Articles

It is time to reframe the problems of domestic and sexual violence in Australia. To frame domestic violence as the perpetrators’ problem. In today’s presentation, I will argue that we need to change the ways that the community, policy-makers, and violence prevention advocates and educators ourselves talk about domestic violence. And I will describe a new project intended to contribute to the reduction and prevention of domestic violence in Australia.

We need to reduce violence against women, break the glass ceiling, and close the pay gap

We frequently perceive “gender equality” as something that is of concern to women. Women are not only expected to be the main contributors carrying the cause forward, but are also portrayed as the sole gainers by a more equal society.

Much of the work to engage men in preventing violence against women across the globe is profeminist — it is informed by feminist perspectives and done by or in collaboration with women and women’s organisations. Men involved in this work typically are expected to support feminism and to be accountable to women and feminism. But which feminism should profeminist men support? There has been relatively little discussion of this question in the ‘engaging men’ field.

It is 25 years since the Fourth World Conference on Women and its adoption of the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. For all of those who are committed to the visions of gender equality, human rights and social justice expressed in the Beijing Platform for Action and subsequent international declarations and agreements, 2020 was to have been a year of taking stock of progress made and debating priorities and strategies to advance towards these visions.

I have five messages today.

Over the past decade, men's involvement in anti-domestic violence in China has made great progress.

In 2010, the first male-led "male anti-domestic violence hotline" was set up in China, which was officially committed to promoting men's participation in social movements against gender violence. The hotline is open round-the-clock throughout the whole year, which also marks a new era of sustained work and development of China's Male Participation movement from this year on.

It doesn’t happen all at once.

There may be a time or two when you have some trouble getting an erection.  After a while you notice that it isn’t as hard as it once was.  Then you actually lose your erection while having sex.

The more bad experiences you have, the more you worry.  And the more you worry, the worse the problems get.  Before you know it, erectile dysfunction has become a part of your life.

Male supremacist “men’s rights” and “fathers’ rights” groups have been calling for things like a “Ministry for Men” or “Office for Men” for years.

There has been much progress in gender justice becoming a main advocacy point on a global level. Yet, gender inequality continues to be present and cross-cutting in various aspects of life, and continues to negatively affect people’s lives in various ways, especially women and girls. Many programs in the past decade have considered the importance of engaging men and boys in gender justice as means to address gender inequality, and have thus begun designing and implementing initiatives with this methodology.