I want to start with the rationale for this work. Why are we trying to promote healthy masculinities? What is the problem?
To answer that, I have to start with gender.
I’m using the term ‘gender’ here for the patterns of men’s and women’s lives, boys’ and girls’ lives.
Gender means: the meanings we give to being male and female, and the social organisation of men’s and women’s lives.
Men have a vital role to play in contributing to the prevention and reduction of sexual harassment, in workplaces and elsewhere. Although men’s involvement is often constrained by poor understanding of sexual harassment and barriers preventing their advocacy, there are effective ways to invite them in to the work of sexual harassment prevention, and practical actions men can take to make change.
I was asked, as a man, to explain “mansplaining”. That is an assignment fraught with pitfalls.
Firstly, the pandemic was a public health crisis. But the pandemic generated many secondary crises and illuminated underlying tensions and contradictions in our society. And the care crisis was a big one.
Driving is shaped by gender – by the meanings given to being male or female and the social organisation of men’s and women’s lives and relations. There are significant associations between men, masculinity, and risky driving.
Risky driving behaviours
Men are more likely than women to show various risky driving behaviours, as national data on self-reported driving behaviour in Australia finds. Males are more likely than females to:
I’ve happily worn my pro-feminist politics like a badge for nearly twenty years. I joined an anti-sexist men’s group at age 20, did Women’s and Gender Studies at university and completed a PhD in Gender and Sexuality Studies. I founded the pro-feminist magazine XY and ran it for seven years before turning it into a major website. I continue to research issues of men, masculinity and sexuality, and I’m involved in activism and education particularly on men’s violence against women.
This is a collection of media commentaries on the Johnny Depp – Amber Heard case. It pulls together media pieces that are informed by knowledge of domestic and sexual violence, their typical dynamics and impacts, or that offer commentary on the wider significance and implications of the case. Suggestions for further commentaries are welcome.
Hobbes' piece below is a particularly thorough account of the history and context for the Depp-Heard trial.
Confronting and ending oppression against marginalised and minoritised peoples is at the heart of social justice-oriented social work practice. Developing a critical understanding of power and oppression, and enacting social change aimed at challenging structural factors that contribute to oppression are integral to the core mandates of social work profession (International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW], 2014). Different ways of challenging oppression are therefore of significant interest to social workers.
From the statistics, it seems that a lot of men regularly look at porn (and quite a few women as well, of course). That means that many of us have been turned on by images of women being objectified, disrespected, and/or abused; because, if you’ve looked at any porn sites recently, you’ll know that they’re not the place to look for examples of consensual female-friendly sexuality, non-violence or gender-equality.
