5032: Sexual Violence and American Manhood

About the Course:

This course is recommended for health care professionals, especially psychologists, counselors, social workers, and nurses who seek knowledge about the link between the concept of masculinity and sexual violence. Whether unfamiliar or familiar with some of the concepts involved in this material, you can benefit from information in this course.
Sexual Violence and American Manhood, by T. Walter Herbert illuminates the chronic masculine anxieties that seek compensation in fantasies of sexual coercion and in sexual offenses against women. Herbert’s work offers a clear view of this prevailing convention, and traces its development from the nation’s beginnings. The book also describes how this violent streak within conventional masculinity can be healed, by learning a democratic masculinity in which women’s sexual rights are fully recognized, and by freeing men from the compulsions that lead them to violate those rights. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary issues—- sports, the pornography debates, the work of FBI profilers, as well as his own experience—- Herbert’s work will be helpful to therapists who deal with subtle as well as overt forms of sexualized violence.

Author

T. Walter Herbert, Ph.D

About the Authors:

Dr. Herbert is a professor of American literature and culture at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. He has written extensively on issues of gender and sexuality in American culture. His work has been supported by grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he has lectured widely to academic and non-academic audiences.

Course Objectives:

1. To uderstand that the sexual abuse of women by men has origins in a contemporary way of being masculine

2. To understand how this form of masculinity is constructed by seeing how it developed through several epochs of American history

3. To learn to recognize the ways in which this sexually violent masculinity is instilled and perpetuated

4. To learn ways in which this form of masculinity can be replaced with a democratic masculinity that respects the sexual rights of women