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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

There has been in Australia, for a long time, a kind of network of anti-feminist men’s groups. Some men’s rights groups focus on general issues of gender and violence and so on, and some have a particular focus on fathering and family law. And those men’s and fathers’ rights group overlap. I’ve described them as an anti-feminist backlash because of their views on women and gender and because of the political strategies they adopt. […] I think they have an understanding which is, in fact, fairly widespread—that feminism is definned by a hostility towards men, and a kind of unreasonable and irrational desire to put women on top. I think fathers’ rights and men’s rights groups, to some degree, simply repeat the negative stereotypes about feminism that are part of popular culture and part of the media. They extend them and intensify them, in terms of seeing women as malicious and hostile and devious and so on, and in attributing great power to feminism—feminism now dominates our political agendas or dominates our culture. I think they exaggerate the extent to which men are now victims in our culture.

‘Fathers’ rights’ refers to organized groups or networks of fathers who act in support of the collective interests of fathers, especially separated fathers whose children do not reside with them. Fathers’ rights (hereafter ‘FR’) groups are active particularly in lobbying for changes in *family law. FR is defined by the claim that fathers are deprived of their ‘rights’ and subjected to systematic discrimination as men and fathers, in a system biased towards women and dominated by feminists. FR groups overlap with *men’s rights groups and both represent an organised backlash to feminism. While other networks also promote fathers’ involvement in families, the FR movement is distinguished by its *anti-feminist discourse of men or fathers as victims. At the same time, FR perspectives do have a wide currency across the political spectrum.

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.

There’s been an important shift in several different communities and scenes lately. In the kink world, in atheism circles, among feminist folks and their allies, in pagan communities, I’ve been seeing more people than ever before talking about the effects of sexual coercion, assault, harassment, unwanted attention, and other related topics. Of course, none of this is particularly new and women have been talking about it for years. But what’s different is the nature of the dialogue.

In previous posts we have discussed television advertisements and shows that actively encourage “hypermasculinity” and “emphasized femininity”. In this post we will look at the show The Big Bang Theory and discuss the masculinities and femininities that are presented as alternatives to “hypermasculinity” and “emphasized femininity”.

In a few days from now, two men in suits -- Mitt Romney and Barack Obama -- will stand side-by-side to debate each other three times in three weeks. Imagine those moments. The two men defending their records and outlining their case to the American people: “This is why you should choose me to lead you for the next four years.”

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.