Men's Retreat

Thank you to everyone who came to our Fall Retreat on Oct. 28! About 20 men attended throughout the day. We had a great time doing a series of workshops on masculinity, consent, how to be an activist and more. We really appreciate the interest of all the men who showed up and hope that they continue to join in our club meetings and other events.

One of the biggest challenges we all face in starting a men against violence program is finding men who are interested in being involved. Those men are out there on all of our campuses, but they need a safe place to congregate and they need to see other men like them in the group.

We decided that the way to get men introduced to the program was to do a retreat using Luoluo Hong’s work at LSU as a guide. Her Redefining Babes, Booze, and Brawls is available at www.dissertation.com and it has been extremely helpful in creating an agenda and in developing the philosophy behind the work here at WWU.

The Men’s Retreat served 2 main purposes: 1)Provide a safe environment for men to meet other men who care about creating a safer campus and 2)Give these men introductory training into the issue of violence against women and men’s roles in changing campus culture.

We have had 7 retreats to this date: Fall 2000 – 35 men, Spring 2001 – 12 men, Fall 2001 – 30 men, Spring 2002 – 12 men, Fall 2002 – 15 men, and Fall 2003 - 20 men. We also held a symposium in Spring 2003 and 45 people attended representing 9 colleges and universities in 5 states.