Michael Flood

Who are pro-feminist men? What do they believe? How do men come to be pro-feminist? Does being pro-feminist mean that you are anti-male? Find answers to these and many more questions in this handy guide.

Exposure to pornography is routine among children and young people, with a range of notable and often troubling effects. Particularly among younger children, exposure to pornography may be disturbing or upsetting. Exposure to pornography helps to sustain young people’s adherence to sexist and unhealthy notions of sex and relationships. And, especially among boys and young men who are frequent consumers of pornography, including of more violent materials, consumption intensifies attitudes supportive of sexual coercion and increases their likelihood of perpetrating assault. While children and young people are sexual beings and deserve age-appropriate materials on sex and sexuality, pornography is a poor, and indeed dangerous, sex educator.

Feminism’s achievements regarding violence against women are a key target for the fathers’ rights movement. This article provides an overview of the impact of the fathers’ rights movement on men’s violence against women. It documents the ways in which fathers’ rights groups in Australia have influenced changes in family law, which privilege parental contact over safety, particularly through moves toward a presumption of children’s joint residence. They have attempted to discredit female victims of violence, to wind back the legal protections available to victims and the sanctions imposed on perpetrators, and to undermine services for the victims of men’s violence.

This report offers a comprehensive overview of best practice in violence prevention education in schools, identifying five principles of best practice. It maps promising programs around Australia and internationally. And it offers directions for advancing the field. The report is relevant beyond this, however, offering indicators of effective practice in violence prevention education which are relevant for a variety of settings and populations.

Some sections of the report focus in particular on issues of interest for those working with men and boys in violence prevention, such as the teaching methods to use and the content to address (pp. 36-43), whether to have mixed-sex or single-sex classes (pp. 47-50), whether curricula should be delivered by teachers or community educators or peers (pp. 52-53), and whether the sex of the educator makes a difference (pp. 53-54).

Contemporary campaigns and programs addressing men’s violence against women are under sustained attack. They are subject to repeated, hostile criticism by anti-feminist men and men’s networks. Any organisation which publicly addresses violence against women finds itself under a barrage of e-mails and letters, while any forum which sympathetically addresses the issue is swamped by hostile responses. Here, I address the claims which are the standard fare of anti-feminist men’s attacks on domestic violence efforts.

This paper examines young heterosexual men’s participation in unsafe sex. A qualitative study of young heterosexual Australian men’s understandings and practices of safe and unsafe sex, involving in-depth interviews conducted with 17 men aged between 18 and 26, found that five principal themes recur in young men’s accounts for the non-use of condoms.

How can we prevent violence against women? And how can we make progress by engaging men? This one-day workshop provides a comprehensive introduction to frameworks and strategies for primary prevention, with a focus on engaging and mobilising men.

Men have a positive role to play in helping to end violence against women. Growing numbers of men have come to the realisation that violence against women is an issue that touches their lives in deeply personal ways. And it’s a social problem they can do something about.

This 48-page report provides a detailed review of effective practice in violence prevention education among men, drawing on literature on both adult education and violence prevention. It focuses in particular on efforts among male athletes in professional sporting and other settings, as well as those using ‘peer mentor’ approaches.

Allegations of sexual assault and harassment by rugby league and Australian Football League (AFL) players in 2004 and 2005 put the link between sport and violence against women firmly on the public agenda. There was widespread media coverage of the allegations and substantial community debate. In response to these allegations and the issues surrounding them, both rugby league and AFL codes initiated education programs among their players.