There is a growing consensus that the “crisis of masculinity” needs to be addressed and the focus of interventions on issues of gender and sexuality has to broaden beyond women to include men and other genders.
We recommend this article in the March 28 issue of Economic & Political Weekly of India from 2015, ‘Reflections on Inclusion of Men in Women’s Rights Programmes,’ by Geentanjali Misra and Vrinda Marwah, with inputs from MenEngage Alliance members Ravi Verma and Satish Singh:
Interventions aimed at gender justice have traditionally been centred on women and girls. With the emergence of the Gender and Development paradigm over the last two decades, an increasing number of international commitments have been made to engage men and boys in gender equality, including at the International Conference on Population and Development (1994), the Programme of Action of the World Summit on Social Development (1995) and its review 2000), the Beijing Platform for Action (1995), the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (2004, 2009), and the UNAIDS Operational Plan for ction Framework (2009), amongst others (Peacock and Barker 2012).
Simultaneously, the focus of some nongovernmental development interventions has broadened beyond women, to also include men and other genders. Many organisations and activists working towards social change and gender justice have increasingly acknowledged, in principle if not always in practice, that women-only approaches can be limited in their effectiveness. This is because gains from women-only programmes may be less sustainable, as men remain the holders and brokers of power in communities. Additionally, we have witnessed in recent years significant changes in the lives of men, such as greater material vulnerability and lesser social security under neo-liberal development regimes, leading to a crisis of masculinity.
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You can read the full article here.
