The struggle for gender equality highlights one of the challenges that confront all people who strive to reconcile the principles of unity and justice in their approach to social change. How do women and men become full partners in a struggle against patriarchal forms of oppression?

The situation in the war-torn eastern Congo provides a tragic, yet insightful, glimpse into these dynamics. Rape has become a widespread weapon of war in the Congo. Hundreds of thousands of girls and women have been victimized in the past decade, and many have contracted AIDS as a result. The physical suffering, mental anguish, and social stigma that these victims of male violence have born is beyond calculation.

Against this backdrop, the group Women for Women has been working to support victims of rape in the Congo and other conflict zones. A unique aspect of their approach is to enlist Congolese men in a program aimed at changing those male attitues that underlie the prevailing culture of rape. In this way, men are assuming direct responsibilities to educate, and change attitudes, in other men. As Christine Karumba, the Congo director of Women for Women, explains, “men have to be part of the solution.”

Programs with a similar underlying philosophy are springing up in many parts of the world.  On my own campus, like many campuses across the United States, there is an association of men who are actively working to end violence against women. This work, in cities and countries around the world, will undoubtedly take time. But it illustrates an important principle of agency and change. Full partnership — or solidarity — across all lines of identity, is essential.

Victims of oppression cannot, and should not, be expected to shoulder, by themselves, the burden of their own painful struggle for justice.