Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

[Alan Berkowitz <>]

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to comment on the urinal splash guard idea.  I am against
it, and agree completely with Deborah Shipper's concerns about it.  In
addition, I would like to support Kris' experience of men reacting
negatively to it.  The key to effectively working with men is to 
approach us respectfully and engage us in a way that reduces our 
defensiveness. Splash guards messages may be unanticipated, surprising, 
simplistic, and too "in your face" (no pun intended) to accomplish this. 
 Putting them in bar urinals, as was done at Penn State, is even worse 
in my opinion because some of the men who see them in this context will 
be inebriated and react very negatively. I certainly don't mind 
upsetting men who may need some consciousness raising, but I want to be 
there when it happens to help them process it and look at the situation 
differently.

I believe that there are more effective ways for us to work with men to
engage them in being allies with women to prevent sexual assault.  These
methods are labor intensive, and we must beware of simplistic solutions.
Even social norms marketing messages to prevent sexual assault, which
have been shown to be effective in some cases, are not as simple as they
appear and are the result of extensive data analysis, message testing,
and media development.

On this note, there is an interesting paper on my website
(www.alanberkowitz.com) first authored by Pat Fabiano suggesting that
the strongest predictor of whether men intervene to prevent sexual
assault is if men think that other men will intervene to prevent sexual
assault.  This is the key to working with men - get men to let other men
know about our discomfort with some men's behavior.  As long as we think
that we are alone in our concern, we will remain as bystanders afraid of
other men's reactions.  In my opinion, splash guards with messages of
any kind do not address these important issues or anything else that is
relevant to successful work with men.

With regards to Deborah's comment that women can prevent rape, I would
like to make the following additional point (which results from many
enlightening discussions with Deborah about this topic.) I would like to 
suggest that the word "prevent" is being used in two subtly different 
ways.  As Deborah said in her post,

"if a man attempts rape, we CAN prevent him from accomplishing rape."

In my opinion, the goal of working with men is to get men to "prevent"
women from having to "prevent" men from accomplishing rape. I support
Deborah's clarification because we must find a way to do this that does
not implicitly or explicitly disempower women in any way.  Creating fear
in women through "risk reduction" is not a solution.

Sincere regards to all.


Alan Berkowitz



PS  I think that it may have been Michael Kimmel and not Michael Scarce 
who made the splash guard suggestion.