How Can Men Be Supported To Re-imagine Their Identity?
In a world wracked by changing economics, politics and gender roles, how can we help men redefine –in positive ways — what it means to be a man? Not-for-profit groups working in the developed world are discovering techniques that can help bring about change in developed nations as well.
As Leading Women co-author Rebecca Tinsley wrote recently in OpenDemocracy.net, in too many nations girls are socialized to accept their inferior status. Even in countries where women resent and struggle to change their inferior roles, “the definition of masculinity – is just as important to the transformation of gender roles.”
Inequality Between the Sexes Poses BIG Problem
Inequality between the sexes runs rampant in the developing world. “Educating only boys; denying women their rights to property, earnings, inheritance or even custody of their children; and selling pre-pubescent girls in marriage to pay their father’s debts are all traditions that continue to reinforce the power of men,” Rebecca writes. “Such customs may be at odds with national laws, but legal rights are of little use if women aren’t aware of them.”
In many African countries, including Rwanda and Uganda where Rebecca and her foundation Network4Africa work with survivors of devastating civil conflicts, men are no longer able to fill traditional roles of warrior and hunter, yet refuse to participate in so-called “women’s work” of raising food, caring for children, and tending the home. As a result, women often end up doing all the work while experiencing sexual and physical abuse in the bargain.
How Can We Help Men Change In Developing and Developed Countries?
She notes that men in the developed world face similar challenges when their jobs and economic power vanish, and she asks a crucial question: “How can men be supported to re-imagine their identity under conditions of insecurity?”
Network4Africa has discovered that using these techniques can help men accept change:
- Involve male partners in talking about family planning, alcohol abuse, HIV mitigation, women’s rights and domestic violence.
- Engage local residents to conduct trainings and use positive, local, male role models to tell their stories to an audience of men.
- Begin with men-only sessions; bring women in later.
- Reassure men they can remain “manly” while helping to raise their children and avoiding drunkenness and avoiding violence.
- Redefine virility from siring many children to raising fewer healthy and strong ones.
- Encourage men to communicate their wishes in words rather than blows.
- Get men and women to write down their responsibilities. If a woman’s list is longer, ask the man to commit to doing one thing on his wife’s list.
- Teaching men they are the parent who determines the gender of children can reduce violence from men who are unhappy at having girls.
Peace Ruzage of the Aspire Project, also working in Rwanda, says, “Men really do want to do the right thing. We just help them see that everyone benefits when they get more involved with their families.”
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Rebecca Tinsley is the founder of the charity Network for Africa, which works with survivors of war and genocide in Rwanda and Uganda. She is a former BBC journalist and a co-author of Leading Women: 20 Influential Women Share Their Secrets for Business, Success and Life and of the novel When the Stars Fall to Earth.