Activism & Politics

At first glance it looks like men don’t care that woman are being raped, beaten, bruised, pushed around, punched, slapped, kicked, bitten, thrown, tied up, locked in, followed, interrogated, humiliated, mutilated, tortured, terrorized, shot, kicked, choked, and bludgeoned to death by their husbands, boyfriends and ex’s. At first it does seem as though we just don’t care. But with a closer look, it appears that the general silence or apathy most men show toward the issue of men’s violence against women is only a disguise.

So you're a man and you actually care about women, but you don't know how to stop other men from raping and murdering women? Here's a handy dandy (not-exhaustive) list of things you could try.

Anti-sexist men’s groups are a valuable strategy for both personal and collective change. In this XY collection, we bring together some key resources on men’s groups: discussions of their political value and potential, guides to how to form and run them, and wider explorations.

Across the globe, violence prevention initiatives focused on men and boys are proliferating rapidly. The new book Engaging Men and Boys in Violence Prevention highlights effective and innovative strategies for the primary prevention of domestic violence, sexual violence, and other forms of harassment and abuse. It combines research on gender, masculinities, and violence with case studies from a wide variety of countries and settings.

The Continuum of Male Engagement is a tool to assist efforts to effectively engage men in work to end gender based violence. Men are differently positioned in the degree to which they are willing and able to become engaged in efforts to prevent gender-based violence or promote gender equality. gender equality, along a continuum from ‘overtly hostile’ to ‘ready to lead’.

The Man Box: A study on being a young man in Australia is the first comprehensive study that focuses on the attitudes to manhood and the behaviours of young Australian men aged 18 to 30. It involved an online survey of a representative sample of 1,000 young men from across the country, as well as focus group discussions with two groups of young men.

The allegations of sexual misconduct by the sociologist Michael Kimmel published in The Chronicle of Higher Education are serious and troubling. In the wake of those allegations, we are releasing this statement for two main reasons: 1) We believe and have been publicly and privately advocating that men should not stay silent in the wake of the #MeToo movement; and 2) Because Michael is a colleague and friend to many of us; his intersectional work on men and masculinities has long been a central force in our field inside and outside of academia. [...]

Relevant to everyone interested in preventing men’s violence against women, a report about how men can align with the #MeToo movement is freely available.

Written for White Ribbon New Zealand, this recent report provides understanding of:

White Ribbon New Zealand's 2016 campaign focused on giving fathers in New Zealand the skills and confidence to talk about respectful relationships, including respectful sexual relationships, with their sons. One significant influence on boys' and young men's sexualities is pornography, and White Ribbon NZ addressed this in their campaign materials.

While a lot of effort and attention is being spent to “engage men” in addressing, responding to and preventing gender-based violence, the term has not been defined in any specific or concrete ways. There is some vague idea, often, about what it might mean for men to be engaged, but without a clearer understanding of what we mean by “engaging”, we’re often left with a lack of clarity in terms of goals, objectives and related activities.

There seem to be at least five distinct but often overlapping goals that people are referring to when they use the term engaging men (with some of the questions that frequently arise in that goal area):