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If you've been following the recent New York Times and Boston Globe reporting on efforts to get teenage girls to recognize and leave abusive relationships, I really recommend Courtney Martin's column today on our main site. Courtney points out the problems with placing all the responsibility for preventing violence on the shoulders of young women, when what's really to blame are cultural attitudes that teach boys that anger, power, control, and violence are authentic ways to "be a man." She comes up with an interesting analogy:
Of course young women must be educated about dating violence and encouraged to protect themselves. Of course they can play a role in reimagining masculinity, in discouraging the men they love from falling into tired stereotypes. But holding young women primarily responsible for preventing male violence is like telling young men that ending the epidemic of eating disorders in this country is ultimately up to them. Sure, there is a thin ideal, a $40 billion diet industry, and psychological, physiological, and genetic influences at work, but that's nothing that a little encouragement from a supportive boyfriend can't solve, right?This isn't a perfect analogy, because boyfriends often do pressure their girlfriends to be thinner, whereas women are hardly out there asking their male partners to be physically, verbally, or emotionally abusive. Still, it's an interesting thought experiment.--Dana Goldstein
