Activism & Politics

There are growing efforts to engage men and boys in preventing men’s violence against women in the Asia Pacific.

What proportions of women and men call themselves feminists? There are some basic patterns in feminist identification:

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.

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.

It’s a couple of days since the #MenChallengingSexism conference in Cardiff and we’re so pleased with the level of engagement by the men who attended over the weekend, as well as the support and encouragement of feminist organisations, individual women and our amazing guest speakers Maryam Namazie and Vaishnavi Sundar.

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.