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.
Health
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.
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
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.
In 2013, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) at Georgetown University conducted an initial review of recent literature and programs on male engagement in sexual and reproductive health. The review showed that the practice of engaging men in sexual and reproductive health programs is not yet clearly defined, and evidence of its effectiveness is still accumulating.
Unmet sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs are a critical threat to the health of individuals worldwide, and gender inequalities remain a significant barrier to addressing such health issues. Harmful gender norms and attitudes influence men’s and women’s health and well-being, shaping men’s behaviors in ways that have a direct impact on the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of their partners, their families, and themselves. At the same time, SRH and family planning issues are often treated as women’s responsibility.
Meaningful engagement with men and boys is increasingly recognized as critical to gender equality and equity, necessary not only for women’s empowerment, but also for transforming the social and gender norms that reinforce patriarchy and inequality and harm both women and men. The primary challenge embedded in this work is how to engage men and boys effectively without instrumentalizing them as a pathway to women’s empowerment on the one hand, or marginalizing women and girls in gender equity work on the other.
Men’s health is an important social issue, and deserving of robust policy and programming attention. Unfortunately, the issue of men’s health is misrepresented by men’s rights advocates and ideologies.
Most occupational injuries, and the great majority of occupational deaths, are among men. In Australia, males comprise 96% of workplace fatalities (Safe Work Australia 2015), and 61% of workplace injuries or illnesses (ABS 2014).
Men's occupational deaths and injuries are shaped by masculinity - by traditional masculine norms of risk-taking, stoicism, independence, and so on. In this XY collection, we feature key research articles on this area.
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Males in high-income countries have rates of completed suicide several times those of females. Male suicide is shaped in part by constructions of masculinity, as a range of studies have documented. Here, we have collected key studies and reports on male suicide.
Also see the academic references listed here: http://www.xyonline.net/content/g-suicide
Additions are most welcome.