Yesterday, I posted a little notice about a sensitivity workshop at Berkeley. Sage McLaughlin writes in with some excellent observations about the logic of the seminar, which was devoted to the project of sensitizing men to "gender violence" by promoting the creation of "a male peer culture, an atmosphere whereby the abuse of women by some men will be seen as completely unacceptable by the male peer culture." I quote:

I'm not sure to what extent it is possible to artificially create a "male peer culture," so I have to admit I have no idea what these people think they're accomplishing. Now, I have given to all of two charities in my day: self-defense training classes for women, and FIRE. So I'm not a knuckle-dragging paleo-con with a bone to pick with the opposite sex.

But the statement that, "The goal is to create a male peer culture, an atmosphere whereby the abuse of women by some men will be seen as completely unacceptable by the male peer culture," is insulting. It implies that in fact, the abuse of women by some men is widely accepted by "the" male peer culture (whatever that is). Obviously, there are pockets of peer groups wherein this is the case. But because there is no "male peer culture" in the singular, the whole project is silly.

And another thing. What's with the constant references to "male"? Why not "men"? We talk about "women's health" and "women workers." It's a small thing, but I notice that the clinical, zoological-sounding "male" is always used by the types who run this stuff. It's a small thing, but it pesters me nonetheless.

Touche. It sounds like a crock. But it's a crock with an awful lot of momentum.

Sensitivity trainers are a dime a dozen on the college lecture circuit. The speaker in this instance is a well-known gender violence educator who specializes in the burgeoning field of man-to-man sensitivity training. He's a former college football player who was also the first man to minor in Women's Studies at UMass-Amherst. On his website, he bills himself as "one of America's leading anti-sexist male activists" and a quick click around his site shows he's all he claims to be. He's got a company, he's got an educational video, he is the U.S. Marine Corps' official gender violence educator, he's a member of the U.S. Secretary of Defense's task force on Domestic Violence in the Military. The list goes on. What launched Mr. Katz on a career that combines so much claptrap with so much influence? Why a Master's in Education from Harvard.