Activism & Politics

Voice your support for Men for Women's Choice.

Like many men around the world, we think women should control their own bodies. We are part of a decentralized effort to encourage men to speak out in support of women’s right to safe birth control and abortion.

In celebration of International Women's Day, Engagingmen is pleased to share with you the second issue of the Engagingmen.net community e-magazine 'Stories of Resistance and Stories of Change' (http://www.engagingmen.net/resource/stories-resistance-and-stories-change).

This series is designed as a forum for us to reflect on the innovations, successes and challenges we face in practice and to explore the various themes and theories that inform our work.

Calls for greater male participation are now a commonplace in work on sexual and reproductive health and rights. The need to engage men in efforts to prevent sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and promote sexual health and gender equality is well accepted. But we know less about the optimal forms of such engagement, particularly when it comes to moving beyond a focus on changing individual men’s attitudes and behaviours.

I’ve often found myself trying to explain to people that rape culture and patriarchy aren’t just bad for women. If you draw attention to a form of violence that is primarily aimed at women by men, and a form of social oppression that is intended to provide men with dominance over women, a lot of people will think you must be hostile to men, or want to take something away from men. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a new, international collective of men opposed to prostitution, called ZeroMacho.  The collective, based in France, so far has collected over 600 signatures in more than 30 countries in favour of the abolition of prostitution. They have asked XY to spread the word. See www.zeromacho.eu/. Their manifesto is available in English here: http://www.zeromacho.eu/anglais.html.

We have had 25 years of research on men and masculinities. The relationship between men as gendered beings, power and change has been central in this research. This article presents some of the main findings that most researchers within critical studies on men will agree on, and then it discusses how to better understand men’s relationship to power and marginalization, change and gender equality in future research. It is explorative in its style, and an invitation to further debates on these important questions.

The paper presents an overview of the role men can play in combatting violence against women. After a short introduction on the broader development in the thinking of men and violence and the changes in the perspectives on men’s violence, different initiatives are presented.
These are grouped into general prevention strategies, treatment programs, youth and schools and then fatherhood. The last part is devoted to recommendations for further actions.

This talk offers a stocktake of the White Ribbon Campaign in Australia: what it has achieved so far, the obstacles it faces, and the ways forward. I begin with an inspiring and accessible overview of the campaign: its character, its components, and its significance. I describe the campaign’s real achievements, its contributions to positive social change in community attitudes, relationships, and policy. I highlight the obstacles which the campaign faces. And I end by spelling out the key steps which can be taken – by ordinary men and women, policy-makers, managers, sporting bodies, and others – to make a difference. I urge that we use the F-word – feminism – to guide our efforts.

A new report highlights the everyday actions men can take to help reduce and prevent men’s violence against women. The report is titled Men Speak Up: A toolkit for action in men’s daily lives, and it was released on November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The report is available at the following web address: http://www.whiteribbon.org.au/resources/research. (There is also an abridged version.)

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the completion of the film A New Kind of Strength, located at the website www.privateviolence.com. The Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention collaborated with Astraea Productions, Markay Media and Shelter From the Storm Productions to capture the efforts made by men across the country to draw attention to the vital role men play in ending violence against women.