Activism & Politics
The MenEngage Alliance, a global network of more than 630 organizations working with men and boys for women’s right and gender justice, has worked to enhance accountability in this field for some time, building on many years of work by women’s rights organizations. The MenEngage Alliance understands accountability as the commitment that activists and organizations working in the engaging boys and mend field must have toward women’s rights groups and other social justice movements.
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Donald Trump's election to the US presidency, and his behaviour before and after, have prompted considerable discussion about masculinity, gender, and violence against women. Here, we have collected some valuable examples of this commentary.
Here is a handy, one-page guide to key activist and academic resources on men, masculinities, and gender.
It's available below, and in a downloadable Word document further below.
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When men are involved in feminist work, this is ally politics. [… and] ally politics can only ever been seen as one component of social change efforts.
Black feminist Audre Lorde wrote, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” She might also have written, ‘The masters will never dismantle the master’s house.’ Certainly not by themselves. Certainly not without being part of a broader feminist movement. […]
What about the actual work of engaging men? Engaging men doesn’t easily or quickly produce substantial change in gender inequalities, although it can certainly contribute to change. […]
Perhaps the most important reason why engaging men is not a game changer is that changing gender inequality, including changing men, is hard. […] Large proportions of men resent feminist efforts and resist the recognition of sexism. They deny, minimise, and blame.
[…] Sometimes, engaging men is the same old patriarchal game. […]
However, if we can change men, if men can change, in large numbers and in substantial ways, yes, that will be a real change in the game.
In violence prevention, we must move beyond simplistic notions of “white men saving brown women from brown men”. Women from CALD and indigenous communities are not necessarily hapless victims, and nor are immigrant and refugee men any more sexist or violent than their English counterparts. In any context – rich or poor, Anglo or otherwise, newly arrived or fifth-generation – work with men must recognise the intersections of race, class, and sexuality which shape men’s lives.
In efforts to prevent men’s violence against women, there is a growing emphasis on the need to engage men. Men are becoming involved as participants in education programs, audiences for social marketing, activists and advocates, community leaders, and policy makers. First then, what does this ‘engaging men’ field look like? Second, what are its achievements and what are its limitations or dangers? This field is one instance of a wider ‘turn to men’ in gender politics, an increasing emphasis on the roles that men can play in building gender equality.