Separated fathers often feel profound grief, distress, and anger at the end of their relationships with their partners and their children. Some participate in ‘fathers’ rights’ groups, a movement which claims to advocate on behalf of men and fathers who are the victims of discrimination and injustice in the Family Court and elsewhere. Yet such groups may do little to help fathers heal or to build or maintain ongoing and positive relationships with their children. Some men do find support in these groups, but they also may be incited into anger, blame, and destructive strategies of litigation. The fathers’ rights movement prioritises formal principles of equality over positive parenting and the well-being of women and children. Some groups seem more concerned with re-establishing paternal authority and fathers’ decision-making related to their children’s and ex-partners’ lives than with actual involvements with children. However, other responses to separated fathers are more constructive.
Working with Boys and Men
White Ribbon is calling for papers for the inaugural White Ribbon International Conference to be held on 13-15 May 2013 in Sydney, Australia.
If you are interested in submitting a paper, please view the attached document and reply to events@whiteribbon.org.au by 5 February 2013.
Kind regards,
The White Ribbon Team
White Ribbon Australia is holding an international conference featuring key researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and activists from both national and international settings. The three-day international conference is titled: Global To Local: Preventing Men's Violence Against Women. Research, policy and practice in one space.
The conference is designed to engage a variety of stakeholders, including governments, international organisations, and community agencies in Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and further afield.
This report is a comprehensive examination of the roles bystanders can play in preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. The report draws on and synthesises insights from diverse bodies of scholarship and practice regarding violence prevention, whistle blowing, employee voice, workplace justice and workplace bullying. While there are significant organizational, legal and socio-political challenges in developing bystander approaches to sexual harassment, the paper argues that they also offer substantial promise.
Australian men want and need access to flexible working to support their important roles as fathers, carers and engaged volunteers in their communities, but their uptake of flexible working is limited and most commonly involves informal ‘flextime’ and ad hoc working from home structured around full-time work, according to research conducted by Diversity Council Australia on men and flexible working.
The Equal Community Foundation (www.ecf.org.in) is organising a seminar on April 28 called ‘First step for engaging men for gender equality’ at Suzlon One Earth Campus, in Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Calls for greater male participation are now a commonplace in work on sexual and reproductive health and rights. The need to engage men in efforts to prevent sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and promote sexual health and gender equality is well accepted. But we know less about the optimal forms of such engagement, particularly when it comes to moving beyond a focus on changing individual men’s attitudes and behaviours.
The paper presents an overview of the role men can play in combatting violence against women. After a short introduction on the broader development in the thinking of men and violence and the changes in the perspectives on men’s violence, different initiatives are presented.
These are grouped into general prevention strategies, treatment programs, youth and schools and then fatherhood. The last part is devoted to recommendations for further actions.
A new report highlights the everyday actions men can take to help reduce and prevent men’s violence against women. The report is titled Men Speak Up: A toolkit for action in men’s daily lives, and it was released on November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
The report is available in PDF below.
In 2006, the Rogers Park Young Womens Action Team (YWAT) launched a campaign to engage young men as allies in addressing violence against girls. The YWAT, a youth-led and adult-supported social change project, conducted a participatory action research project that included the creation of a film called Real Talk (in collaboration with Beyondmedia Education), survey research, and a set of popular education workshops. In addition, the YWAT organized and implemented a two-day train the trainer workshop for fifteen young men ages 14-22 in November 2007.