Over the past decade, health programs have increasingly engaged men and boys in order to achieve gender equality and improve health outcomes. Gender inequality is a pervasive structural issue that negatively affects women, girls, men, and boys. Narratives of masculinity that justify men’s capacity for violence, control over women, and dominance in the economic and political spheres is influential in many local contexts around the world.
Working with Boys and Men
Over the last 12 years my view of the world and myself in it has radically changed, due to the many conversations with and between radical feminists I have been privileged to be part of. From my first exposure to the reality of women’s lives and the male violence they encounter and fear on a daily basis, to attending feminist conferences, it has been an eye opening, embarrassing and life-changing journey.
The complex reality for men beginning a Men's Behaviour Change Program (MBCP) can be, among other things, a mix of ignorance, inexperience and resentment. I’ve been working in programs for male perpetrators of domestic violence for more than ten years and one thing I notice among these men is a level of ignorance with regard to understanding the work required to change. In my experience, one of the biggest obstacles to men ending their abuse of women and children is their inability to understand the damage they are causing and have caused.
We are a group of men from England who are organising engage, an international pro-feminist online conference, for the first time in 2021. The conference seeks to engage men in activism and discussions surrounding masculinity, feminism and the patriarchy. It takes place over November 19-21.
Men, Power and Politics is an initiative to change the face of politics by shifting the focus from being exclusively on women as the sole agents in their own empowerment and instead engaging male political leaders as transformative agents of change for gender equality.