Author Jackson Katz in Sydney: Want to raise good men? This is the first step

You’re in a group chat with your mates. And then one says something so off, you don’t even know how to respond. So you let it go. Then you let it go again.

It’s a common response, says Jackson Katz, author of the new book Every Man. He is in Sydney this week to deliver a keynote at the fifth World Conference of Women’s Shelters, organised by WESNET, the Women’s Services Network, a national network of specialist domestic and family violence services across Australia.

But that common response, that moment when you can’t call out your mates, no matter how badly they behave, is partly why Katz and allies devised a new way of being a bystander. And it’s not nearly as terrifying as having to confront your mates.

There is, says Katz, a pressure to remain silent just to fit in. It starts at s