American educator, filmmaker and author, Dr Jackson Katz, addressed former – and current F1 Leadership for Change students who will be heading abroad this year – at the UFS on Monday evening.

Dr Katz spoke broadly on ideologies around gender violence and sexual violence. The dialogue had broadened the thinking capacity of students, as Dr Katz elaborated on factors that also encourage gender violence and the association it has to women in particular. Dr Katz’s works advocates these set of societal ideologies, that always protects the perpetrators of such acts, and also discourages gender violence through various platforms, such as men having conversations around the issue, sports and also plays.

“Whenever the word gender violence comes up, automatically we associate the violence with women. We have accepted that in this society of ours, it is alright for women to be violated against for their gender and sexuality,” said Dr Katz.

“We need to create more platforms for conversations with men, and find out why exactly men rape and discriminate against women for their sexualities and gender. We need to constantly review not only why women are raped or violated against, but also start asking why do men rape and violate against women,” he added.

Katz encouraged students not to follow the set way of how society has made men less of perpetrators in the process of violence.

“Students should be aware that women are not the only victims of gender violence, men are also victims and conversations should not be one-sided, but rather dual, and be approached outside race, ethnicity, religion and even sexuality of the individual,” he alluded.

Dr Katz is creator of a gender violence prevention and education programme entitled Mentors in Violence Prevention, which has been actively marketed to the US military and various sporting organisations. He has also made several documentaries on the representation of women and men in the media.