On Tuesday, September 26, Governor’s welcomed renowned speaker Jackson Katz to campus. Dr. Katz delivered his speech “Taking it Personally: Why Gender Violence is an Issue for Men” during convocation to students, faculty, and staff.
Dr. Katz's visit was the first in our Katherine Krall Guy Social Justice Speaker Series. Throughout her 40 year career at The Governor's Academy, Kathy championed all issues pertaining to Social Justice, and in her honor, we are committed to bringing a nationally acclaimed social justice speaker to campus every year.
Jackson Katz, Ph.D., is an educator, author, filmmaker and cultural theorist who is internationally renowned for his pioneering scholarship and activism on issues of gender, race, and violence. He has long been a major figure and thought leader in the growing global movement of men working to promote gender equality and prevent gender violence. In 1993, Dr. Katz co-founded the multi-racial, mixed-gender Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. MVP is one of the longest-running and most widely influential gender violence and bullying prevention programs in colleges and high schools across North America and beyond.
Dr. Katz spoke to the student body for nearly an hour, beginning by describing how his transition from high school to college inspired his career path. He spoke about issues related to gender and gender violence that our society is facing today. Dr. Katz offered solutions to help our society move forward in a constructive way.
“One of the things that we need to do to go forward, as a society- as a species, is for men to stop responding defensively to women’s assertions of their human rights and dignity and understand how you would feel in their shoes…defensiveness is the enemy of forward progress,” said Dr. Katz.
Following his speech to the student body, Dr. Katz hosted a smaller, informal breakout group for male faculty members. The purpose of this breakout group was for male faculty to work with Dr. Katz on best practices, and to open a dialogue on how best to work with male students around issues of healthy masculinity.
Dr. Katz’s TED talk, “Violence Against Women-it’s a Men’s Issue,” has been viewed more than three (3) million times. He is the author of an influential book entitled The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, and the critically acclaimed Man Enough? Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the Politics of Presidential Masculinity. Man Enough won a bronze prize in Foreword Reviews’ Indie Awards for political science books in 2016.
To learn more about Dr. Katz, visit his website here.