Health

16 Jun 2022

Driving is shaped by gender – by the meanings given to being male or female and the social organisation of men’s and women’s lives and relations. There are significant associations between men, masculinity, and risky driving.

Risky driving behaviours

Men are more likely than women to show various risky driving behaviours, as national data on self-reported driving behaviour in Australia finds. Males are more likely than females to:

05 Apr 2022

Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are often seen as the domain of women and girls’ health and well-being. Men and boys are considered important in SRHR, but mainly as partners, gatekeepers and policymakers. This paper argues that men and boys have their own sexual and reproductive health issues and concerns. Addressing men’s concerns benefits not only themselves, but the rippling effect through their partners and communities allows the achievement of SRHR for all.

19 Jan 2021

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.

13 Jan 2021

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.

26 Nov 2020

I have been working on issues of men, masculinities, and gender for 32 years, and it looks to me like men’s roles in building gender equality are now part of the public agenda to an unprecedented extent. Almost every day, there are new stories and initiatives on how men can support women’s participation in medicine and science, end domestic and sexual violence, share the load of fathering and housework, and more. This focus has a compelling rationale. Above all, we will not make much progress towards gender equality without change among men, and men themselves will benefit from this progress.

07 Nov 2020

NOTE: Now also see the 5-page Policy Brief, summarising this report and released in November 2021, available here.

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20 May 2020

Achieving gender equality must, and has, involved efforts to understand the vulnerabilities and risks that adolescent girls and young women face every day – but how much do we know about the realities of adolescent boys and young men? This report takes a deeper look at the daily lives of adolescent boys and young men around the world and at how they can join the movement towards improved health and gender equality.

24 Mar 2020

Patterns and inequalities of gender make a difference to pandemics. Gender relations and gender inequalities can shape the progression of pandemics, patterns of men’s and women’s responses to them, and pandemics’ impact. In the following, we have collected commentaries on the COVID-19 pandemic and gender. Additions are welcome.

27 Aug 2019

Men are taught from an early age to be tough. It’s time we let men feel. It's time we change the culture. It's time we redefine what it means to "be a man". @artwithimpact is accepting proposals for Voices With Impact short film grants to support the creation of films on the topic of mental health issues related to the culture of masculinity. YOU have an important story to tell. Share it and change the world! Deadline is October 15: http://bit.ly/VWI-2020 

05 Jun 2019

The notion of the ‘Man Box’ names influential and restrictive norms of manhood. The ‘Act Like a Man’ box or ‘Man Box’ has been a common teaching tool in efforts over the past three decades to engage men and boys in critical reflections on men and gender (Kivel, 2007). The ‘box’ names the qualities men are expected to show, the rewards they earn for doing so, and the punishments they are dealt if they step ‘outside’ the box. It emphasises that these dominant standards are restrictive and limiting for men, as well as harmful for women. Individual qualities in the Man Box are not necessarily bad, and indeed some may be useful or desirable in some contexts. On the other hand, some of the qualities are negative in themselves, the range of qualities available to men is narrow, and men are expected not to deviate from them. The Man Box norms also sustain forms of privilege or unfair advantage for men, and men’s attitudes and behaviours that underpin inequality between men and women. The reference to ‘acting like a man’ makes the point that masculinity is a ‘performance’, a set of qualities and behaviours practised in particular contexts.