White Ribbon Campaign

If it were between countries, we'd call it a war. If it were a disease, we'd call it an epidemic. If it were an oil spill, we'd call it a disaster. But it is happening to women, and it's just an everyday affair. It is violence against women.There's no secret enemy pulling the trigger. No unseen virus that leads to death. It is only men. Not all men, but far too many men. … And just who are these men? Just regular guys. Men from all social backgrounds and of all colours and ages. All those regular guys, though, have helped create a climate of fear and mistrust among women. … All women are imprisoned in a culture of violence.

We uphold cultures where we wreak violence on the natural habitat, where we see violence as the best means to solve differences between nations, where every boy is forced to learn to fight or to be branded a sissy.

Men have been defined as part of the problem. But the White Ribbon Campaign believes that men can and must be part of the solution. Confronting men's violence requires nothing less than a commitment to full equality for women and a redefinition of what it means to be men, to discover a meaning to manhood that doesn't require blood to be spilled.

Abridged version of Statement of Principles by White Ribbon Campaign.