Most men know that domestic violence and sexual assault are wrong, but we have done little to reduce this violence in our lives, families and communities. Too many men believe common myths about violence, have ignored women's fears and concerns about their safety, and have stayed silent in the face of other men's violence-supportive attitudes and behaviours. At the same time, a growing number of men in Australia are taking public action to help end violence against women.
Articles
The study of men and masculinities (SMM) is gaining recognition as an interdisciplinary field of academic inquiry (Kimmel, Hearn, & Connell, 2005).
SMM originated in and remains largely sympathetic to feminist concerns. It is a constructive response to the diverse changes in men’s lives induced by the ongoing project of women’s liberation, as also by significant shifts in the economy (e.g., the transition from fordism to post-fordism) and society (e.g., changes in the structure of the family). The consequent disruption of the gender roles (e.g., ‘breadwinner’ and ‘protector’) traditionally assigned to men caused a crisis of hegemonic, patriarchal masculinity.
People say that 'they are only words' when dismissing as 'politically correct' any attempt to resist insults. My response to this weird charge of political correctness is -'would you rather we kept calling people bints and spastics and wogs then?' Of course the real political motivation comes from those desperate to keep everyone in their place -submissive, mistreated and bullied in words and in deeds. A lyric from *The Message* by Grandmaster Flash has rattled in my head for years. How well it applies to women's resistance:
*It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under*
Violence against women is not a phenomenon limited to Pakistan. Throughout the world, the fairer sex has been suffering from it for centuries. It is only now that men have started realising that it's their duty to protect women from all forms of violence...
Compared with women, men - especially young men - are overwhelmingly involved in all types of violence. Cultural ideas about what it means to be a man often support this violence. But that is not to say that violence is a natural condition for men, or a natural part of being a man. Men are taught to use violence and at times are encouraged to use it. This paper was prepared for a 2003 UNESCAP Sub-regional Training Workshop on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Partnership with Men.
Emerging programme approaches hold promise in changing gender norms and behaviours among boys and young men, according to this four-page piece from YouthNet, published in 2005.
This 212-page report is an outcome of an expert conference on gender equality under Finland’s Presidency , held in 2006 in Helsinki and focused on men and gender equality. The aim of the conference was to enhance the handling of issues related to men and gender equality as a part of the EU’s gender equality policy. A further aim was to boost the interest in treating men and gender equality as a separate theme in member states’ gender equality policies.
The report includes discussion of four themes:
men’s role in dismantling segregation in education and training,
This article explores the subject of sexual rights and the claims about such rights as they are made by and for men. It considers the different bases of these claims, which range from some men’s experience of sexual oppression to other men’s experience of their gender socialisation. The article highlights the issues of power and privilege, which often lie hidden within such claims and calls for a discourse of ‘men and sexual rights’ that can take account of both gender norms and sexual hierarchies. Central to this call is a conception of accountability that is at once personal and political; the political accountability of duty-bearers to promote and protect the sexual rights of all rights-holders, men and women; and the personal accountability of men in relation to the ways in which their gender privilege serves to deny the sexual rights of others.
First published in the IDS Bulletin, Vol 37 No 5, 2006.
I’ve been working to end men’s violence against women for almost 20 years. And I am doing this work largely because of the inspiration, teachings and welcome of powerful, smart, feminist women. We men (myself included) owe it to these women, and to ourselves, to practice true accountability.