Because We

Have Daughters®:
Core Values

Awareness and understanding of societal pressures women and girls face.

All girls and women live with the knowledge that they could be assaulted by someone they know or even love. BWHD provides an opportunity for men to learn what it is like to live with that knowledge and how it shapes women's reality.

Listening.

Studies show that girls and women talk more, and studies also show that they do so, in large part, because they feel like they are not being heard.

Equitable and shared decision-making.

In interactions with their daughters, fathers are used to coming up with "the answer" to a challenge or conflict, but allowing open discussion leaves space for girls to explore their own ideas with confidence.

Awareness of space.

Men are often unaware of the amount of physical, verbal and emotional space they occupy in relation to women and girls. BWHD activities build awareness of the need to provide space for girls to expand to their full personhood.

The concept of "pause."

Fathers are encouraged to pause in different situations to allow time and space for their daughters. For example, a father may pause during a conversation to hear another view or during activities to ensure that everyone is included.

Assertiveness versus aggression.

Making the distinction between assertiveness and aggression is important. Both fathers and daughters get opportunities to practice assertiveness and to challenge aggressive behaviors.

Appreciation for nontraditional qualities.

Fathers can encourage daughters to explore a full range of possibilities for their lives by expressing appreciation for daughters' nontraditional qualities.

Discussing difficult issues without judgement.

Fathers who learn to listen actively without blaming, minimizing or judging can strengthen their relationships with their daughters.

Because We Have Daughters®

Team Works With Dads, Daughters

at Keesler Air Force Base

Photo: Paula Tracy

In October 2008 a team of Men Stopping Violence facilitators and volunteers traveled to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, to present a Because We Have Daughters® session to a group of more than 80 people – servicemen and the girls in the lives – daughters, nieces and others.

“WOW, what a great day that was!” said one father after the event at Keesler. “I wanted to let you know how valuable that class was. Ariel and I have been having struggles at homework time. …Well on Sunday we both used the techniques from the session. The result was a happy learning environment. I also learned some more things about my daughter and things she wants to do. This class was very helpful please let me know when more classes like this occur.”

Men Stopping Violence created Because We Have Daughters® as an opportunity for men who were fathers to invest time and effort in understanding their daughters' realities. MSV believes that this helps men begin to understand that in order for their daughters to live fully and freely, the world that women and girls inhabit must change.

Many of the girls who participated were delighted to have a chance to share time with their dads in ways that strengthened their relationships and opened the door for better communications.

“I liked everything!” a daughter said. “I think it will be easier to talk to my daddy about things.”

“This experience was nice, because I barely spend time with my daddy,” another daughter said.

The work of Because We Have Daughters® is based on a set of Core Values. We use games and activities that help fathers and daughters connect around those Core Values and consider how they show up in their everyday lives. The session also creates a safe environment for fathers to talk to each other about those values and for girls to discuss concerns and needs they might have. Often men tell us that it is the first time they have talked to other men about topics such as parenting, sexism, active listening, etc.

“Since the class our communication has been outstanding,” said another father. “She is opening up and we are doing great. The course showed me different avenues to handle the situations that were being presented. It also showed her that it is okay to open up and express herself. I again say thanks and continue to do great things.”

'It Just Made Us Closer':

BWHD Provides Fun and Meaningful

Interactions Between Dads, Daughters

Dads and daughters who participated in the 2007 Because We Have Daughters® (BWHD) Campaign said that BWHD helped to strengthen their relationships, boost communication skills and address the challenges that girls face around safety and self-esteem, according to a recent evaluation of the program.

Beginning in January with an afternoon of "bridge-building" at the Atlanta Masjid Al-Islam and culminating in June with a celebratory picnic in Grant Park, BWHD 2007 used fun activities as a way of helping dads and daughters forge new bonds and find ways to discuss challenging issues.

This second year of the BWHD campaign saw an increase in the number of participants. Thirty-six fathers, grandfathers and uncles participated with 42 daughters, granddaughters and nieces.

The men who signed on to BWHD wanted to deepen their connection with their daughters, and they did so by working with their daughters on a number of activities -- skits, art projects, games and skills-building exercises.

Following the activities, men came together in groups to discuss what they had learned about themselves and their daughters. Fathers reported that they experienced new perspectives about their daughters and increased respect for the girls' personhood. They also were able connect to and communicate with other men who were raising female children. For many, it was the first time they had talked with other men about the challenges women and girls face.

“I enjoyed many things about the program," one dad said. "The activities were fun, I met a lot of nice people, a few of whom we have gotten together with, or tried to, outside of the program, and [my daughter] and I shared good experiences together that made us feel closer with one another.”

Daughters reported that they were happy to have a fun way to spend time with their dads. They said that BWHD helped them find new ways to connect and communicate.

"A little spark kind of went off in [my] head and I felt like I could talk to him about different things that I wouldn't have normally discussed," said a daughter.

The 2007 BWHD Campaign took place from January to June at a different location every month. Participating venues were Atlanta Masjid Al-Islam, First E Congregation, Emmanuel  Zion AME Church, The Paideia School,Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North, and Grant Park.

The campaign was run by a dedicated group of MSV staff and volunteer facilitators, including a large contingent from Spelman College. Dads and daughters attended from throughout metro Atlanta.

"She was eager to go to every one of them," said a dad of his daughter. "She marked it on her calendar. She wanted to make sure we went to each one. For her to mark it on my calendar and to want to go to this structured meeting, I thought was a good thing. And knowing that she's only going to spend time with me. This process is like ... great.”

Because We Have Daughters® Launch

On September 27, 2005, Men Stopping Violence launched Because We Have Daughters® by hosting a panel discussion at Spelman College featuring actor and activist Jane Fonda, MSV Director of Programs Dick Bathrick, and then-Grady Health Systems CEO Andrew Agwunobi.

Following the panel, MSV Board member Charles Brazil, accompanied by his two daughters, Bianca Jade, 10, and Brittney Marie, 6, delivered a call to action for men to become allies in the work of ending violence against women. Also, author and activist Pearl Cleage presented a powerful essay specially written for the launch, "A Promise in Place of a Poem." (See right.)

  (From left) Spelman College president Dr. Beverly Tatum, Jane Fonda, and former MSV Board President and Spelman professor Dr. Cynthia Neal Spence at the 2005 launch of Because We Have Daughters®.

Now Available:

Because We Have Daughters® Training

When men of conscience bring the weight of their own outrage over violence against women into their communities and institutions, those communities and institutions will undergo profound and meaningful transformations.

But why should moral men, progressive men, men of conscience, good men, take on this work?

Because we have daughters. Because we have mothers, sisters, nieces, co-workers, and friends; we want them to be safe.

The Because We Have Daughters® Campaign recruits groups of men who share fun and educational activities with their daughters – game days, art projects, skits, and other activities. These activities help men to look at life through their daughters' eyes, heightening their awareness of the culture of violence and beginning the dialogue necessary to create real change.

Following each activity, men in the circle participate in discussions with trained Men Stopping Violence facilitators, exploring what they learned about themselves and their daughters. At the same time, the daughters discuss their experiences with women facilitators who are trained to examine choices they can make in their lives to promote their personal safety.

We are now offering community groups and organizations the opportunity to learn how to conduct Because We Have Daughters programs. Our training combines the experience of a Because We Have Daughters event with instructions about how to implement a similar program.

To learn more, contact Shelley Serdahely at shelley@menstoppingviolence.org or 404.270.9894. To request a Because We Have Daughters training, complete an online training request form or contact Ulester Douglas at 404.270.9894 or udoug@menstoppingviolence.org.

By

Pearl Cleage

I have been trying to get my mind around the whole idea of men stopping violence. Even though I have been a supporter of this organization from the moment I knew it existed, men stopping violence is still a novel idea. Peaceful men are as rare as free women …

All you have to do is turn on the nightly news or pick up the morning paper or stop in at a shelter for battered women or incested children to know that on a global scale and on the home front, too many men have not fully embraced the concept of stopping violence in themselves or in their brothers, fathers, uncles, sons, lover, friends, and co-workers, who are also our brothers, fathers, uncles, sons, husbands, lovers, friends, and co-workers.

During the early days of my feminist awakening, the constant threat of male violence against women was something we talked about a lot. Many of us were life long peace activists, but only as feminists had come to understand that we had the same right and responsibility to demand peace in our households that we demanded in our country's dealings with nations around the world. We came to see that the personal is always political.

But I still want to know why …

Why are we still searching for ways to connect men to the women in their lives, absent the violence and control that still define too many exchanges that we call love or marriage or relationship when the words we should use to describe them are closer to the words we called upon when faced with the photographs of American soldiers torturing and sexually abusing hooded, shackled prisoners of war?

Why are the men she knows and often lives with still a greater danger to a woman's personal safety than car accidents, plane crashes and random acts of violence at the hands of strangers?

Why were children as young as three years old unsafe from male sexual predators, even in the places their government provided to shelter them from storms?

I do not have the answers. Even articulating the questions makes me feel anguish and outrage in equal measure because I know this is a problem that men can fix if they decide they want to fix it.

This campaign is important because it asks men to focus on their daughters, the assumption being that if a man can learn to love and respect one female being, those feelings can be expanded to include the rest of us.

Because yes, you are the fathers of daughters, but you are also the husbands and brothers and uncles and sons and lovers and friends and co-workers of women who are not connected to you by bonds of family and the mysteries of blood, but who also long for and deserve your peaceful presence in our lives.

I am here to confess that I failed to complete my assignment. I cannot write a poem for men to speak. Or a poem to speak to men. I am still too angry. Too angry that domestic violence is, and rape is, and incest is, and war is …

I do not know the words to open men's hearts and minds to another way of defining and defending their manhood, but I know that redefinition is so vital and so necessary and so at the heart of the matter that I do not think we can survive as human beings unless men are prepared to do that important work, alone and in the company of other men and women who can show them another way to be men.

Loving a man does not always stop the violence. Bearing him a daughter or a son does not always stop the violence, and a poem cannot stop a slap, or a kick, or a rape in the bedroom of your own house or the backseat of your boyfriend's car.

So I come here to confess that I cannot write the poem yet that praises a new man and raises him to a place of honor and respect as if he was already the rule and not the exception. It is too early and there is too much work still to be done, bringing into creation this father who can love and honor every girlchild as if she was his daughter and every grown woman as if she was his sister or his mother or his wife.

There is still too much work to do to shape and sustain this father who can love and honor every boy as if that child was his son and every other man, his brother or his father or his friend.

There are men in this room who have made that journey and I am grateful for their presence and for their courage and for their comfort. I'm counting on them -- on you -- to continue to do the hard work that must be done.

And in exchange, I will promise to leave a space in my head nd in my heart for that new poem to be written when we gather to celebrate the end of male violence against women everywhere, and the dawning of a new day for human beings around the world.

On that day, the language of men will no longer be a mystery to the women who love them, and we will sing together as one voice for peace and love and family and spirit and our daughters and our sons.

until that day, don't stop/ don't stop/ don't stop …