Healthy Masculinity: Working to end sexual assault

I attended the Healthy Masculinity Gathering hosted by Church and Society in October.

I was not sure what to expect at this meeting. When we all met for dinner on the first night, I was happy to see a mixed group of people. We had both men and women, people from various racial backgrounds and several people from outside the U.S. Taken together, we each had different life experiences and lived in different cultural contexts.

One of the most impactful discussions centered around how women are taught to protect themselves by preventing sexual assault. An average woman participates in approximately 189 thoughts or actions to prevent sexual assault each day. As we talked it through, we were able to identify several of these thoughts and actions.

We then followed this exercise by asking: how many times a day do men think about preventing themselves from being raped? As a group, we could only think of one thing: Don’t go to prison. It was clear: most men do not worry about sexual assault outside of “what happens if I go to prison,” while women consider sexual assault daily.

One participant from outside the U.S. talked about the gender expectations in their culture. They said that many men in his communities believe it is a “man’s right” to “take” a woman if they want to, when they want to.

While they were talking about a different culture than mine, I see similar attitudes in many of the men in this country. We’ve heard a lot of their names in the news recently. Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK and Kevin Spacey, just to name three.

We have plenty of work to do as we try to define what a man should be, both within the church and the larger society. We need to work through oppressive structures like racial profiling, stereotyping, the sexualization of women in marketing and media, and cultural perceptions of gender roles.

How will we work to remove the gender boxes in which we place men and women? How will we empower one another as humans and siblings in Christ, rather than placing gender-specific constraints on each other? How will we, as a people, stand up for our sisters and brothers, sons and daughters?

Maya Angelou said, “When you know better, you do better.” It is our job as people of faith to do better. We do so not out guilt or sadness, but out of joy and appreciation for the gift of life that Jesus has given us.

Charlie Ludden works with youth and young adults ministries for the Oklahoma Annual Conference and serves as the associate director of Project Transformation Oklahoma.