Written by Rachel Redfern
The first ten minutes of Katz’s talk is filled with effusive praise for feminism and what it’s accomplished. Past that though, during the last 10 minutes of his talk he says that he wants to change people from the level of leadership. He suggests that we work within the existing framework to change patriarchy by teaching patriarchs (CEOs, coaches and other leaders) to stick up for women.
Say hello to corporate feminism.
This corporate feminism is basically the patriarchy co-opting feminism and using it, not only as a way to make money for their leadership seminars, but also as a way to continue to promote the status quo of women being taken care of by their male leaders in jobs that are notoriously difficult for women to get. Within Katz’s idea, women are still held apart from the leadership positions that could help to make the changes that directly affect them.
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| What ‘leadership’ should look like. I suppose. |
Worse than that, those leadership seminars continue to promote ideas of hierarchy and authority. What do these expensive leadership courses say to their students? “Someone has to be in charge.” “Life is like a boat; there has to be a captain, otherwise it would be chaos.” “People need to listen to you because you’re in charge.” “Take control of a situation.” Hierarchy, hierarchy, hierarchy. Move within the system: Maintain, maintain, maintain.
Katz believes that these leaders of men should be held accountable for the disparaging and inappropriate things that they say. I agree; of course men in powerful positions should be held accountable for their actions and for the things that they say. I hope that media, bloggers, and viewers will continue to go further in demanding such levels of accountability from those around us. And then comes the sales pitch: “We need more leadership training.” Guess what Jackson Katz does for a living? Leadership training. He wants to teach men in power to stand up for women. Are we, as a culture, saying we live in a world where in order to attain a level of common human decency men have to participate in weeklong, over-priced corporate leadership training programs?
Are we so naïve that we believe adult men don’t already know that they should be nice to women? These men (the ones in those amazing and out-of-reach-for-thousands-of-qualified-women leadership positions), are most likely men of education and world experience, and they know that disrespecting women is inappropriate. It’s like telling a group of college kids to not answer their phone during a lecture. Everyone knows you shouldn’t answer your phone during a lecture and we shouldn’t even give the idea credence by positioning it as an option of ignorance. They know better and cries of, “my leadership training program didn’t teach me not to say sexist, disrespectful things about the other half of the population” just isn’t a good excuse and we shouldn’t allow it to become one.
If people say sexist, racist, homophobic, and other offensive remarks, more conveniently placed “corporate feminism” isn’t going to save the day. The day is going to be saved when good people speak out (yes, even those who don’t get to become NBA coaches) using a strong sense of justice and morality without relying on leadership training to do so.
Katz states (timestamp 16:37) that it is “institutional authority” which will save us all. In a larger sense, perhaps it will, as in the case of policemen who arrest perpetrators of domestic abuse, and violence and the justice system which tries and judges them. However, propagating “institutional authority” and its intense vestiges of patriarchy and hierarchy are the problem. We can no longer be happy with the meager scraps of freedom that these ideologies continue to throw at us; we need to be more assertive, more demanding of our rights and the need for respect for others and ourselves. Don’t worry; I’m not calling for torches and pitchforks to storm the castle, but I am saying that we shouldn’t rely on the overblown theories of benevolent authority and patriarchy.
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| Demotivator® genius. Demotivator® truth? |
This leadership training is a minor subversion that ultimately still reinforces the establishment of control that is already in place.
I’ll be honest. I resent the notion that I have to rely on the good will of university presidents, coaches and CEOs to lead the way in my own beliefs of right and wrong. I don’t need their leadership though; rather, I need them stop doing bad things and getting away with it. I’m freely capable of knowing good from evil, offensive and inoffensive, without Joe Paterno’s expertise, thank you very much. This idea puts down everyday, good people and robs them of the ability to make powerful changes, by placing that ability on the shoulders of other, more distant folks.
Now, on a few things I do agree with Katz: these issues affect everyone and they should not be designated solely as women’s issues or men’s; rather they are overwhelmingly society’s issues, humanity’s issues, human rights issues. And I believe that there are wonderful men and women out there desperately trying to fix these problems; even Katz’s sincerity and excited approach is necessary. But continuing to perpetuate the systems that are doing the damage by reinforcing so many structures of control and hierarchy is not the way to fundamentally change all the problems inherent within those systems.
Katz closes with this statement: “We need more men with the guts, with the courage, with the strength, with the moral integrity to break our implicit silence and challenge each other and stand with women, not against them.” I would posit that we should change that “men” into “people” and say that just as much as we need people with the courage to speak out, we also need people with the courage to tear down and rebuild the systems of privilege and hierarchy, not reinforce them.
What do you think? Is the Katz talk a brilliant harbinger of change and feminism? Or relying too much on patriarchal authority?
Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.
Firstly, excuse my ignorance on the topic as I haven’t read his books but just recently watched the TED video of which this post is discussing. (For my credit I tried to Google opposing viewpoints within the feminist community).
Isn’t he just issuing a directed conversation? More specifically, engaging an specific audience within the context of our current patriarchal situation? The way I see this is that he’s basically targeting his pro-feminist efforts in a way that engages the currently existing patriarchal structure using the language and tactics they understand to possibly illicit the greatest amount of change. Whether or not this language/rhetoric is effective or healthy in the future, hopefully more progressive world would be kind of missing the point wouldn’t it?
I feel, (Important adjective), that history isn’t always made in leaps and bounds but through progressive steps in the right direction, and that these small steps are the tenacious shims that provide the leverage for taking the truly giant steps. I recognize that I’m not providing much in the way of substantiated claims here, and I can think of many major figures in social change who made radical steps… but perhaps only after a bedrock of incremental changes? *Begging the question*
Educated feminists: Please find faults in this, (Aside from those I’ve already pointed out). Illuminate me so that I can learn more! As a male who is broadly supportive but only recently working to learn more about feminism I often find these types of conversations very intimidating O_O
Geoff, Great response. Sorry we’re just seeing the comment now.
With any great movement I think that baby steps is probably necessary for progress. But, that’s not going to do everything.
And of course the TED talk format is one of conversation, but the reason I chose to address it was because of the amount of media attention it received. It seemed that he was mostly using the TED talk as a way to drum up more business for his ‘corporate training’ programs, despite his enthusiasm for the topic.
Did you get the feeling that you were being sold something when you watched it?
You certainly aren’t the first person to point out that Jackson wants to sell his product. I’ve been at conferences where Jackson speaks, and there’s always a few understandable grumbles. Nonetheless, such programs that target men with anti-violence training are proven to be effective at reducing rates of violence (I don’t know about MVP specifically, but the general idea of educating men in how to not be sexist and violent, especially one backed up with as much research as his, seem hard to go wrong with—Katz has a PhD in his field). You can criticize Jackson for not having a silver bullet that will kill the white, capitalist patriarchy in a single agonizing throe of death, but then nobody is exempt from that criticism (certainly nobody at TED, it’s a forum for rich capitalists run by Silicon Valley types).
If you mean to suggest that Jackson is insincere about his work and only in it for the money, I have to be blunt: Jackson is a good guy who sincerely cares about creating a more peaceful and equitable society, and is very sensitive to all of the concerns of the social justice world. I know of few men more genuinely passionate or knowledgable about gender justice and gender theory, or more effective at delivering messages. In particular, I know of few people more insightful into and angrier over the failure of our media to cover the role of (socially constructed) masculinity in mass shootings, and he certainly isn’t so vocal about that because he’s thinks he can make money off of gender theory work that criticizes the MSM.
Jackson didn’t become the first man to minor in women’s studies at UMass because he wanted to make money. He did it because he recognized that men are the problem in most of the world, and happens to think he can do more good by trying to change men than by extending his efforts beyond what he is capable of. I’m all for pointing out the limits of capitalist patriarchy and corporate leadership BS—I’ve been forced to smell some of that crap from time to time—and I’m sure Jackson would be receptive to that too. And I think he’s a much more positive force than you make him out to be.
My problem with Katz is not his proposed solution but his misdiagnosis of the problem. He, like many others in this field, perpetuate the myth that DV is all about male initiated violence against women; the research on the subject is unequivocal is showing that this is incorrect. The largest form of DV is female initiated reciprocal violence, followed by female only violence. As long as the problem is misdiagnosed, solutions will fail.
Where are you getting your data? Because I call bullshit. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/23/domestic-violence-statistics_n_5959776.html
Donald Dutton and Murray Straus; I prefer to get my information from peer-reviewed academics, rather than opinion pieces in the Huffington Post.