The remarkable organization Men Stopping Violence recently closed its doors. I cannot let the legacy of its 40 years in Atlanta go unnoted.
MSV evolved from the initiative of Dick Bathrick and Gus Kaufman, two therapists who wanted to start a batterers intervention group in Atlanta in 1982, and the battered women’s advocates who gave them guidance: Susan May, Kathleen Carlin and Leigh Ann Peterson.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
The women were clear that men’s work with other men must center battered women’s experience and be accountable to women for that. Carlin joined Bathrick and Kaufman as the founding executive director of the fledgling Men Stopping Violence, a role she held until her death in 1996. The first chair of MSV’s board of directors was then-Atlanta Councilman John Lewis.
The imperative to center women’s voices and experience stemmed from what became the group’s fundamental analysis of the problem. They saw male violence against women not as matter of individual psychology but as intrinsic to an age-old paradigm that places more value on men and sees their dominance over women as the natural order. Thus, MSV came to see its job as enlisting men in working to change mindsets, norms and structures that perpetuate patriarchy.
Their work got them into a lot of what Lewis would call “good trouble.”
Over the decades, MSV staff relentlessly interrogated assumptions, norms and vocabulary to sharpen their understanding of the problem and what must happen to create safety and justice for women and girls. They listened to women, people of color, the LGBTQ community and others to develop a nuanced intersectional analysis. Sandra Barnhill and Loretta Ross were especially helpful in this evolution.
MSV consistently raised the bar for men and pushed thinking forward with their insightful analysis and, at times, humor. They influenced thousands locally, nationally and internationally through speaking and training, writing and media appearances, consultations and internships, and as a general gadfly and provocateur. Every fundraising appeal, grant report and topical news story was an opportunity to educate and inspire change. MSV’s innovative curriculum blending intervention and prevention, “Men at Work: Building Safe Communities,” and their workshop, “Tactics and Choices,” have been implemented widely.
There is no way to count the shifts MSV’s work led to in systems they impacted — criminal justice and military; media, faith and academic; mental health, health care and public health — nor in the lives of individuals and families they reached.
Numerous staff, allies and donors deserve credit for these contributions. I am grateful personally to Sulaiman Nuriddin, Red Crowley, Ulester Douglas, Shelley Serdahely, Libby Cates, Greg Loughlin and Lee Giordano, along with Bathrick and Kaufman, Barnhill and Ross. And to Carlin, both during and after her life a mentor to us all.
My impression is that the reason for MSV’s demise is the same as the reason it was so extraordinary: its longtime staff’s integrity and commitment to MSV’s analysis.
In a letter to supporters in June, several of those who had struggled to maintain MSV’s vision for as long as they could cited “major difference in values, principles, and practices between the board and staff.” It seems the board hired several leaders whose behaviors were antithetical to the principles and health of the organization. “[T]he board’s unwillingness to listen to the needs and concerns of staff … led to an intolerable working environment and the subsequent departure of 80% of MSV’s longtime staff.” By the time the board hired a competent chief executive in Elisa Covarrubias, the damage to MSV’s analysis and infrastructure was irreversible. Some months later, the organization quietly folded.
I used to imagine an ultra-long-range plan for ending violence against women: a timeline of necessary institutional and cultural shifts won in past decades — even centuries — by our forerunners, and ones that will still be needed when we are gone. It would show at once that the path is dauntingly long and that the part before us in our time is essential to it. Men Stopping Violence took upon itself a unique and critical piece of the work and gave heart and soul to it for decades. Their work made a difference.
Jane Branscomb is a retired health policy researcher who worked as business manager and development director for Men Stopping Violence from 1989 to 2001.
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