Michael Flood

Efforts to engage men and boys in preventing men’s violence against women are gaining momentum around the world. This has been prompted in part by a growing emphasis in the violence prevention field on primary prevention and the emergence of an ‘engaging men’ field focused on men’s roles in building gender equality.

Who has a greater impact on their children's support for patriarchal gender norms and attitudes, mothers or fathers?

The Working with Men and Boys for Social Justice Assessment Tool is a new tool for assessing community programs for men and boys. It aims to provide leaders, designers and facilitators of programs or initiatives for men and boys the opportunity to review, reflect on and strengthen principles of gender and social justice. The Tool comprises key aspects that support positive social change in programs designed for men and boys.

One increasingly visible expression of alternative masculinities around the globe is men’s involvement in efforts to prevent men’s violence against women. Men who take part in such efforts, for example, as activists or educators, take up projects of personal change as well as wider social change. They seek to be “the change they wish to see in the world,” working to undermine their own gender privilege and to act in gender-equitable and nonviolent ways. This chapter focuses on such men.

Fathers have a vital role to play in preventing and reducing men’s violence against women and in building a non-violent future. Fathers can have a profound and positive impact on children, mothers, families, other fathers, and the wider community.

There are of course a wide range of ways in which men can contribute to ending violence against women, and a wide range of ways men can improve their own fathering. But here I focus on what fathers can do, as fathers, to prevent domestic and sexual violence.

This book explores men's attraction to violent extremist movements and terrorism. (Download it free here.)

I tweet regularly on issues of men, masculinities, gender, and violence, at https://twitter.com/MichaelGLFlood. On this page, I list many of my recent tweets. So if you don't use X/Twitter or follow me on Twitter, then you can find most of my recent tweets here. If X/Twitter ceases to exist or be functional, I may continue posting at BlueSky, at @michaelgflood.bsky.social.

University colleges have a vital role to play in building cultures of respect and safety on campus. What are the risk factors for sexual violence and harassment in colleges – the factors that make perpetration and victimisation more likely? Why are some colleges safer than others? What strategies are effective in preventing and reducing violence and abuse among students? How can we foster positive cultures in colleges, and how do these fit within a whole-of-institution approach to prevention?

Working Together with Men is an innovative violence prevention project based on community engagement and mobilisation. The project aims to contribute to the prevention of violence against women by engaging men to develop and implement primary prevention strategies in their local communities.

Engaging men and boys is a key strategy for preventing the perpetration of sexual violence. Whilst prevention efforts among men and boys are growing, they remain limited in scope and scale. The evidence base for the effectiveness of sexual violence prevention work with men and boys is also small, although increasing rapidly, and shows mixed impacts. The chapter argues that it is necessary for prevention initiatives to place a greater focus on the structural and cultural factors contributing to sexual violence.