During Weekly Address, President Obama announces White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault
Sign the petition to urge President Obama to engage leaders from the men’s movement in new White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault
This week President Obama announced the new White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. The task force will be led by the Council for Women and Girls.
This task force is a really good thing. We desperately need to work on reporting, enforcement and survivor support. It’s the second half of the speech that really struck me, when he calls on men to join in the prevention of violence.
Sexual violence hit close to home for me when I learned at 15 years old that a close friend had survived an assault at church. Within a few months I heard dozens of similar survivor stories as word got around that I would compassionately listen. Devastated by the scale of the issue at high school and then college, I dove into becoming a solution to the problem. I had a dream that one day the President of the United States would openly encourage men to stand up and end sexual violence.
There are a few reasons why men need to be involved:
1. Men’s Programs Actually Work: According to a study published in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice showed that high risk men who were involved with a men’s program committed 40% fewer sexually coercive acts during their first year of college than a control group who did not (OneInFourUSA.org).
2. Men Are Also Survivors: Researchers have found that 1 in 6 men experienced abusive sexual experiences before age 18 (1in6.org).
3. Men are often among the secondary survivors – loved ones of a survivor – who need protocol and support to help heal the trauma.
There are no specifics yet about how the Council for Women and Girls will include men in the task force, so I’ve created a petition and a letter to the president with recommendations on how to involve men in the prevention piece of the puzzle.
The full letter is at AlliedMensMovement.INFO.
Here is the petition to urge President Obama to engage leaders from the men’s movement in order to solve the prevention piece of the puzzle.
Click here to sign the petition
We need 100,000 signatures before February 26th in order to get a response, your voice matters!
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Recommendations from the letter (happy to receive feedback and suggestions below):
1. Involve national fraternities in the process from the beginning
- My work with national fraternities (namely the Balanced Man Program of Sigma Phi Epsilon) has proven the drive, capability, and immediate effect of this motivated and connected network.
2. Engage with male athletes, bringing professional athletes in as mentors.
- Student athletes are highly visible males on campus, carrying outsized influence and impact with these messages. Athletic directors and coaches preach integrity as a competitive advantage proven by visionaries like John Wooden. Vocal leadership and a team mentality can quickly turn into powerful allies in this campaign.
3. Promote awareness through campus speakers to incoming first year students, fraternity members, and athletes at every school.
- I speak… and there are excellent professionals and organizations who speak directly to the target groups of young men at the college level. A non-exhaustive list includes: A Call to Men, Jackson Katz, 1in6, and there are many others.
4. Leverage student organizations specifically to support this campaign
- We created our own program in Men With Integrity on campus at SMU. I recommend using the systems that have proven successful through organizations like Men Can Stop Rape and One In Four. The systems already exist, the students can use them to lead this charge.
5. Partner with men’s content sources
- Work with TheGoodMenProject.com and other men’s media, use the existing platform to get the word out. We can reach millions of people per month with this message if driven by a powerful vision and strategy.
This task force has the unique opportunity to unite the men’s movement with the women’s movement to affect powerful change. We’ve been waiting more than a century for this alliance to happen at the highest level. I believe that many good men are ready to step up and end sexual assault in America. They just need guidance, a protocol, and a call to action. United, we can stand strong against this heinous crime.
The post Open Letter to The President: Engage Men in New Task Force to End Sexual Assault On Campus appeared first on The Good Men Project.