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" &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s be honest, women aren&amp;#039;t hitting themselves,&amp;quot; said comedian Dean Obeidallah when I asked him why men, in general, need to step up to stop violence against women\u2014a pandemic that the World Health Organization labeled last year a &amp;quot;global public health problem of epidemic proportions, requiring urgent action.&amp;quot; Yes, men can be the victims of domestic violence, too, but 85 percent of victims are female. &amp;quot;There is zero tolerance for violence against women\u2014that is the way our society has to be. But really, it&amp;#039;s not.&amp;quot; Mostly, Obeidallah is referring to a tweet he posted in June, which for him, highlighted the deep cultural misunderstanding of how violence operates in America: &amp;quot;3 women are killed every day in the U.S. by domestic violence. Who is killing them? It is us men,&amp;quot; he tweeted to his 21,000 followers in response to the Santa Barbara killing spree and Elliot Rodger&amp;#039;s misogynistic manifesto. Immediately Obeidallah was bombarded with angry tweets from outraged men who accused him of blaming them, individually, of being abusive. &amp;quot;I certainly haven&amp;#039;t killed any women lately. If you have something to confess, you should probably call the police,&amp;quot; one male wrote. &amp;quot;Better round up all of us white males, cuz all we do is rape and murder women,&amp;quot; said another. So Obeidallah has begun a crusade to get men to listen; to get them to see past their knee-jerk reactions and pass-the-blame mentality, to ensure they understand that victims, contrary to popular belief, do not incite abuse, the only way he knows how: comedy. The 45-year-old New Jersey native is joining eight other male comedians from Saturday Night Live, MTV, and Comedy Central on August 26 for Dudes Against Violence Against Women, a public event organized by the global human rights organization, Breakthrough.  &amp;quot;Men have to be responsible for our actions and if a group of us can stand up, perhaps we can connect with guys that may not want to hear a lecture,&amp;quot; Obeidallah explained. &amp;quot;Comedy is a great way\u2014a sugar coated way\u2014to teach and educate people about an issue. All the comedians in this show are men, which is a powerful way of saying, &amp;#039;We need to be leaders in this,&amp;#039; because there is still a great deal of defensiveness. So my approach is to appeal to them, to all the bros and dudes, and to make it a conversation\u2014not a lecture.&amp;quot; Just as Moms Mabley railed against conventional ideas of gender in the &amp;#039;60s, or Richard Pryor battled racism in the &amp;#039;70s and George Calin criticised modern American society in the &amp;#039;80s, comedy has long been used to challenge the status quo. It can, as comedian Pete Dominick explained, &amp;quot;conquer almost anything,&amp;quot; using satirical observations that expose hypocrisy and injustice, reveal an undeniable truth, or point out an absurdity of the human or cultural conditions we live in. &amp;quot;We are using comedy to bring violence and discrimination against women into the mainstream and everyday,&amp;quot; said Lynn Harris, Breakthough&amp;#039;s Vice President of Communications. &amp;quot;Because most men are not violent. But most men\u2014indeed, most people\u2014are silent in the face of violence. We all need to be aware of this pandemic, we need to say no to douchey friends who make off-handed or aggressive sexist jokes\u2014and to not pay to see comics who do the same. I&amp;#039;m not saying those men are violent, per se\u2014it&amp;#039;s that they help create and perpetuate a culture that incubates and excuses violence.&amp;quot; Domestic violence knows no limits. As Obeidallah himself notes in a piece penned for The Daily Beast, more women in the U.S. have been killed by their husbands and boyfriends (11,766) during the time of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars than U.S. troops fighting those wars (6,488). The New York Police Department receives on average, 700 domestic violence calls every day; and every two and a half minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. One in three Native American women has been raped, a rate of sexual assault that is twice the national average; while native Alaskans may suffer sexual violence at 12 times the national rate. Violence against women, often thought of as an isolated problem, occurs in every socio-economic, religious, racial, and ethnic group across the world.  Dean Obeidallah  &amp;quot;If you see the statistics and you aren&amp;#039;t outraged by the pandemic of violence against women in the world, then I&amp;#039;d question your values,&amp;quot; said Dominick, who, like Obeidallah and Adam Wade, has donated his comedic skills for the event, where 100 percent of the ticket sales go back to Breakthrough. &amp;quot;I thought the problem was a lot smaller,&amp;quot; admitted Obeidallah. &amp;quot;Either I didn&amp;#039;t want to see it, or I was oblivious. Now that my eyes are open, I want to do something, whatever I can.&amp;quot; For Wade, who says the strongest role models in his life have been women, if the event simply raises awareness &amp;quot;for my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and for all the other women in my life, then it will be a success.&amp;quot; Because violence against women starts at home, he says, it&amp;#039;s only when men actively join women to challenge the violence and discrimination they face, that we can start to actually prevent it. &amp;quot;All men need to care about this issue,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;It is as simple as treating women, and people in general, better day in and day out\u2014teach your sons, your friends, your family to be better people. The end of violence against women starts in your own community.&amp;quot; Though female comedians won&amp;#039;t be performing at the event, a slew of top names, such as Sarah Silverman, Rachel Dratch, and Lizz Winstead, have backed Breakthrough&amp;#039;s fight in stopping violence against women as honorary host committee members. &amp;quot;We have been told the same story for thousands of years about gender roles in our society. It&amp;#039;s time that story is re-written,&amp;quot; said Dominick. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d like women&amp;#039;s voices to be heard equally during this next chapter of history, and as for men, we need to be more enlightened and evolved. As long as we can agree on the problem we are facing, then I call that progress.&amp;quot; Related: Sarah Silverman and Jesus Christ Discuss Your Reproductive Rights Related: Meet the Women That Make Amy Schumer LOL Related: Why You Should Be Listening to Garfunkel and Oates Right Now "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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