Article
Culture
Masculinity
5 min read

Russell Brand and the bystanders: how to say enough is enough

When calling out misogyny, low standards are expected of men. Tiffany Bluhm assesses the ‘Say Maaate’ campaign and explores bystander intervention. Part of the Problem with Men series.

Tiffany Bluhm is a speaker and the author of Prey Tell: Why We Silence Women Who Tell the Truth and How Everyone Can Speak Up. She speaks and writes at the intersection of justice and faith for conferences, churches, and companies.

Three young men sit on a couch. One is leering at a phone while the others look on hesitantly
The 'Say Maaate' interactive video encourages users to pick a moment to act.
Mayor of London.

 In the wake of headlines filling our news feed reporting a story, yet again, of a pop culture icon taking advantage of women, be it Russell Brand or “That 70’s Show” star, Danny Masterson, we’re quick to say “enough is enough,” but perhaps the question to ask is “how do we stop it?” What standards are we expecting of men as individuals and as a collective whole? How will they self-edit their interactions with women? What do we expect of men in the workplace, at the gym, at church, or in the public square? We know what we don’t want them to do, leverage their power, privilege, or platform at a woman’s expense, but that’s an undeniably low bar. What could they do to stop each other before their actions get out of hand? 

Before heinous stories of sexual violence are aired on the BBC or CNN, we’re holding the communal line of what we’ll accept from men. 

After learning of the ‘Say Maaate’ campaign—a public information campaign inviting male mates to call each other out when they witness misogynistic tendencies toward women without jeopardizing the friendship thus jeopardizing the influence on each other—I recognized its brilliance lies in its interception of misconduct before it gains momentum or is considered high stakes. Before heinous stories of sexual violence are aired on the BBC or CNN, we’re holding the communal line of what we’ll accept from men, be it sexist jokes or public harassment. This endeavor, which includes bystander intervention, where those within eyeshot or earshot will attempt to distract and intervene in a potentially hazardous situation when men assert unsolicited dominance or advances toward women, is so successful that it’s employed by the United States military and countless higher education universities and colleges in the States. It puts the onus not on the woman impacted during the encounter, but on those around her, to step up and intervene at the first sign of a power imbalance, ranging from a man standing too close, to a woman darting her eyes to avoid eye contact, to outright sexual and verbal harassment. 

Bystander intervention invites the bystander to disrupt the moment, and after the moment has passed, confront the antagonist with either the benefit of the doubt, “maaate,” if deserving, or a “Man, she didn’t like that, read the room.” Lastly, it beckons the bystander to check on the woman who was the recipient of unwanted harassment. Bystander intervention provides much-needed boundary reminders of what we will and won’t accept in a society where the moral arc of the universe desperately needs to bend toward justice. This practice refuses to normalize women’s subjugation or sexualization, it offers a lifeline where there hasn’t been one before, with women left to their own defences against men with no intention of respecting them.  

I feared the ramifications of speaking up against a man with more clout than I. 

Interestingly, men with power—financial, organizational, political, celebrity—perceive themselves to be more attractive, assume women want them, and sexualize interactions with women. In a world where women are often playing by men’s rules, this makes for disastrous outcomes. Far too many women fear they’ll lose access to their place of perceived or actualized power if they speak up for themselves, or other women, who’ve been maligned, even slightly, by men with power and poor intentions. In my own experience, I feared the ramifications of speaking up against a man with more clout than I. How would this affect my social and professional standing in my community? Would others perceive that I have an axe to grind when that wasn’t the case? Would they frame me as prudish? Would they assume I asked for it? Would they assume I’m trying to unnecessarily take down a “good guy.” Instead of speaking up when the stakes were small, after an off-handed comment, sexist joke, or a lingering hug, I assumed this is just how it is, boys will be boys. If I want to get by in this world, I must put up with it. 

If only the men listening would have thrown him a “maaate.”  

Research shows that this pompous approach men exhibit toward women starts on the playground in primary school, gains steam in the locker room in secondary school, cements itself in university culture, (what Americans refer to as “frat culture”) and before we know it, twentysomething men are carrying this toxic idea of what it means to engage women into adult life, and further, it’s celebrated, as was the case of Brand’s public persona. Too often harassment and misogynistic tendencies of any sort equate to validation of masculinity. In this line of thinking, the subtext is that women exist to be dominated, harassed, or taken advantage of for the sheer pleasure of men. This is the genius of bystander intervention; it swiftly reckons with the subtext of a culture hellbent on letting men get away with whatever they want and whoever they want. 

He addresses her harassers, beckoning them to examine their own lives rather than fixate on hers. 

While the Christian church is no stranger to sexual trysts or infractions by men of the cloth, the ethos of Jesus regards women as worthy not of subjugation nor sexual harassment, but respect and dignified engagement. He modeled this respect and casts a vision for women to find solace and safety in men, never harm. 

A great example of bystander intervention in history starts with pious religious leaders attempting to trap the counter-cultural rabbi Jesus by throwing a woman at his feet, alleging she engaged in adultery, a crime, at the time, worthy of public stoning. A clear imbalance of power, with a woman’s life as collateral for trapping Jesus, the religious leaders wondered if he might keep allegiance to the law or break from it. They made the encounter about Jesus; Jesus centered the encounter on protecting the woman who’d been dragged to the public square. Jesus first intervenes by writing in the sand as his answer to the question posed by the leaders. Her physical safety is of utmost importance as evidenced by his actions. Then, he addresses her harassers, beckoning them to examine their own lives rather than fixate on hers. Finally, he checks in with the undoubtedly traumatized woman, a mere prop in an attempt to trap a man who modeled equality and respect between the sexes. 

If bystander intervention was effective 2,000 years ago to protect and uphold women’s dignity and safety, and has modern success in the military and on university campuses, maybe there’s room for the men in our community to prevent harm before it happens? Maybe we can right cultural wrongs? Maybe before learning of Brand’s misconduct, we’ll learn of a bystander who stepped in before a sexist slur was accepted in everyday conversation or intervened when a woman was uncomfortable. Since the issue is not weak femininity but toxic masculinity, maybe men can learn to say, “Enough is enough.” 

Review
Books
Culture
Re-enchanting
6 min read

Re-enchanting… reading lists

As a Re-enchanting series ends, here's our guests and staff book picks.

Tom Rippon is Assistant Editor at Roots for Churches, an ecumenical charity.

A pile of books on a bedside table.
Jodie Cook on Unsplash.

Inside a book, we find ‘a world that reflects our own, but isn’t this world’, at least that’s what David Bennett had to say when he appeared on our Re-enchanting podcast earlier this year, and given the power of books to transport us beyond the everyday, what better way to start each episode than with the question, ‘what are you reading?’ 

Many of our guests are self-confessed bookworms and admit to having several books on the go at once, dipping in and out according to their mood and the time of day, and a sizeable number profess a love of audiobooks.  So, after a blitz of the Seen & Unseen back-catalogue – accompanied by many sidetracks into our guests’ ponderings with Belle Tindall and Justin Brierley – here’s what’s on the Re-enchanting reading list. 

Chapter one: by way of introduction 

At first glance, it would seem that our guests are a serious bunch, because the Re-enchanting book list is dominated by non-fiction. Works on the intersection of science, religion and society are clear front-runners, ranging from R.H. Tawney’s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Francis Spufford’s pick) to Charles Foster’s The Selfless Gene (Paul Kingsnorth), but more general works also abound. An interest in re-enchantment clearly involves careful study of the everyday from cradle – Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (Sarah Irving-Stonebreaker) – to grave, for example, Stephen and Cynthia Covey’s father-daughter collaboration, Live Life in Crescendo, Your Most Important Work is Always Ahead of You (Michael Hastings). Some encouraging words at a time when questions about ageing and illness are on the national agenda. 

Chapter two: heading (east) into deeper waters 

As a podcast that invites its guests onto the roof of Lambeth Palace Library, it will come as no surprise that our guests’ picks also feature a selection of books on theology and spirituality. Nick Spencer recommends Prophecy and Discernment by Walter Moberly, whilst Brooklyn pastor Rasool Berry brings us back down to earth with Sam Alberry’s What God Has to Say About Our Bodies: Why the Gospel is Good News for Our Physical Selves.   

Many guests, however, seem to be directing our attention eastwards towards the spirituality of Orthodox Christianity; their picks include classics such as Michael Kozlov and Arsenius Troyepolsky’s The Way of the Pilgrim (Martin Shaw); and The Art of Prayer by Hegumen Khariton (Molly Worthen); as well as a newer work by the twentieth-century saint, Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia, Wounded by Love (Paul Kingsnorth). But this road of literary spirituality doesn’t stop in Eastern Europe, it keeps going until our arrival in Nepal via the memoirs and meditations of Tenzin Palmo in Cave in the Snow: A Western Woman’s Quest for Enlightenment (Sabina Alkira). Stories of global faith for a globalised world indeed.  

Chapter three: story of my life 

It is said that the best stories are the real ones and our guests apparently agree: biographies and memoirs pop up repeatedly throughout their picks. Sticking with the theme of spiritual journeys, our guests are reading works which recount journeys away from faith communities, such as Megan Phelps-Roper’s Unfollow (Glen Scrivener), as well as ones deeper into faith. One of the most striking of these is James Pennington’s nineteenth-century abolitionist pamphlet Two Years Absence (Esau McCaulley). Pennington was a self-taught pastor who left his church community following his re-enfranchisement to study theology at Princeton. His pamphlet was adapted from a sermon given to prepare his congregation for the journey which would take him deeper into his faith, but away from the community in which he lived it out. Many stories begin with a ‘setting out’ only to ‘return home’ in the closing pages, and perhaps this structure bears a closer resemblance to real life than it may initially appear? 

Venturing away from the spiritual, but remaining in the political vein, perhaps the most frequently mentioned book so far has to be Rory Stewart’s memoir Politics on the Edge, himself a Re-enchanting guest way back in series 2. Alternatively, readers who have had their fill of politics may wish to try the memoirs of polar explorer Robert Bartlett, as recommended by Molly Worthen, or, to take a leaf from Milton Jones, the equally fascinating and no-less-hair-raising Windswept and Interesting: My Autobiography by Billy Connolly. 

So far, fiction has not featured much amongst our guests’ recommendations, but tentative favourite would be the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead.  Set in present-day Appalachia and inspired by Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead touches on the poverty and struggles of America’s left-behind communities, who today find themselves worlds away from the glitz of global politics, yet wielding a political influence that extends far beyond their own borders. 

Chapter four: A whole new world or the world reimagined? 

In the instances when fiction has appeared in our guests’ bed stands, it seems that they have a taste for fantasy and science fiction.  The favourite by far here is C. S. Lewis, with several guests reminiscing of their experience of reading Narnia, but for Jack Palmer-Wright the experience of rereading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe took special significance this year as he introduced it to his five-year-old for the first time. Adult readers looking to relive the experience of discovering Lewis for the first time should check out Lewis’ lesser-known Space Trilogy, particularly That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairytale for Grown-Ups, recommended by Holly Ordway as a prophetic tale for today’s world.  

Other stalwarts of the fantasy genre also made an appearance, such as J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, but perhaps the most surprising recommendation to come out of Re-enchanting would be Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World (Frank Skinner). Published in 1666 and considered to be perhaps the first science-fiction novel, The Blazing World is set in a parallel world with fantastical technologies reached via the North Pole. The characters, including Cavendish herself, criss-cross between worlds as the novel moves through its three sections, ‘Romancical’, ‘Philosophical’ and ‘Fantastical’, exploring questions of social organisation, governance, and whether it is really possible to create a new religion complete with a fully fledged religious literature. Given the ongoing conversations about the place of religion in the twenty-first century, perhaps it’s time for Cavendish to make a comeback. 

Chapter five: what next? 

Stories are made of words but they are also made of silences, and these narrative gaps are just as key to getting a story to take flight as the most well-chosen, well-balanced phrase.  The biggest gap in our Re-enchanting reading list is poetry.  Books about poets – the Romantics, Seamus Heaney, to name a couple - have made an appearance, but we have yet to receive a straightforward poetry recommendation from any of our guests.  So, should you feel the need to fill this gap, here’s a few from us for anyone looking for something to dip into over the coming year. 

  • Sara Teasdale  
  • Mary Oliver 
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins  
  • Jackie Kay 
  • Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī 
  • Victor Hugo 

Happy reading and see you in 2025 for more Re-enchanting. 

2024 staff picks

And here’s the picks from the rest of the Seen & Unseen editorial team. 

Graham Tomlin, editor-in-chief 

  • Sally Rooney: Normal People
  • Jessie Childs: The Siege of Loyalty House: A New History of the English Civil War

Belle Tindall, staff writer 

  • Selina Stone: Tarry Awhile .
  • Sally Rooney: Intermezzo.  
    Frank C. Laubach: Letters from a Modern Mystic.   

Nick Jones, senior editor 

  • Jon Fosse: A Shining
  • Mary Millar: Jane Haining – A Life of Love and Courage
  • Peter Ross: Steeple Chasing

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