--- title: Senators Call for Men to Speak Up to End Violence Against Women description: Senators sat down Tuesday to talk about how to reduce violence and discrimination against women around the world and whether to make those solutions a U.S. diplomatic priority. canonical: https://time.com/2921022/senators-call-on-men-to-speak-up-to-end-violence-against-women/ author: Becca Stanek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-25T19:59:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T08:36:51.080Z article:section: Politics og:title: Senators Call for Men to Speak Up to End Violence Against Women og:description: Senators sat down Tuesday to talk about how to reduce violence and discrimination against women around the world and whether to make those solutions a U.S. diplomatic priority. og:url: https://time.com/2921022/senators-call-on-men-to-speak-up-to-end-violence-against-women/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Senators Call for Men to Speak Up to End Violence Against Women twitter:description: Senators sat down Tuesday to talk about how to reduce violence and discrimination against women around the world and whether to make those solutions a U.S. diplomatic priority. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Senators Call on Men to Speak Up to End Violence Against Women > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Becca Stanek](https://time.com/author/becca-stanek/) ## Becca Stanek Jun 25, 2014 7:59 PM UTC by [Becca Stanek](https://time.com/author/becca-stanek/) ## Becca Stanek Jun 25, 2014 7:59 PM UTC A small refugee camp lies in the Democratic Republic of Congo next to a national park. Each day, the women of the community must venture into the forest to gather firewood to cook and to heat their homes. On an average day, ten of the women who go into the forest are raped. The women are faced with a bleak choice: their own safety or a resource necessary for survival. This story, shared by Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan was amongst the dozens of tales told at Tuesday’s Senate Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy, and Global Women’s Issues hearing on combating violence and discrimination against women. The hearing came as a push to pass the International Violence Against Women Act, which would make the reduction of violence against women a diplomatic priority for the U.S. Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California underlined the importance of spreading the ethos that violence against women was not the behavior of a “real man.” She suggested using famous athletes and other popular role models as the faces of an effort to get more men to speak up. “Women can’t do this alone,” Boxer said. “This is a partnership.” The bill has been introduced four times since 2007, but, despite bipartisan support, it has not had enough Republican support to pass. Although the legislation has yet to be discussed outside of the subcommittee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, said that he plans to bring the issue to the attention of the full committee. “I struggle to understand why the United States has failed to pass the convention, but I understand politics,” said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. “We need to acknowledge our responsibility and our leadership on issues.” Panelist Gary Barker, International Director of Promundo, an international group that works to engage men to promote gender equality, discussed the importance of men who witnessed violence against women speaking up, as one of the many potential solutions. He cited a study that revealed that men who use violence likely saw their father being violent toward their mother or experienced violence themselves. The perpetrators believed that two-thirds of the men around them thought that this violence was acceptable. “Something is really engrained in silence of other men and how systems don’t react to it,” Barker said. Because there is not enough prison space to imprison every man who has committed an act of violence, Barker said, it is necessary to think about prevention. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2921022/senators-call-on-men-to-speak-up-to-end-violence-against-women/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2921022/senators-call-on-men-to-speak-up-to-end-violence-against-women/"},"headline":"Senators Call on Men to Speak Up to End Violence Against Women","datePublished":"2014-06-25T19:59:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:36:51.080Z","description":"Senators sat down Tuesday to talk about how to reduce violence and discrimination against women around the world and whether to make those solutions a U.S. diplomatic priority.","url":"https://time.com/2921022/senators-call-on-men-to-speak-up-to-end-violence-against-women/","keywords":["Congress","Senate","Human Rights","Discrimination","democracy"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Becca Stanek","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/becca-stanek/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2921022/senators-call-on-men-to-speak-up-to-end-violence-against-women/","name":"Senators Call on Men to Speak Up to End Violence Against Women"}}]}] ```