To Prevent Men from Raping Women

Kristen asks "Why are there ... no classes for men on how to recognize attitudes and trends within themselves, their friends, and society in general, which leave a back door open for rape to happen?"

So how do you answer? What would you -- or do you -- tell boys, adolescent males, or full grown men?

My spouse and I tend to talk with our son and our daughters about sexism together in the same room. However, we also have times where she talks with the girls and I speak with the boy in different ways. My wife, for example, discusses with our daughters the fact that societies worldwide -- as Mary Pipher and Margaret Mead and Simone de Beauvoir but not Sigmund Freud nor Aristotle nor the male pastor in the church down the street, for instance, have observed -- view females as sex objects. From adolescence to menopause really, there is little relief from the external sexism. While I work with my son on his potential complicentcy in de-valuing people whose bodies are sexed female, on his views of girls and women. He has had one serious long-term relationship with a young woman in college, and their insistence together on egalitarianism was important, and to me was impressive, unusual.

But we're still learning. What would you advise us read, or have your own maturing children read? What should young men study?

Men Who Rape: The Psychology of the Offender by A. Nicholas Groth?

Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape by Susan Brownmiller?

The insightful Transforming a Rape Culture, written by notable feminist women and men (edited by Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth)?

And why shouldn't men (and not just women only) know and read He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know by Jessica Valenti

2 Men on HairDos

Aristotle and then Paul/Saul write about hairdos. I'll spare you their Greek (and won't bother you with which hairdressing schools they went to either).

"The front part of the head goes bald because the brain is there and man is the only animal to go bald, because his brain is much the largest and moistest. Women do not go bald."

--Aristotle, DE GENERATIONE, 784a (translated by A. L. Peck, 1943)

"Again, one quality or action is nobler than another if it is that of a naturally finer being: thus a man's will be nobler than a woman's. . . Things that deserve to be remembered are noble, and the more they deserve this, the nobler they are. . . So are the distinctive qualities of a particular people, and the symbols of what it specially admires, like long hair in Sparta, where this is a mark of a free man, as it is not easy to perform any menial task when one's hair is long."

--Aristotle, RHETORIC, 1367a (translated by W. Rhys Roberts, 1954)

"Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her head -- it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. (For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.) That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels. (Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.) Judge for yourselves; is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her pride? For her hair is given to her for a covering."

--Paul, I CORINTHIANS, 11:1-16 (Revised Standard Version translators, 1946)