The only way to transform Guyland is to break the culture of silence that sustains the Guy Code. Guys do what they do in part because they believe they can get away with it, that other guys won’t say anything, and that the community basically will support them. And they’re right. Remember, the majority of guys are bystanders. And so it is the bystanders, the ones who know, and yet do nothing, whom we have to engage. Yet bystanders help create the culture of protection in which the most egregious and extreme behaviors occur. It is also true that many guys anguish over their silence, recognizing it for the cowardly complicity that it really is.

As a culture, we need to drive a wedge in between the perpetrators and the bystanders, severing the few from the many, and isolating their behavior. This wedge requires that some young men need to begin to challenge their peers, and this is risky. Think of all those whistleblowers—the ones who broke the culture of silence that surrounds military torture, corporate malfeasance, or other nefarious behaviors. At great personal risk, they threw back the veil that shields drastic change. But being a whistleblower in Guyland is neither safe nor popular. We need to learn to support the guys who take this stance.