Most guys get that equality programs — things like flexible work arrangements, mentoring programs, on-site childcare, and legislative solutions for equal pay — are good for women and men. They support equality, not just because they care about women, but because they recognize it’s in their own interests. [...]

To foster an environment where men can build better relationships, personal fulfillment and financial security, more and more guys are joining initiatives like The Good Men Project and more recently, Men Advocating Real Change or MARC (Full disclosure: Mike Otterman and Jeanine Prime are MARC’s community managers.) These online movements connect and amplify the “good guys” and give men who “get it” greater voice and visibility. Plus, they create a platform for men to stand up to those who call for a return to our Mad Men past.

Supporting equality does not mean the end of men. It is not a zero-sum game. Scaling back initiatives that foster workplace equality is not only anti-women, but anti-men too.

And this is a recent radio interview we conducted with Ashley Milne-Tyte:

And a shout-out in HuffPo from Olympic Ski Medalist (!) Bonnie St. John:

Catalyst, the 50-year-old premiere nonprofit membership organization expanding opportunities for women and business, is reaching beyond North America and Europe with a new office in India, increased partnerships with their counterparts in Japan, South Africa and Australia and plans to continue connecting the web of global knowledge and action. Perhaps even more revolutionary is their new organization to involve men: MARC, Men Advocating Real Change. This exciting innovation provides men with a platform talk about how to help with women’s leadership issues, as well as discuss their frustrations and challenges.

Globe and Mail, 4/6/12:

Catalyst, a New York-based, not-for-profit organization promoting women in business, last week launched an online project called Men Advocating Real Change (MARC) to involve men in this conversation. It includes a community of male bloggers from around the world, although it doesn’t have a Canadian contributor yet. A few noteworthy executives have joined, including Michael Dell, founder and chief executive of Dell Inc.

“It’s a safe space for guys to ask questions without fears of embarrassment or looking like a sexist,” said MARC’s community manager Mike Otterman, who helped conceive of the project with Jeanine Prime, vice-president of research at Catalyst. One reason men may be reluctant to take part in the discourse may be that it challenges traditional perceptions of masculinity.

Dr. Prime, who has a doctorate in social psychology, suggests that the best way to frame the dialogue is to suggest that men who support gender equality are, by definition, strong men.“By creating a community of men who care about equality, we demonstrate explicitly that gender equality is an issue that real men think and care about,” she said.

Evolved Employer, 4/4/12:

Otterman explained how the organization’s research showed that when many men hear the word “gender,” they tune out, thinking it’s a women’s issue or that it’s just not for them. Prime explained, “We need to be working with men in a wider sense.” Not just senior men, she continued – the group wants to work with men at mid and emerging levels as well. “The leaders of tomorrow, we need to be engaging them,” she said.

In addition to hosting real world events, MARC is an online forum for men to talk about gender issues, share best practices and tools, and talk about how they can get involved in driving gender equity.

Prime said, “Our research showed that men are really swayed by other men – we really want to engage men to be ready to be advocates.”

Many men are uncomfortable talking about gender issues with friends and colleagues – but the website will provide conversation starters and the vocabulary that might be helpful for men working toward gender equity in the workplace. She continued, “Men who get it aren’t quite sure how to talk to friends – this way, they can say, ‘look at this.’”

Otterman explained, “We’re creating a vocabulary and we want to help leverage and amplify the good guys. One of our main messages is that it’s not enough to be a good guy and go about your day.”

“For some guys, there’s a fear of judgment. We want to make this mainstream.

The Glass Hammer, 4/3/12:

Catalyst is launching its new social network for men, MARC (Men Advocating Real Change). Rather than excluding men from the diversity conversation, the organization realized it could get more traction around diversity by engaging men who can be champions of the movement.

Mike Otterman, Social Media Manager at Catalyst, explained how research showed that when many men hear the word “gender,” they tune out, thinking it’s a women’s issue or that it’s just not for them. Jeanine Prime, PhD, VP of Research at Catalyst, explained, “We need to be working with men in a wider sense.” Not just senior men, she continued – the group wants to work with men at mid and emerging levels as well. “The leaders of tomorrow, we need to be engaging them,” she said.

More info here.

The Human Costs

 by Michael Otterman

In Seida Zeinab, a hardscrabble Damascus suburb that hosts hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, a man approached me with a photograph.

“My son,” he said, pinching a tattered blue wallet conatining a small, frayed headshot of a small boy no more than three-years-old. “He was kidnapped,” he added, hands shaking. “Can you help me?”

I often think about this Iraqi man. His son disappeared in the darkest days of the post US-invasion chaos, and the man left Iraq soon after. What has become of them? Were they ever reuintied? His is son alive?

Any honest accounting of the post-9/11 era must consider the human costs of US aggression in Iraq. The 2003 invasion—concieved by Bush Administration officials hours after the attacks on September 11 and a centerpiece of the so-called “Freedom Agenda”—wrought incalcuable suffering to a society already hollowed out by a decade of brutal US-led sanctions and the ravages of the first Gulf War.

Millions of Iraqis are now dead and displaced. Entire religious groups face extinction. Thousands of priceless artifacts from Baghdad Museum remain lost. State institutions remain in disarray, political factions split along sectarian divides. Sociocide, the destruction of an entire way of life, is the only apt term to describe this level of decimation.

And for what?

“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” said Alan Greenspan, long-time head of the US Federal Reserve, succintly summing up the true motives behind the invasion.

Yet in the lead-up and initial aftermath of the war, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and other top officials made at least 935 demonstrably false statements on 532 separate occasions about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The fact that 69% of Americans falsely believed that Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks—even six months after the invasion took place—shows the power of misinformation to build a consusus for illegal wars of aggression.

Al Qaeda did not operate in Iraq prior to 2003—but they do now. “We have men who have divorced themselves from life and love death more than you love life, and killing is one of their wishes,” said a spokesman for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia following a day of spectacular carnage in August 2011 that left 89 people dead across the country. So far, more than 2000 civilians have been killed in 2011 in a country, which at time of writing, still hosts roughly 46,000 US troops and 64,000 private contractors—an occupation that has cost at least $869 billion and 4474 soldiers’ lives thusfar.

American mainstream media attention of Iraq has dropped to less than 1% of the daily news, yet for Iraqis like the ones I met in Syria, the ravages of the US-led invasion are an ever-present reality.

What did I tell the man who asked me to find his son?

As a journalist visiting Syria to research the plight of Iraqi refugees, no, I said, I couldn’t help him directly. But I did pledge to share his story—and that of the destruction of Iraq following 9/11—with the rest of the world.

“Silenced Voices of War” – Sydney Writers Festival, Sydney

Sunday, 22 May 2011

2:30 PM – 3:30 PM

What are the human costs in the global “war on terror”? Mike Otterman, ‘Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage’ and ‘American Torture’, and Antony Loewenstein, ‘My Israel Question’ and ‘The Blogging Revolution’, both work to bring to light the forgotten stories of occupation, dispossession and torture. They discuss the ongoing human tragedies in the Middle East and beyond. What is the media not telling us about Iraq, Egypt, Iran or Palestine and why aren’t we listening to indigenous voices from the region? How can social media allow us to hone in, and amplify, these hidden voices?

Richard Hil and Michael Otterman’s “Erasing Iraq” – Fairfield High School, Sydney

Monday, 23 May, 2011

Private event for students and parents, featuring a discussion about Erasing Iraq, plus workshops on the writing process.

“What the **ck is Going On?” – Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sydney

Wednesday, 25 May, 20116PM – 8PM

Are we in an era of war without end? How can we get out of it?

The body of Osama bin Laden lies at the bottom of the sea. Bombers fly over Libya, whiletroops fire on demonstrators in Yemen and Bahrain, and Israel tries to starve the newly united Palestinians into submission. War intensifies in Afghanistan as Iran looms large in neo-conservative cross-hairs and Iraq smoulders from the sociocide committed by the US, Australiaand allies. But a new peace movement is emerging…

Speakers:

• Michael Otterman, author, American Torture and Erasing Iraq: the Human Costs of Carnage;

• Antony Loewenstein, author, My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution;

• Associate Professor Jake Lynch, Director,Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney

Admission by Gold Coin Donation to finance public advocacy by Australia’s only Peace Centre. Old Geology Lecture Theatre, University of Sydney. More information: arts.cpacs@sydney.edu.au 9351 7686

“Hidden Voices of War” – Free University of Bellingen

Thursday, 26 May, 2011

6:30PM – 9PM

Why do we hear so little from the victims of our wars? Writers Michael Otterman and Antony Loewenstein explore the realities of conflict in Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and the broader Middle East. What do the Arab revolutions say about the future of the region? What impact will the killing of Osama bin Laden have on the so-­called war on terror? How do we hear the hidden voices, and amplify them?

RSVP by May 22 – jojones1960@hotmail.com

I can’t recommend highly enough a new book called “Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage,” by Michael Otterman and Richard Hill with Paul Wilson, with a foreword by Dahr Jamail. This comprehensive survey of the damage puts the past eight years into the context of other aggressive acts of imperialism and finds Operation Iraqi Liberation (to stick to its original name) a stand-out, in large part because of the Bush-Cheney regime’s attempt to create a neocon corporate economy from scratch in Baghdad, a project that required erasing everything that had been there before. The book’s greatest contribution lies in humanizing the suffering and providing us with the viewpoints — a wide spectrum of viewpoints — of Iraqis, including Iraqi refugees living outside Iraq, the vast majority of whom have not yet returned and many of whom have decided they never will. These are people, 100% of whom — judging by a 2007 UNHCR survey of 754 Iraqis in Syria — had experienced bombings, shootings, interrogations, harassment by militias, and/or torture.

The authors of “Erasing Iraq” interviewed Iraqis as far afield as Sweden and Australia: “Every Iraqi we spoke with reported similar events: houses bombed, possessions lost, children kidnapped, lives destroyed. ‘Americans — when they hear one shot — even if it’s like 10 kilometers away — they’ll just open fire on everything,’ said Laith as he lit a cigarette with the small red heating coils warming his cramped two-room house in East Amman, Jordan.” [...]

“Erasing Iraq” quotes Iraqi bloggers and interviewed Iraqis, giving personalities to people who have indeed been effectively erased. How many Americans even know that millions of Iraqis have had to flee the hell of their “liberation”? The U.S. media has self-censored almost all reporting on Iraqi suffering that has not been censored by the military, and polls of Americans have found approval for such censorship. Americans, along with Donald Rumsfeld, want to not know, and to not know what they do not know.

——-

Update:

Swanson’s review of Erasing Iraq was referenced days later in the Lanka Gazette.

Iraq isn’t in the news much now – we’ve been there, done that. And though it’s generally agreed that the invasion was a grievous mistake, there isn’t much interest in the extent of the damage. By 2009-10, according to Michael Otterman, Richard Hil and Paul Wilson’s Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage, over a million Iraqi citizens had been killed, over three million injured, over a million women widowed and five million children orphaned. The destruction of the country’s civil society, its economy and cultural heritage has been incalculable, though it’s been estimated that rebuilding its infrastructure alone could run into the trillions of dollars. Compulsory reading of Erasing Iraq, a thorough investigation of all aspects of its suffering, published by Pluto Press with the help of Australia’s Plumbing Trades Employee Union, just might give governments and their media claqueurs pause before we bloody our hands again. But that’s the optimist in me speaking – Wikileaks has already exposed the military’s doubts about winning the war in Afghanistan. Not to mention the “collateral damage” from our efforts in that country too.