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History of Men
Against Sexual Violence
The Men Against Sexual Violence (MASV) initiative that began in
July of 2001 with the ambitious goal to gather pledge support from one
million of Pennsylvania’s male residents has quickly grown in only
three short years to take on a life of its own. Efforts to include men
in Pennsylvania’s anti-sexual violence movement have ranged from
awareness campaigns locally in communities around the state, to
rallies and pledge signing events at many of our commonwealth’s
colleges and universities. Today, MASV is growing to include men from
all over the state. To date, we have recruited more than 7000
responsible men to challenge sexism and sexual violence in
Pennsylvania. It seems that now is the time, with sexual violence and
abuse cases in the news literally every day, to take advantage of the
growing momentum that MASV has begun to experience in order to address
sexual violence in terms of prevention. Men, that means YOU. We as
males have the power to address this important problem. It is our
responsibility to challenge ourselves as well as those around us to
take steps to end sexual violence.
Is a Group Like This Really Necessary?
It is estimated that 876,064 rapes of adult American women, and
111,298 rapes of adult American men occur each year. Traditionally,
participants in the anti-sexual violence movement have focused efforts
on treating those individuals whose lives have been permanently
altered by perpetrators of sexual violence, and much progress has been
made toward helping survivors, convicting perpetrators, and raising
awareness of this horrible epidemic. However, the number of sexual
assaults has not declined since the anti-sexual violence movement was
begun in earnest in the 1970’s. Children, women, and men still fall
victim to an unimaginable number of sexual crimes in our state and
across the United States daily. Therefore, a new strategy must be
utilized in order to address the issue of sexual violence. It is
necessary that we as males of all ages recognize that we need to take
part in the struggle to end sexual violence. We need to become aware
that there is a problem. We need to talk to our friends, our children,
our wives, our mothers, and our peers in order to spread the message
that rape and sexual violence are problems that will not go away
without a collective commitment to end the problem.
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