Violence
How can we effectively engage men in preventing men’s violence against women? How can we mobilise their commitment and activism? The following guides and manuals provide useful guidance on the practicalities of this work. See below for PDF copies of most of these. Also see further below for other resources.
Last week’s International Conference on Masculinities was the latest in a string of international events on engaging men and boys for gender equality.
Tanveer Ahmed’s opinion piece (Men forgotten in violence debate, The Australian 9th February 2015) charges radical feminism with outdated notions of gender relations. However, it is his own world view, focused on the reinstatement of biological sex differences as a basis for men’s power and his concern about what he calls men’s disempowerment that fails to grasp the changes required of men as we move towards the necessary empowerment of women and gender equality.
It is time for a critical stocktake of efforts to involve men in the prevention of violence against women. In particular, it is time to assess a series of assumptions about this work which are influential and yet which are unsupported by evidence or dangerous. In this presentation from the recent 2nd MenEngage Second Global Symposium 2014: Men and Boys for Gender Justice (Delhi, 10-13 November), Michael Flood offers a critical assessment of the 'engaging men' field.