Spoiled by performance

I'm still at the beginning and I will keep listening because I know the author's work, his commitment and his generosity, so I trust the book will tell me much of his experience as an activist who speaks to men against gender violence. The only problem I have so far is the reading, incredibly monotonous and flat: despite the burning human content of the book, and despite the author's explicit warnings against becoming desensitized to this topic, he seems to be reading the news, I hear no difference in tone from the quotes, to the stories, to the arguments made in the book. I will power through, because as I said I need to know the content, but the reader is merely acknowledging the text and doesn't do much to make it compelling or engaging...

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Enlightening listen

Firstly, I’d like to say that I really did learn a lot from the author, I’ve found his work via a podcast interview and that led me to delve deeper.

It’s an enlightening listening experience but I have to say that I found the timbre of the narration a little difficult to stay engaged with. Maybe it’s because I’m an English man coming to the audiobook but for me it upbeat style belied the serious nature of the discussion.

Still I learnt a great deal that I will take away from this.

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A much needed and valuable shift in perspective.

Jackson Katz clearly and concisely debunks the myth that men’s violence against women and girls is a ‘woman’s issue’ and whilst he acknowledges that women can, and do, have a role to play in recovery and awareness raising, for women and girls who have been or may potentially be, subjected to male violence, he is also very clear in stating that responsibility for prevention lies primarily with men and boys.
However, he does so in a way that presents this potential attitudinal and behavioural change as beneficial not only to women and girls, but also to boys and men themselves, and therefore for society more broadly.
Katz focusses on societal values, beliefs and long held misconceptions, not to let perpetrators ‘off the hook’ but to demonstrate that we cannot rely on change at an individual, personal level. The problem, and therefore the solution, must reach far beyond this.

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