Health

What are the links between masculine norms and men’s health outcomes globally?

What implications do these links have for efforts to improve men’s health – alongside efforts to improve the health of women and children – and as part of broader efforts to create healthier, thriving societies?

Programs that engage men and boys in health promotion and violence prevention are proliferating. Many aim to foster “healthy masculinities”, using education and support to involve men and boys in adopting more positive or gender-equitable forms of selfhood and relating. 

This paper offers a critical stocktake of 15 'healthy masculinities' programs in one state in Australia, assessing them against common standards for gender-transformative programming among men and boys. 

The 2024 Annual American Men’s Studies Conference will be held between June 14th-June 16th at Plymouth State University, New Hampshire, USA.

Proposals are due by January 25th 2024.

Apart from what it means in their own lives, men’s exposure to violence, trauma and adversity are key risk factors for men’s self-inflicted harm and their use of violence against others. Equimundo’s report, Making the Connections: Masculinities and Male Trauma, highlights the role masculinities play in boys and men’s ability to cope with their impact.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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