Date: Tue Oct 31 2006 - 15:27:39 AST
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BRIDGE
Development - Gender
Bibliography No. 15
Engaging Men in Gender Equality: Positive Strategies and Approaches
Overview and Annotated Bibliography
Emily Esplen
October 2006
Prepared for Irish Aid
BRIDGE (development - gender)
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9RE, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1273 606261
Fax: +44 (0) 1273 621202/691647
Email: bridge@ids.ac.uk
Website: http://www.ids.ac.uk/bridge
© Institute of Development Studies
ISBN 1 85864 602 2
Section One: Overview
______________________________________________________
1.1: Why Involve Men in Gender and Development Work?
There has been much resistance on the part of some women to involving men in
gender and development work – driven by fears about the dilution of the
feminist agenda, and by anxieties over the diversion of limited resources
away from women’s empowerment initiatives and back into the hands of men.
Yet not engaging with men and boys may limit the effectiveness of
development interventions, and may actually intensify gender inequalities.
Development interventions which aim to improve women’s employment and income
generating opportunities, for example, are likely to compound women’s heavy
work burdens unless efforts are made to encourage men to take greater
responsibility for child care and domestic chores. Projects that focus
solely on women may also reinforce existing gender stereotypes (women as
carers, men as breadwinners, and so on). Involving men, by contrast, can
generate a broader consensus on issues which have previously been
marginalised as being of interest to women only – sexual and reproductive
health, for example (Kaufman, in Ruxton, 2004).
The inherent weakness of ‘women-only’ approaches has become most
devastatingly apparent in the light of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Programmes
that focus on empowering women to negotiate safer sex have minimal impact in
societies where it is men who decide when and with whom to have sex, and
when and if to use condoms.
The conceptual shift from Women in Development (WID) to Gender and
Development (GAD), which has been underway since the 1980s, was partly borne
out of recognition of the inadequacies of focusing on women in isolation.
GAD approaches promised a new focus, beyond the narrow preoccupation with
women alone. Instead, they emphasised the socially and historically
constructed relations between women and men (Moser, 1993), which allowed for
a more nuanced understanding of the relational nature of gendered power, and
of the interdependency of women and men.
The emphasis of GAD on gender relations necessitates a focus on men as well
as women – at least in theory. The extent to which this conceptual shift has
been translated into practice is questionable however, and many initiatives
continue to focus on women rather than trying to transform the unequal
gender relations which drive and maintain women’s subordination. There has
also been limited acknowledgement of the powerlessness experienced by some
men – in relation to women as well as to other men (Cornwall, 2000).
This limits the possibilities for alliances between women and men, and
closes off important spaces for change. Rather than perceiving gender as a
‘women’s issue’, we need to think in terms of relations of power and
powerlessness, in which both women and men may experience vulnerability,
rather than treating ‘maleness’ as powerful and problematic in itself
(Cornwall, 2000:23).
1.2: Why is it in Men’s Own Interests to Change?
There is also resistance from some men to attempts to challenge the power
they hold, especially from men in dominant social groups. These men perceive
gender equality as a threat to their privileges and an attack on their way
of life. This begs the question: if men and boys are privileged by existing
gender hierarchies, where is the incentive for them to work towards gender
equality?
While men as a group do exercise power over women and other men, at the
individual level many men feel powerless. The abundant ways in which men
experience coercion in their sexual lives, irrespective of their sexual
orientation or identity, suggests that men are not always the ‘winners’. Men
may be orphans or refugees, they may be unemployed or homeless or they may
be dying of AIDS.
Men are also vulnerable in other, more subtle, ways. There are many
potential costs for men who conform to, or try to conform to, rigid social
expectations of ‘masculinity’ (the culture-specific ideas, roles and
behaviours that men are supposed to live up to in order to become accepted
members of their own communities). Making men more aware of the costs of
conventional forms of masculinity, both for themselves and for women and
children, is an important step towards challenging gender inequalities.
In most cultures, men are expected to be physically strong and sexually
successful, to be risk-takers and decision-makers, to provide financially
for their wives and children. These characteristics are referred to as
‘gender norms’ – the culturally accepted ideas about being a man or woman in
a particular society.
Conventional gender norms for men and boys, such as those listed above, are
often described as ‘dominant’ (or ‘hegemonic’) masculinities. Internalising
these ideals is not enough, however; rather they must be repeatedly
acted-out by men (Harris 2004) to demonstrate and prove their masculinity.
Yet dominant masculinities are not achievable for all men at all times. For
many men there is a significant gap between the dominant model of
masculinity in society, and the reality of what they themselves can achieve.
This is particularly true in the case of young or low income men, or men who
have sex with men rather than women. In fact, no man can fully live up to
all these ideals throughout his entire lifetime. Like women, a man’s
experience of power fluctuates across his lifecycle, and also depends on his
class or caste, his sexual orientation, his ethnicity and race. Men may
experience power and powerlessness at the same time – being powerless in
relation to an employer but powerful in relation to a sister, for example
(Karkara et al. 2005). The range of different positions that men occupy in
their relationships with women and men need to be brought into the frame:
“While it is unquestionably the case that many men do occupy positions of
power, it is one thing to name those subject positions and another to go on
to presume that all men have access to these positions or indeed want to
take them up” (Cornwall, 2000:23).
Still, the social pressure to conform to dominant versions of masculinity is
often intense and the consequences of not conforming can be severe. A study
in Kenya revealed that nearly forty per cent of men who have sex with men
(MSM) had been raped outside their home and thirteen per cent had been
assaulted by the police (Niang et al. 2002, cited in Barker and Ricardo,
2005). This makes it harder for men to adopt alternative, more equitable,
masculinities. Even for those men who are able to conform to dominant norms
of masculinity, the consequences may be no less harmful. The principal
causes of death for young men are violence and traffic accidents, both of
which are directly related to how boys are socialised (the process by which
individuals learn and teach others to abide by cultural norms and
expectations) (Barker, 2005). It is estimated, for example, that in fifty
years time there will be six million men missing from the Brazilian
population, mostly as a result of death in traffic accidents and homicide
(ibid).
Prescribed masculine traits, such as the notion that men’s sexual needs are
uncontrollable or that men should have multiple sexual partners, also have
serious consequences for men’s health, placing them – and thus their
partners – at high risk of HIV infection. The prevalent assumption in many
cultures that ‘real men’ do not get sick, combined with the perception that
health clinics are ‘women’s spaces’, means that men tend not to get tested
for HIV. This has devastating consequences both for men themselves and for
their wives or partners. Men who do not conform to dominant masculine norms
around sexuality, such as men who have sex with men (MSM) are also at
particularly high risk of HIV infection, either because they are overlooked
in national HIV prevention strategies, or because legal and social sanctions
prohibit them from asking for help or information. This is exacerbated by
the fact that there has been very little research carried out to establish
how many MSM are at risk and how best to provide them with the information
they need to protect themselves and their sexual partners, who may be both
male and female (International HIV/AIDS Alliance, 2003).
Dominant masculine norms are also one of the main factors driving gender
inequality. For instance, the assumption that men are primary breadwinners
means that women are generally expected to take care of the majority of
domestic or care work, which is less socially valued and thereby contributes
to women’s lower status in society. Another example is domestic violence,
which has been repeatedly linked to men’s inability (real or perceived) to
live up to society’s expectations of what it means to be a ‘real man’ –
being the breadwinner and household decision-maker, for example. In East
Africa, as elsewhere, widespread unemployment has left many men unable to
fulfil traditional gender roles. As a result, some men are turning to
violence against women and children because it is one of the few remaining
ways that they can display power over others and ‘feel like a man’ (Correia
and Bannon, 2006).
If we are to make real progress towards achieving gender equality we must
support men to challenge these strict gender divisions – at home, at work,
in the community (Stocking in Ruxton, 2004). Insufficient attention has been
paid so far to ‘liberating’ men, as well as women, from the constraints of
gender roles and expectations: “Why can’t men cry? Why must they be strong
and silent? Why can’t boys love the smell of flowers or the smell that
little babies carry with them? [U]ntil we break this idea of ‘girls should
be like that’ and ‘boys like this’ a harmonious world will remain out of
reach” (Karkara et al. 2005:5).
Recognising this does not mean that we can simply gloss over men’s personal
accountability for the ways in which they choose to act out their male
privilege. While masculinities are socially constructed identities, men must
nonetheless be held responsible for the choices and actions they take:
“Accountability confronts the danger of men simply excusing their attitudes
and behaviours as products of gender pressures and norms, rather than
examining their attitudes and behaviours in light of gender pressures and
norms” (Greig, 2005:6). Programmes should help men both to understand the
oppressive effects of gender inequality on women and men, while also talking
to them about the responsibilities they have because of their privileges to
take actions in ways that women usually cannot (ibid).
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FULL REPORT IS ATTACHED.
Received on Tue Oct 31 15:27:38 2006
