Articles

For a Special Section on Boyhood and Film to be published in the Fall 2015 issue of Boyhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Berghahn Journals), we are inviting short essays, articles and commentaries (3,000-6,000 words) on boys/boyhood as a cinematic theme.

We are currently located at a point in history in which we can observe a tremendous number of societies undergoing rapid changes. Such changes influence gender orders within these societies that, in turn, determine their political and social orders. We want to examine the transitions in political masculinities brought about by such refashioned social structures and social systems, which are unfolding locally, at national level and worldwide.

White Ribbon conducted a review of research and evaluation approaches for gender-based violence programming for men and boys. The concept of “engagement” is defined and deconstructed and includes a call to broaden the definition of engagement to include male responsibility and commitment when measuring program effectiveness. Additionally, with the increasing utilization of social media in prevention programming, it is important to consider physical and virtual spaces when evaluating engagement.

The following collection of articles is based on a narrative study conducted with 75 South African men and women to yield more nuanced, diverse and contextualised understandings of men’s sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in order to provide a basis for addressing the gendered aspects of HIV prevention. The narratives highlight the diversity and fluidity of men and women’s lived experiences while also demonstrating the range of social and cultural norms that structure sexuality and SRH.

Research shows that women, especially those with caring responsibilities, are more likely than men to both request and access flexible work. As a result, it is often assumed that flexible work is more relevant to women. Organisational practices are often developed with this perspective in mind. However, workforce demographics and family models have changed (e.g. 63% of fathers with resident dependent children now have a partner in the paid workforce) and this has led to increased work/family conflict for men. This new Australian report notes that many men do not conform to the ideal ‘full-time’ worker model and instead have a range of priorities and aspirations, e.g. to be active and engaged fathers. Research also shows that workplace flexibility is a key driver of employment decisions and job performance for both women and men, including young men, male managers, men approaching retirement and especially younger fathers. Given the above, having greater access to flexible work will enable men to increase their engagement in caregiving and household work, which in turn will help to facilitate gender equality at work. When couples share caring and domestic tasks more equitably, women who have traditionally undertaken the majority of these responsibilities are better positioned to access quality employment opportunities. Yet it is a rare organisation indeed that has focussed on gender equality in caring or on the critical role that men accessing flexible work might play in this.

This collection highlights useful online resources for the work of engaging men and boys in preventing and reducing men's violence against women.

It has long been asserted and assumed that women ‘cry rape’ – that women often maliciously invent allegations of rape for malicious, vengeful and other motives (Lisak et al. 2010). The reality is, instead, that false reports of sexual assault are rare. In addition, the scale of false reporting in rape cases is no higher than for other crimes (Kelly 2010). In addition, false accusations of domestic violence (and other forms of violence and abuse including child abuse) in the context of family law proceedings are uncommon. Mothers are more likely than fathers to have unsubstantiated allegations – both false accusations and allegations without support – leveled against them, and fathers are more likely than mothers to make unsubstantiated allegations.