The real MEN’s Project(Men Embracing Non-Violence)

A community-based, public, awareness initiative

Dani Meier, PhD, MSW

Founder, SpokesmanCreative DirectorProject CoordinatorFundraiser

(2003-present)

The real MEN’s Project(Rationale)

Domestic and sexual violence has been seen as a women’s issue. Men’s involvement is usually after the fact, through law enforcement or the courts. In the U.S. and around the world, however, some men are standing up and saying that men have a responsibility to move beyond simply reacting to domestic and sexual violence. Men have a moral obligation to help prevent it.

In 2003, I gathered some local men to form The Real M.E.N.’s Project (Men Embracing Non-violence). Our goal is to stop violence before it happens through education with boys and young men as well as through reaching out to adult men who are silent bystanders to violence around them. The challenge to those bystanders is to speak up and to confront violence.

The real MEN’s Project(Marketing a symbol)

The name, Real MEN, is an attempt to reclaim the phrase from the stereotype of “real men” being those who are macho, tough, and quick to violence. RMP believes real men are strong, loving, and reject violence.

RMP’s first campaign targeted Father’s Day as an important symbolic holiday to send the message that fathers (and father-figures like coaches, teachers, clergy) have a critical role to play in teaching boys to be non-abusive men.

The real MEN’s Project(The Product)

I created a series of images with

recognizable community members,

fathers and sons, white, black, and

Hispanic with an anti-violence

message. These images were re-

created in posters and billboards

around Jackson County coinciding

with Father’s Day 2003. The images

also ran in movie theaters prior to the

start of movie showings.

The real MEN’s Project(The Product)

(From left clockwise: 1. Father w. six sons had a Spanish version too; 2. Superbowl-winning Pittsburg Steeler Russell Davis w. his son; 3. Dani Meier w. his 8 day old son on one of local billboards)

The real MEN’s ProjectThe following Father’s Day, 2004

(This year’s campaign featured local fathers & daughters with an anti-rape message)

The real MEN’s Project(Collaborative campaign with Jackson Police Department, 2005)

Coinciding with a statewide law enforcement campaign “Michigan arrests domestic violence”, Dani Meier collaborated with JPD to send a message that in Jackson too, domestic violence is a crime that will result in an arrest. These went county-wide with posters and billboards.

The real MEN’s Project(The Product)

In 2007, a reserve of left-over funds was leveraged to get more grant money to create 200 t-shirts that were distributed throughout the county. Teachers, clergy, law enforcement officials, and other men became walking symbols in the community of the message that Real MEN don’t hit.