The Australian organisation ManCave released an open letter on May 14, titled “An open letter to the sector working with men and boys, in healthy masculinities, gender equity, and the prevention of violence”. Professsor Steven Roberts and colleagues responded to this in a Substack post.
There is much of value in the ManCave open letter. It is a constructive and thoughtful call for collaboration and mutual engagement. It shows a robust appreciation for the need to address both patriarchal inequalities and areas of harm to men and boys. Here are some brief thoughts in response, both to the ManCave letter and the response to it by Professor Steven Roberts and colleagues.
A field
A range of programming and policy efforts centered on engaging men and boys has emerged across the world in the past five decades. These involve efforts self-consciously aimed at men or boys and addressing their involvements in gender in some way. (See pp. 8-9 of this report for an overview.) This work is described in various ways: ‘work with men and boys’, ‘engaging men and boys’, ‘healthy masculinities’, etc.
The ‘field’ of work with men and boys is diverse, with diverse histories, theoretical and political orientations, institutional organisation, and policy architectures. This ‘field’ includes work across domains such as domestic and sexual violence, men’s health, fathering, boys’ education, sexual and reproductive health, violent extremism, economic empowerment, and other areas. Although there are important commonalities across these, there are also significant differences.
The ManCave letter describes this in terms of ‘fragmentation’, and I agree with Roberts et al. that this is problematic and loaded. One could equally describe the field in terms of ‘diversity’, or even ‘distinction’, that is, distinct domains.
The creation of a unified and uniform field of work with men and boys across its diverse domains in the near future seems both impractical and undesirable. At the same time, there is real value in dialogue and collaboration across the diverse domains represented in the ‘engaging men and boys’ field.
For the field of work with men and boys overall, there are productive articulations of both frameworks and ways forward. These include the excellent ICRW report Gender Equity and Male Engagement (2018) and my UN Women report Work with men and boys for gender equality: A review of field formation, the evidence base and future directions (2020).
In both the open letter and the response, there is an odd focus on only two of the various domains of ‘engaging men’ work, with the ManCave’s discussion of national coordination even referring to (just) two working groups, one in men’s health and the other in violence prevention. This may reflect the prominence of these two domains in recent discussions of ‘healthy masculinities’ work, but there are other significant domains of work, such as fathering, boys’ education, and sexual health, and other emerging domains such as violent extremism.
National coordination or collaboration
The ManCave letter wonders about national coordination. I find it hard to imagine a feasible mechanism for the direct coordination of work with men and boys across the diverse domains above. On the other hand, I do see it as feasible to build both (a) greater collaboration and strategic alliances, and (b) a more shared agenda.
COLLABORATION: A call for collaboration across the field of work with men and boys is not new. National violence prevention organisation Our Watch provided a detailed discussion of the need and opportunities for collaboration in the report it produced after national consultations, Strengthening national approaches to addressing masculinities and working with men and boys to prevent gender-based violence (2024).
A mechanism for fostering greater national collaboration already is under way in Australia, the establishment of a national network focused on the ‘work with men and boys’ field. MenEngage Australia is intended to be “Australia’s national network promoting the role of men and boys in efforts to build gender justice, end men’s violence and abuse, and foster human flourishing for all”. The network is intended to span a range of domains for this work, including the two on which recent debate has focused, men’s health and violence prevention.
MenEngage Australia does not aspire to become a formal coordinator of work with men and boys across the country. But one of its goals is to foster “coordination and collaboration among practitioners and organisations working with men and boys for progressive change”.
STRATEGIC ALLIANCES: Collaborations between the various organisations, practitioners and others working in violence prevention, men’s health and other domains are valuable. These might include strategic alliances to integrate attention to diverse issues in particular initiatives or campaigns, conduct research, or achieve particular policy goals.
SHARED PRINCIPLES: The ManCave letter briefly articulates some shared principles. I am heartened to see that these have much in common with other articulations of such principles or standards, including ones I have co-authored and others I have not:
- The Warwick Principles: Best Practices for Engaging Men and Boys in Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls in the Pacific
- Supporting Best Practices: Guidelines for Funding Programs That Engage and Mobilize Men & Boys in Violence Prevention
- Effective practice in violence prevention education with boys and young men
- Working with Men and Boys for Social Justice Assessment Tool
- The global MenEngage Alliance principles
Men’s health and violence prevention
Roberts et al. are right to note that men’s health and violence prevention “operate through different mechanisms, require different forms of accountability, and sit within different traditions of practice and knowledge”. For example, I have expressed concern about simplistic assumptions regarding the applicability of a men’s health lens to violence prevention.
However, I was puzzled by Roberts et al.’s account of men’s health as centering the interior dimensions of men’s lives and violence prevention as centering the exterior dimensions. Matters of men’s health and wellbeing can be seen as deeply material and structural, particularly in critical men’s health approaches focused on social injustice. Equally, violence in men’s lives has important ‘interior’ dimensions, including in the psychology of perpetration, male histories of trauma, and men’s and boys’ own experiences of subjection to violence (overwhelmingly at the hands of other men and boys). Yes, the problem often is framed very differently in the two fields, but this is not inevitable. In addition, the ManCave letter itself emphasises the need to address systems and structures.
RESEARCH AND PRACTICE: Roberts et al. describe ManCave’s letter as suggesting that men’s health is grounded more in practice and violence prevention more in research. I did not see this in the letter, although it does perhaps draw too strong a distinction between research and practice.
EVIDENCE: Both pieces raise issues of evidence. I summarised the evidence for the impact or work with men and boys across a range of domains, and the methodological and epistemological issues at stake in discussions of ‘evidence’, in chapter 5 of the UN Women report.
Conclusion
ManCave’s open letter is a timely and constructive intervention. I hope that we will continue to see productive and thoughtful discussion among the advocates, practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers involved in or influencing work with men and boys for positive change.