Today is ending violence against women day. Engaging men and boys is an important strategy to achieve that, but it is important to state that engaging men and boys should not be considered as an end in itself, but should be regarded as a means or strategy to an end; it does not mean that engaging men and boys disregards the involvement of women and girls. It is important to engage with either or both sexes depending on the situation. At some point initiatives should work with both sexes together as gender is a relational concept.
The following information is shared from Partners for Prevention?s perspective. Partners for Prevention(P4P), a UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women & UNV Asia-Pacific Regional Joint Programme for Gender-based Violence Prevention, believes violence is preventable.
- What are the opportunities and challenges for engaging men and boys in promoting gender equality? How can men and boys be persuaded that gender equality also benefits them?
Opportunities for engaging men and boys in promoting gender equality are many. Anywhere they can make a difference and be change makers (especially in decision making positions, but certainly not limited to them): at home, in the workplace, at social events and sports activities, in the community, in society, etcetera. Generally, prevention approaches that engage men and boys entail strategies at the institutional/societal, community, family/interpersonal and individual level. Some examples are:
- Sensitizing men and boys to downsides of dominant masculinity and femininity norms and harmful practices to both men and women?s self-concepts and gender relations;
- Engaging men and boys in active transformation of their behaviors and practices, and hierarchical societal structures and processes;
- Encouraging equitable partnerships by changing power dynamics between men and women and building healthy relationships, and facilitating processes of shared decision making contributing to social stability and more sustainable livelihoods;
- Advocating for law and policy reforms, ensuring that legislative and policy frameworks acknowledge women needs and protection of basic (human) rights;
- Supporting institutional transformations;
- Involving male leaders (religious, cultural and political) and media to influence and transform men?s perspectives on gender equality aiming to change priorities and viewpoints of male decision makers at all levels.
Understanding of the influences of informal institutions, attitudes, norms, values, believes, power relations, family/gender roles and masculinities is important and, therefore, awareness should be raised and capacities should be developed to enable men and boys to act and transform these influences in the right direction. Besides for policy advocacy and programme development purposes, evidence from research can be used to raise awareness among and to strategically work with men and boys about how they can change certain inequitable and violent practices and behaviours.
It is also important to learn through systematic monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes whether certain strategies were successful or not, and whether they can be adapted and/or scaled-up in other contexts. However, there remains limited evidence of what works well or what bring positive results.
A WHO report in 2007assessed 58 intervention programmes with men and boys in changing gender-based inequities, including 15 studies on GBV. Out of these 15 studies, four were considered ?effective? in terms of behavior or attitude change, seven were listed as ?promising? and the remaining four were reported ?unclear?. Programmes that were considered ?transformative? showed a higher effectiveness than programmes that were considered ?gender-neutral? or ?gender-sensitive?. Programmes that worked on multiple levels (from individual to societal) were considered to be more effective too. The types of intervention of the four ?effective? programmes were community outreach/mobilization and group education. Another WHO report in 2010described elements of successful programmes:
- Positive messaging
- Recognition of consequences of hegemonic masculinity
- Informed by proof through evaluation and research
- Acknowledgement that men are not homogenous
- Different levels of intervention
- Social change strategies like community outreach & mobilization and group education
Other evaluations of programmes (mainly on GBV in health and HIV/AIDS contexts) also indicated that primary prevention approaches can be effective especially through community outreach/mobilization and group education.
P4P identified 5 steps for effective primary prevention programming:
- Apply research findings to identify priority changes needed to prevent future violence based on risk and protective factors and identify priority target groups;
- Review global programme evidence and select appropriate intervention;
- Apply theory of change to articulate the drivers of the problem, the anticipated change, the strategy to achieve change and to sustain it;
- Contextualize and localize the intervention and consider how it will complement other activities that are already taking place;
- Monitor and evaluate the intervention to enable adjustments based on findings and to add to the evidence base for future programming.
P4P also identified a framework for action to prevent GBVcontaining 7 key action areas that could be coordinated among different actors at different levels. These 7 PREVENT areas are based on existing global evidence on risk and protective factors and on effective interventions.
- Produce and apply evidence
- Respond to, support and protect those who experience violence
- Empower women and girls
- Value community engagement
- Educate youth and adolescents
- Nurture healthy family relationships
- Target alcohol and drug abuse
This provides an overall framework only. However, strategic priority areas for addressing violence should be adapted based on specific context of each setting.
Challenges:
There are probably as many opportunities as there are challenges. Gender inequality stems from informal and patriarchal institutions, attitudes, norms, values, believes, power relations, family/gender roles and masculinities that want to maintain the status of men which will have to be addressed in promoting gender equality.
Changing norms takes time and needs multi-pronged interventions and thus needs to engage various stakeholders and partners. Often, development programmes have short-life cycles and often are not strongly grounded on evidence and theories of change. It is important to have a long term investment in changing norms with right strategies, frequencies, consistencies, strong evidence- and theory-based grounding.
- In your area/region, what are examples of successful programmes in engaging men and boys in transforming discriminatory social norms? (E.g. socio-cultural practices, caring responsibilities, employment rights, gender- based violence...)
As mentioned before, not many formal evaluations have taken place or have been reported publicly. The success of many interventions is often based on subjective viewpoints or initial responses to activities that make an intervention promising. Besides that, transforming norms and behavior are long-term processes and are often not achieved through singular programmes.
However, examples of promising approaches initiated by partners of P4P are in the area of:
- Utilizing social media in combination of on ground activities to raise awareness and develop capacities on GBV prevention and provide space and opportunity for young people to be involved in preventing GBV;
- Utilizing mass media in combination with theater for development and capacity development activities focused on men and boys through civil society organizations, government and sports federations;
- School-based programmes with students from group 6-7 and their local context (teachers, parents, local government) to raise awareness, develop capacities and create a conducive environment on GBV prevention;
- Producing film with discussion guide and other training tools for raising awareness and develop capacities among young men and boys regarding the consequences of gender socialization and providing options for more equitable and non-violence practices;
- Raising awareness and developing capacities of groups of men to transform masculinities and achieve gender equality in their communities;
- Working with male leaders (religious, cultural and political) to change their perspectives which influence community norms and behaviors;
- Mobilizing communities through community communications and engagements.
- Male counseling with (potential) perpetrators, and working with couples on healthy relationship and parenting.
P4P facilitates regional cooperation and collaboration through its support of two sub-regional consortiums of practitioners to undertake coordinated capacity development initiatives in South Asia (SANAM: South Asian Network to Address Masculinities) and East & Southeast Asia (RLC: Regional Learning Community). Each consortium is promoting critical knowledge on masculinities, power, gender-justice, and violence prevention through collective learning, curriculum development, partnership and mentorship, and solidarity building that is adapted to their own settings. From these sub-regional consortiums, national groups have been formed to start a collective learning process that help local activists and practitioners to enhance knowledge and skills on transforming harmful masculinities to promote gender justice and prevent violence. P4P also provides capacity development events for and technical assistance to civil society organizations, government agencies, and partners on collecting and understanding evidence, and designing evidence- and theory-based prevention programmes.
P4P also contributes to the global knowledge base by conducting research on perpetration of violence against women (prevalence) and its risk and protective factors, including through interviews with men, which provides useful information as the basis for interventions (like determining priority changes for GBV prevention and selecting priority target groups).
More useful resources can be found via: http://www.partners4prevention.org/resources
- What actions should governments, donors, UN bodies and civil society take to support the engagement of men and boys in achieving gender equality?
Actions as suggested above should be undertaken by the various stakeholders. In order for actions to be successful coordination is important to ensure each stakeholder uses its comparative advantages and in such a way that the actions will be complementary. The 5 steps for effective primary prevention programmingand the PREVENT framework for action to prevent GBVwill be very useful tools to apply. ?
Contact: raymond.brandes@one.un.org
mila kunis stacey dash christopher columbus columbus day columbus day Stacy Dash Amber Tamblyn
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