This policy brief aims to provide policy makers, practitioners, business, and civil society leaders with a framework for developing strategies and implementing programmes to engage men in gender equality. It identifies the reasons why men have a stake in gender equality. For example, many men suffer from socially constructed gender stereotypes which put pressure on them to be "tough" or to be the "breadwinner". It addresses the difficulties involved in engaging men in gender equality. Peer pressure, social norms, and institutional rules lend support to gender stereotypes, and in many parts of the world men’s supremacy is justified on the basis of religion, biology and cultural traditions. Since many men benefit from the status quo there remains a strong resistance to promoting gender equality.
Strategies to engage men in gender equality are proposed, including:
- gender issues should be framed in the language of human rights to encourage men to see gender equity as something that helps improve the human rights of all, as opposed to something which reduces their own privileges
- special legislative changes, such as tax incentives and targeted hiring practices, could be applied to encourage men and women to work in roles traditionally considered to be for the opposite sex
- male-dominated institutions such as the police force and the military should play a positive role in promoting gender equality through specific education and sensitisation campaigns.
The report concludes that any effective strategy to engage men in promoting gender equality must first appeal to male policy makers as a pragmatic framework with clear benefits for men, and not as a moral verdict on the status quo.
Summary adapted from author and written in collaboration with BRIDGE and Siyanda