There has recently been a ‘turn to men’ in gender politics, an increasing emphasis on the roles that men can play in building gender equality. This is a feminist achievement, which locates the responsibility for gender injustice squarely with the group who benefit from it, and it prompts programs and policies which ideally involve men in processes of personal and collective transformation. Yet there are problems with this turn to men.
Working with Boys and Men
What role can men play in building gender equality? How can men be engaged in the work of building a gender-just world? This page offers a guide to the wide range of resources and materials on XY on these issues.
This short article details the initial findings from a 3-month conversation between 21 male activists who work to prevent violence against women. Using Participatory Action Research methodology, this research project investigates what men who do this work would like to learn from other men who do this work. To date, no research has been done that examines what it is that motivates and sustains men who work, as their primary effort, to prevent men’s violence against women.
The EMERGE (Engendering Men: Evidence on Routes to Gender Equality) project includes a Practice Brief on "Lessons in good practice from work with men and boys for gender equality". Download the Practice Brief here.
Since the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, there have been tremendous advances in the rights and well-being of women and girls. We are still far from achieving equality between women and men, but by many measures—including health, education, political participation, and income— we are closer to it than we were 20 years ago. As envisioned in the Beijing Platform for Action, one critical piece for advancing the gender equality agenda is engaging men and boys.
Q. Recently, there have been calls for education regarding sexual ethics. How do you conceptualise this? In terms of sexual consent?
The film Raise Our Men features interviews with New Zealand men about their experience of growing up and conforming to male stereotypes (the man box).
The film was developed by White Ribbon New Zealand as part of their 2017 campaign, because how we encourage and expect men to behave, directly affects the high level of domestic violence and sexual harm in this country.
The film picks up on four key links:
Feminist analysis and activism have been instrumental in achieving gains in women’s rights, including action to address violence against women and girls (VAWG). Over the past two decades, strong local, national and international women’s movements have brought VAWG, including in armed conflict and natural disasters, into the public domain as a development, public health, international peace and security and women’s rights issue.