Across the country, more and more men are joining the battle to endthe abuse of women.

The Houston's Women's Center enlists young men from Rice University for its dating violence project. The men are trained to go into area high schools and help teen-age boys think about the peer pressure that sometimes leads to forced sex and gang rape.

"What they teach is that this kind of behavior is criminal -- and real men don't put a seal of approval on it," says Mitzi Vorachek, director of community education for the center.

In Minnesota, Frank Jewell is coordinator of Violence-Free Duluth, part of a larger, nationally recognized domestic violence program. A few years ago he, too, decided that men had to "get off the sidelines" in the fight against domestic violence.

Today, Men as Peacemakers, the men's organization he created, runs retreats and recruits men for volunteer work, among other activities. Amid a northern Minnesota culture often described, Jewell noted, as "gun heaven," Peacemakers go into the schools to show boys who may be fatherless, or accustomed to violence, that there is another way to be a man.

In Chicago's predominantly female Quetzal Center, it is the male staff member who goes into the schools and Chicago's public housing developments "trying to change attitudes," says spokeswoman Jean Brumfield. In the center's year-old Boys to Men project, he teaches teen-age boys who feel girls owe them sex after dates that "there are other options besides getting physical."

"You need a man to verbalize it to other men," Brumfield explains. "A lot of times, men just can't hear the message from women. It's taken as an attack, and they get defensive. But when a man says it, the message can be heard. There can be some growth -- and maybe, a change in their behavior."

See Also These Other Domestic Violence Cover Stories: Domestic Violence is No Longer a Quiet Secret Men Get "Off Sidelines" to Fight Domestic Violence Domestic Violence: A Community Problem Men Who Beat Women Often Believe They Are Justified Religious Leaders Urged to Confront Family Violence Making a Difference: How You Can Help With This Issue Related Books