Activism & Politics

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.

On 22 and 23 October 2022, Male Allies Challenging Sexism (MACS) is hosting what it believes to be the first face-to-face pro-feminist men’s conference in the UK for 30 years. The event in Cardiff will feature an international line-up of pro-feminist speakers, and all proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to women’s organisations.

Why are women always tasked with ending men’s violence? Why are women both burdened with suffering under it and with solving it? Why do we never ask men to change their behaviour or to step up to counter misogyny and harm? How Men Can Help: A Guide To Undoing Harm and Being A Better Ally, by award-winning journalist and campaigner Sophie Gallagher provides the much-needed answers to these urgent questions.

Men have a vital role to play in contributing to the prevention and reduction of sexual harassment, in workplaces and elsewhere. Although men’s involvement is often constrained by poor understanding of sexual harassment and barriers preventing their advocacy, there are effective ways to invite them in to the work of sexual harassment prevention, and practical actions men can take to make change.

I’ve happily worn my pro-feminist politics like a badge for nearly twenty years. I joined an anti-sexist men’s group at age 20, did Women’s and Gender Studies at university and completed a PhD in Gender and Sexuality Studies. I founded the pro-feminist magazine XY and ran it for seven years before turning it into a major website. I continue to research issues of men, masculinity and sexuality, and I’m involved in activism and education particularly on men’s violence against women.

Confronting and ending oppression against marginalised and minoritised peoples is at the heart of social justice-oriented social work practice. Developing a critical understanding of power and oppression, and enacting social change aimed at challenging structural factors that contribute to oppression are integral to the core mandates of social work profession (International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW], 2014). Different ways of challenging oppression are therefore of significant interest to social workers.

1. You have no problem with the gender wage gap. But you hate having to pay for dates.
2. You insist that it’s a scientifically proven fact that men are stronger than women. But you complain about society believing that it’s worse for a man to hit a woman than for a woman to hit a man.

This report was commissioned by Oxfam to examine the ways in which varying narratives and tropes of masculinity and femininity have both shaped and been used by the far-right in its mobilization of support and polarization of debate. It follows the academic literature in identifying ethnonationalism as the unifying ideology of a heterogeneous political tendency that can be collectively referred to as the “far-right”.

#1. Inform yourself about the realities of men’s violence against women. Check out key organisations and their info. Read introductory pieces on violence against women