Work with men has demonstrated significant potential in contributing to building gender equality and improving the health of women and men. However, most work with men has tended to be local in scale and limited in scope. To be more widely effective, that is to transform the pervasive gender inequalities which characterize many societies globally – efforts to transform men’s behaviour require to be significantly scaled up. Policy processes and mechanisms are key elements in any effort to engage men and boys in achieving gender equality.
This Policy Brief:
Resources
There is a persistent debate, in both community and academic circles, regarding domestic violence and gender, and in particular, whether women's domestic violence against men is as common or as serious as men's domestic violence against women. The following articles are useful contributions to this debate. While they acknowledge women's domestic violence, they show that the claim of gender symmetry in domestic violence is not supported by the evidence.
The evidence is that:
NOMAS, the National Organization of Men Against Sexism, is celebrating its 35th year with our National Conference on Men & Masculinity (M&M), and the 22nd Annual Men's Studies Association Meeting in partnership with the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) 14th National Conference on Domestic Violence: Changing Faces of the Movement, in Anaheim, CA, July 31-August 4, 2010.
To read more, go to http://www.nomas.org/node/35
This Information Paper focuses on men’s roles in progress towards gender equality. It answers two questions:
1) To what extent are men supportive of gender equality?
2) What can be done to engage men in progress towards gender equality?
Catalyst believes that men have a critical role to play in diversity and inclusion efforts, especially initiatives to eliminate gender bias. In Engaging Men in Gender Initiatives: What Change Agents Need to Know, the first report in Catalyst's Engaging Men in Gender Initiatives series, Catalyst provided pivotal information about the cultural forces that can undermine organizational efforts to fully engage men as champions of gender initiatives. In this second report, Catalyst examines factors that can heighten or dampen men’s interest in acquiring skills to become effective change agents for gender equality at work.
Engaging men and boys has emerged as a vital strategy for ending gender based violence, including in refugee and post-conflict settings. While prevention and response activities are essential, the humanitarian community and host country service providers understand that they must move beyond simply addressing each individual case of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and begin to address the societal, cultural, economic, religious and political systems that either perpetuate or allow for violence based on gender to continue.
Could changes in men’s attitudes and behaviors about health, violence and parenting benefit women, children – and men? Do national policies influence men’s behaviors in relation to child rearing, employment and gender-based violence?
This discussion paper was produced for “Partners for Prevention: Working with Boys and Men to Prevent Gender-based Violence” a UN interagency initiative UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM and UNV. This regional programme is a coordinated approach to support primary prevention of gender-based violence in Asia and the Pacific with the deeper involvement of boys and men.
There is considerable debate over whether boys' education is shaped in significant ways by the sex of their teachers, and in particular, whether boys need male teachers. Here, XY presents a selection of key journal articles on this issue.
Also see this list of academic references on male teachers and male childcare workers: http://www.xyonline.net/content/iii-male-teachers-and-male-childcare-workers.
This report offers a comprehensive overview of best practice in violence prevention education in schools, identifying five principles of best practice. It maps promising programs around Australia and internationally. And it offers directions for advancing the field. The report is relevant beyond this, however, offering indicators of effective practice in violence prevention education which are relevant for a variety of settings and populations.
Some sections of the report focus in particular on issues of interest for those working with men and boys in violence prevention, such as the teaching methods to use and the content to address (pp. 36-43), whether to have mixed-sex or single-sex classes (pp. 47-50), whether curricula should be delivered by teachers or community educators or peers (pp. 52-53), and whether the sex of the educator makes a difference (pp. 53-54).
Note that I have also included the text of a seminar which summarises the report, titled "Advancing the field", and the Powerpoint which goes along with this.