultural context).
Each system contains roles, norms, and rules that can powerfully shape development. The
major statement of this theory, The Ecology of Human Development (Harvard University
Press, 1979) had widespread influence on the way psychologists and others approached
the study of human beings and their environments. (Wikipedia, n.d.)
Variations of Bronfenbrenner’s model began to be applied to a number of research
subjects, including male violence against women. In their book, Intervention for Men
Who Batter: An Ecological Approach, Jeffrey L. Edleson and Richard M. Tolman
(1992) outlined a multisystems ecological framework that identifies the factors at
work in abusive men’s environments that contribute to their violence. They also recognized
the importance of historical and cultural norms in shaping societal views
about women and how those views contribute to male violence. Other variations
include those of Etienne G. Krug, Linda L. Dahlberg, J. A. Mercy, A. B. Zwi, and
R. Lozano (2002) and Lori L. Heise (1998).
A review of these and several other published models of violence and violence
against women shows that they have in common an emphasis on identifying risk factors
in order to excavate the causes of violence and, consequently, predict individual
behavior so that interventions can be developed.
The MSV community-accountability model identifies patriarchy as the root cause
of violence against women. It illustrates how that sociopolitical system instructs individuals
at different levels of community to enforce and reinforce messages of male
supremacy. The MSV model is not used to predict individual violent behavior by identifying
risk factors. It is used to identify the socializing messages and behaviors that
create a climate of violence so that responses can be crafted that advocate individual
responsibility while looking beyond the individual to encourage cultural change.
The differences between the MSV model and ecological models that focus on risk
factors can be illustrated by comparing the MSV model with the often-cited ecological
model by Heise (1998), the ecological model of factors associated with partner
abuse. Heise presents four spheres of influence represented by concentric circles
nested within each other. The innermost circle represents the individual perpetrator,
and radiating circles represent relationship, community, and society. Risk factors
identified at the level of individual perpetrator include witnessing marital violence,
being abused as a child, and being male. At the next level, relationship, risk factors
are marital conflict and male decision making. In the community sphere, poverty and
isolation of the woman are listed as risk factors. And at the last level, society, rigid
gender roles and acceptance of notions of male dominance are included (Heise,
Ellsberg, & Gottemoeller, 1999).
In comparison, MSV’s ecological model is organized around the different levels of
influence at which patriarchy asserts itself and identifies those levels at which patriarchal
norms can be disrupted. The MSV community-accountability model names the
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function of each level and focuses on the messages conveyed by each community represented.
How these communities interconnect and how those patriarchal messages
are interpreted, acted upon, and redeployed throughout the system of communities is
vital to understanding how individual men are influenced and how, in turn, they influence
the communities of which they are a part. So although MSV acknowledges the
need for individual responsibility, the organization also recognizes that communities
are responsible for addressing the messages and policies that create the climate in
which violence against women occurs.
Conclusion
The prevention and intervention strategies supported by the MSV communityaccountability
model require a dramatic shift in the day-to-day interactions between
program leaders, advocates, and the men with whom they work. BIPs historically
have treated the problem of men’s violence against women as an individual circumstance
that is addressed in the isolation of classes and men’s groups. The ongoing
challenge is to promote a view of prevention and intervention that gives more than
lip service to the idea that violence against women is a community problem that
demands a community-based response. Furthermore, taking leadership in shaping
that response means being willing to try new strategies and resist pressure to conduct
business as usual in the world of batterers’ intervention.
It is no small task. Communities of all sorts have in the past been willing to deny
ownership of the epidemic of violence against women. Part of that denial takes the
form of diverting violent men into BIPs without attempting to examine and challenge
the social context in which their violence takes place.
MSV seeks to openly challenge the messages men receive about the dominance
of women, not only in the classroom but also in the community. MSV invites allies
in the community to support multiple models of manhood that do not equate masculinity
with power and control over women. That support takes the form of holding
all men accountable by challenging men who batter as well as men who do not.
MSV is advocating for no less than a paradigm shift away from a methodology
that focuses primarily on batterers and toward one that provides all men with opportunities
to work with women to make our communities safer.
References
Center for the American Woman in Politics. (2007). Women in U.S. Congress fact sheet. Retrieved
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Edleson, J. L., & Tolman, R. M. (1992). Interventions for men who batter: An ecological approach. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Healy, K., Smith, C., & O’Sullivan, C. (1998). Batterer intervention: Program approaches and criminal justice
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Heise, L. L. (1998) Violence against women: An integrated, ecological framework. Violence Against
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Ulester Douglas is the director of training for Men Stopping Violence. He has authored and coauthored
articles and curricula on violence against women and provided consultation, training, and presentations
to such organizations as the National Association of Attorneys General, the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Defense. He has served on the National Network to End
Domestic Violence (NNEDV) board and on other boards and committees, including the National Violence
Against Women Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He has been honored by
the National Black Herstory Task Force and by Lifetime Television for Women and the NNEDV.
Dick Bathrick cofounded Men Stopping Violence in 1982 and is currently the director of programs, overseeing
all program initiatives, including community education, the Internship Program, and the Community
Restoration Program. He has co-led trainings for such organizations as the National Council of Churches,
the U.S. Army, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. He also has co-led international
training initiatives for governmental officials, social service workers, and women’s advocates in the
United Kingdom and Taiwan. Among his affiliations are the American Association of Marriage and Family
Therapists, the National College of District Attorneys, and the National Institute of Justice.
Phyllis Alesia Perry is the staff writer for Men Stopping Violence. She is a prize-winning journalist and
novelist. She worked for 16 years for newspapers and was part of a writing and editing team at The
Alabama Journal that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Her first novel, Stigmata, was published in 1998 in
five countries. In 1999, she was named Georgia Author of the Year in the First Novel category for
Stigmata, which was also a Quality Paperback Book Club New Voices Award nominee and a Bookof-
the-Month Club selection. Her second novel, A Sunday in June, was published in 2004.
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