Blog
We Need to Talk About Men
When we have been harmed and we do not have a safe outlet to express our pain, we are more likely to hurt others and/or to hurt ourselves. Boys and men are often socialized not to talk about their feelings, not to cry, or seek support. Many young men are given explicit and implicit messages that if they’ve been hurt the only acceptable emotion is anger. And where does that anger go? If we want to make strides in prevention, we have to explicitly acknowledge that all genders can experience sexual and domestic violence. We have to hold ourselves accountable if we are creating harm and silencing survivors by upholding a gender binary when working to prevent gender-based violence. We have to examine how the standards of traditional masculinity harm everyone, including men.
Loving an Abuser: How I navigated the harsh realization that my friend was an abuser
I didn’t want to believe that he was capable of hurting someone. I also didn’t want to believe that I was capable of loving someone who could be an abuser.