Engaging Men for Gender Equality Online Discussion · equality. I really look forward to this day. Best regards, Claes 11. Dorothee Fischer | 11/09/2014, 10:14 EEST (+03:00) Welcome

"Engaging Men for Gender Equality"

Online Discussion

http://eurogender.eige.europa.eu/web-discussions/engaging-men-gender-equality-online-

discussion

Starts at: 11/09/2014, 09:00 CEST (+02:00)

Ends at: 11/09/2014, 22:00 CEST (+02:00)

Welcome to this online discussion on engaging men for gender equality. Dorothee Fischer -

communications and gender equality expert - is the facilitator who will lead you through the

discussions.

Since 2010, EIGE has been looking for ways how to integrate the area of men and gender

equality in its work. They published an important study on “The involvement of Men in

Gender Equality Initiatives in the EU” in 2012 and have set up a thematic network on the

issue. This online online discussion is also the follow-up of a previous debate on “Men and

gender equality”, which took place last October. So, we hope to continue the debate on how

to engage men in gender equality and would like to assess together which areas are critical

for men.

We have split up the topic in four different sessions, starting with a more general discussion

on men and debates on gender equality. The second session will focus on the role of men

in reducing gender-based violence, followed by a debate on critical areas for men in the

gender equality index such as health and care activities. And the final session will be

dedicated to campaigning for men in gender equality – how can we raise awareness on the

issue and convince men that gender equality is not only a women’s issue? And what can we

do together to achieve this goal?

We look forward to receiving your input on all these topics, which will feed into a concept

paper on men and gender equality EIGE is currently preparing. Do not hesitate to briefly

introduce yourself, even if you join in the discussion at a later in the day.

We hope that you will participate actively in this important discussion over the day and that

you will bring forward your ideas, information and analysis to shape EIGE’s future work on

men and gender equality.

PS: please refresh the page to see the very last comments that have been posted!

Facilitators: European Institute for Gender Equality, Dorothee Fischer

1. Dorothee Fischer | 11/09/2014, 10:01 EEST (+03:00)

Good morning everybody, this first session will run until 10.30am. The focus of our

discussion is the question how to position men in gender equality debates. Before

we will actually start, it would be nice if you could briefly introduce yourself.

http://eurogender.eige.europa.eu/web-discussions/engaging-men-gender-equality-online-discussion

http://eurogender.eige.europa.eu/web-discussions/engaging-men-gender-equality-online-discussion

2. Christian Veske | 11/09/2014, 10:04 EEST (+03:00)

Hello everyone!

My name is Christian. I work at EIGE in the Stakeholders and Networking team. I am

also responsible for developing strategy on men for gender equality.

I am looking forward to today's discussions.

3. Jens van Tricht | 11/09/2014, 10:06 EEST (+03:00)

Dear all, good morning. My name is Jens van Tricht, director of eMANcipator,

organization for men and gender equality in The Netherlands, and member of the

Steering Committee for the European MenEngage Network. I have to go in a few

minutes so I wanted to start at least giving a contribution to the start of this

discussion.

There are many important debates about men and gender equality, it is a vast field

where ever more people are pioneering. I appreciate EIGE's efforts to facilitate the

discussion very much and I look forward to the paper that is being prepared.

4. Daniel Matias | 11/09/2014, 10:07 EEST (+03:00)

Hello everybody. My name is Daniel, I am a gender trainer with a background in

psychology. I have been working mainly in community-led programs targetting

domestic violence issues. Academically, I have been studying masculinities for the

past seven years, with a keen interest in possible ways for change and the so-called

'alternative' or 'democratic' masculinities.

I look forward to the dicussion.


Good morning, Jens. A pity that you will not be able to stay with us during the day.

But we will draft a summary report of the debates which we will circulate in the

network.

6. Katarzyna Wojnicka | 11/09/2014, 10:10 EEST (+03:00)

Hi everyone,

my name is Katarzyna, I'm a researcher in Dissens - Institut fuer Bildung und

Forschung in Berlin where I do research projects conscerning men, masculinities and

gender equality (eg. Role of men in gender equality 2010-2012 [EC PROGRESS],

Evaluation of European Perpetrator Programmes 2013-2014 [EC Daphne III]).

Looking forward to meet the rest of you.

7. Kristaps Petermanis | 11/09/2014, 10:10 EEST (+03:00)

Hi! I'm Kristaps, I work at EIGE with pre-accession countries, previously I've also

worked in the Latvian gender equality machinery.

I think this topic is very important in general. I'm particularly interested in how to

involve men activities that help to achieve gender equality and how to help men to see

the added value of gender equality, how to allow more men break free of stereotypes

about masculinity and peer pressure to conform to a certain model of male social

behaviour.

8. molocea andreea | 11/09/2014, 10:11 EEST (+03:00)

Hi everybody,

My name is Andreea, I work on Department for Equal Opportunities between Women

and Men in Romania. I have a phd in gender studies and I am interested in hearing the

problems raised in today's discussions.

I will start by naming a concern that I have and I believe it fits todays discussions. In

Romania we have a big concern regarding children that are left by their mothers at

home, while they go in other countries to work. Most of these kids are left with their

dads and their grandparents and I think that for the men left to be a stay-at-home dads

this is a very problematic. Romania is still a patriarchal society (like almost all

societies) and men are not teached how to care for kids. I am interested if this is an

issues raised al EU level.

Thanks,

andreea m.


Just to tell everyone that we have had on-line discussion on men and gender equality

also last year from where we got many good ideas.

Additionally, at EIGE, we have also thematic network consisting of experts (some of

them have joined the discussion today) on men and gender equality.

10. Claes Sonnerby | 11/09/2014, 10:14 EEST (+03:00)

Hello everyone,

I am Claes Sonnerby from Sweden. I am very interested in gender equality and I was

the principal secretary to the Swedish Governments inquiry on men and gender

equality. I really look forward to this day.

Best regards, Claes


Welcome again everybody, I am happy to see that we have a very diverse group of

participants here today and I look forward to reading your contributions. Do not

hesitate to introduce yourself even if you are joining us at a later stage.

12. Alexandrina Satnoianu | 11/09/2014, 10:14 EEST (+03:00)

Good morning everyone!

I am the EuroGender Administrator. Please don't hesitate to contact me at:

[email protected] in case you encounter difficulties with the

platform.

Don't forget to refresh the page to see the latest comments that have been posted!


One of the questions that we face quite often is that if men and gender equality should

be looked as as separate topic with its sub-topics or should men's perspectives be

added to the wider gender equality topics. Do you have any thoughts on this?


Andreea, very important issue you are raising here. We will talk more about the

question of care activities in the afternoon session concerning Critical areas for men

in the gender equality index.

mailto:[email protected]

We would like to have a more general debate in this first session. For a long time

gender equality policies have been contextualized mainly as “women’s issues” – as

women have been the driving force behind gender equality strategies and have been

seen as the only ones to benefit from a more equal society.

The European Commission’s “Strategy for equality between women and men 2010 –

2015” states that gender equality needs the active contribution, support and

participation of men and that policies should also address gender-related inequalities

that affect boys/men such as literacy rates, early school-leaving and occupational

health.”

Thus, in the last decade there has been a growing debate on how to engage more men

in gender equality initiatives and how gender inequality affects different groups of

men.


I'll try to jump in every now and then today but it's a busy day. Among other things, I

have to prepare myself for the 'MenEngage Europe regional membership meeting and

Capacity building training on Men and Caregiving' next week. It is going to be an

interesting event! I would like to invite all of you to consider becoming a member or

supporter to MenEngage, see www.menengage.org. Althought this site doesn't allow

individual membership, as a European network we are working with individuals as

well as organizations so please don't hesitate to let us (me) know of your interest.

Comments:

o Christian Veske | 11/09/2014, 10:18 EEST (+03:00)

Excellent initiative, Jens. I am very happey that this there will be a Europe-

wide platform for men and gender equality.


A first reflection on Christians question. If the situation in the country etc is mature

enough as regards gender equality I think the question of the life situation of men (not

always easy) and men and gender equality should be part of the general discussion

on gender equality. If not mature enough it should not - the big risk there being that

we men "take over" the discussion and destroy and kills it.

Comments:


Thank you, Claes. Perhaps you could also reflect or give ideas on how do we

assess the maturity? When are we ready or when is the society ready?

http://www.menengage.org/


In some of the European Union member states there are within gender equality

machinery also positions and/or units dealing with men's issues. In others men's issues

are incorporated to the general gender equality structure and men's issues are tackled

on ad hoc basis. What experience do you have?


It is interesting to see that the issue of men in gender equality often encounters similar

dynamics as the issue of gender mainstreaming in general, even though of course the

general power dynamics are different. By this I mean that in gender work there can be

a list of important topics to work on and then one last topic is added: 'men'. Like in the

mainstream there will be lists of important things to work on and then as a separate

issue 'women' is listed. Of course it is important to pay special attention to men and

masculinity from a gender perspective, but it is at least as important to integrate a

gender sensitive men and masculinities perspective in all the 'other' topics. Issues like

violence, poverty, education, health, safety, decision making, environment, etcetera

all have strong gender dimensions and influence men's lives in specific ways - as men

and masculinity influence these topics in specific ways. Please also not that

differences among men are also gendered: some men and masculinities are considered

more masculine than others...

So far for now, have a good discussion, I'm off!

Comments:


Thank you for this. Could you give examples also how would you do that in

practical terms in research?

o Dorothee Fischer | 11/09/2014, 10:26 EEST (+03:00)

Thanks for your contribution, Jens and good luck with your meetings next

week!

19. Cristian IACOB | 11/09/2014, 10:25 EEST (+03:00)

Hi everybody

I am Cristian and almost incompetent in gender equality which means not I am not

interested.

I hope, if not to contribute at least to leave this day with some ideas to reflect upon.

Thank you all

Cristian

Comments:


Welcome, Cristian! It is nice to have you here on the discussion. Please do not

hesitate share your views and experiences.


I agree with Claes. The level of discussion and strategies on how to work with men

and masculinities issues and gender equality should be contextualised and therefore

have different character in the countries where gender mainstreaming has long

tradition (like in Scandinavia) and in the countries where gender equality is still a

new. "fresh" topic. Another question is how to solve this problem on the general,

European level

21. Concetta Carrà | 11/09/2014, 10:29 EEST (+03:00)

Hello everyone

I'm very happy to take part on this discussion. One of the question is about of men

and their special place in gender equality. In my opinion, men are one of two genders,

so their place in the debate on gender equality implies the completeness of the same

debate, otherwise, you are likely to speak with one voice. Is needed a dialogue, I

think, not a monologue

Comments:


Welcome Concetta, and thank you for your contribution! Dialogue is always

important!


Welcome Concetta, nice to have you here in the debate!


It has been stressed here the need of integrating men's perspectives in general gender

equality topics. In many ways the same as gender mainstreaming.

I think in theory it is excellent idea, but the question is how to do it in practice. Let's

take some concrete examples: health (we will be speaking more about it later though).

There are specific health needs of men and women. Behaviours also differ. In addition

we would need to look at what is happening within the groups (taking into account

socioeconomic background or any other variable). Comprehensively there could be a

policy paper on member state level that deals with public health, but under it still

different areas should be considered. This is true also in terms of research.


There seems to be an overall consensus that we need to give men a special space in

the gender equality debates and that gender is about women and men alike.

Jens already mentioned some critical areas, but I would like to have more suggestions

from your side on the "how" to do it in more practical tems. Any ideas?


When we talk about men issues we should always put in the specific context.

Perspectives matters.

As I see the discussion running, there are 2 things we should separate:

1 - theoretical discussions about men and gender equality

2 - real policies about men and gender equality

This 2 things are really important because on a theoretical level we can be as

introspective as we can and we can debate the issue from a lot of angles and concepts.

But regarding policies and the proxim reality, things do look different. For example, I,

as a feminist, I do believe we have a lot of women's issues that are not fixed and I

believe that women shoud be the main focus of policies and debates. On the other

hand, I do believe that men should be integrated into gender eguality issues because

gender includes males too.

A democracy means healthy and happy citizens. You can not have that under

patriarchy that teaches men to be the bread winners and not to show emotions. The

impact of patriarchy on men is real and it should be considered.

Comments:


Welcome Andreea and thank you for this reflection. You are right about the

two levels in the debate. We hope to hear more on both, although it would be

really nice to have some concrete proposals we can take out of this debate.


Yes, Dorothee, I have one. I think is necessary to create a special place, to create a

space, build it and cure it. I think we should start from a very young age, with respect

for differences, school and family I have to work together in a difficult task, to be

sure, but exciting. The boys and the girls, I think, should be taught to respect gender

differences and the belief that it is not to be better, or worse, it is different: diversity is

a resource, not a limit, and as such must be protected and strengthened


We need to communicate this issue right. First we need to identify the major problems

men face in society and I believe that one of the biggest issue is faterhood. We need to

find the subjects that show how men struggle and to explain that their struggle does

not exclude women from policies. Another issues is teaching men to fight against

violence against women.


As a clarification to those who are not so familiar with EIGE I would like to say that

we are not a policy-making institution. We provide member states governments and

european institutions evidence based support. We prepare reports and research,

analyse and disseminate information.


It is a difficult matter. First, as said before, men is not one group of people and

women another group. Many men have more in common with other women than other

men. Not seldom do they have more in common with persons belonging to the same

class in the society than with other men. Make an easy test yourself, which people do

you wish to work together with at your work-place? Which people do you invite to

your home? I have to "admit" that the people, men and women, coming to my home

mainly belong to the same class as myself.

Comments:


Indeed, the diversity among men and among women is in many ways

important aspect. We have to take into account other varables in the analysis.


In terms of what to do, I can only share I have recently been involved in coordinating

therapeutic groups for male offenders. This was part of a wider effort in terms of

gender training tailored for communities, with workshops and community discussions

on what it meant to be a "father", a "boyfriend"...

Personally, I find that community involvement is of paramount importance, ideally

with continuous and rigorous training in these matters, which are often forgotten or

not fully implemented.


Concetta Carrà wrote:

Yes, Dorothee, I have one. I think is necessary to create a special place, to create a

space, build it and cure it.

Concetta, could you explain what you mean by space or place?

I guess you mean "time" in education? We need to dedicate more time to teach from a

very early age onwards differents in gender?

This would also connect to Andreea who also mentions the role of education and

awareness raising in her contribution.


Indeed. The discussion on men and masculinities cannot be conducted without strong

intersectional approach.


Yes, Dorothee, I mean time also in the sense of time of mind, such as mindset,

education of the feelings, without prejudice or bias "inherent"I also mean the

elimination of the cultural limestone, that no law, for example, can be removed, only

education, the examples in the family, such as a proper division of labor between

father and mother, but not because we should, because is the natural result of a

maturation process


Perhaps, moving to next aspect of morning session: in your view which are the most

critical areas in terms of men's involvement. How to make men more interested?

Fatherhood was mentioned earlier. I agree that it is important part, but I also believe

that there are many others.


Dorothee Fischer wrote:


Yes, Dorothee, I have one. I think is necessary to create a special

place, to create a space, build it and cure it.

Concetta, could you explain what you mean by space or place?

I guess you mean "time" in education? We need to dedicate more time to teach from a

very early age onwards differents in gender?

This would also connect to Andreea who also mentions the role of education and

awareness raising in her contribution.

Yes. I believe boys should be educated, such as girls into a more gender friendly

perspective.

For example, I remember when I was a little girl in school and we had a „special

hour” in the biology class where the boys were invited to play football and the teacher

remained only with the girls to talk us about menstruation. This is just an example,

but in my view it is the quintessence of how society separates boys and girls.


molocea andreea wrote:

.... women shoud be the main focus of policies and debates....

Andreea, I agree that in most of areas women are lagging behind, suffering

discriminations and other outcomes of the patriarchal society. In the same time, the

patriarchal society teaches men that they needs to be breadwiners and not to show

emotions.

Considering all these, and still deciding to focus policies on women, the patriarchal

society may not change as change needs to be embraced by majority of women and of

men.

There are some other questions that need answer: How do you ensure political support

for women-focused policies when women are missing from decision-making bodies?

"Women's issues, women's policies" are not considered "priorities" and they don't

benefit of support of governments. It might be because always women's issues are less

important.

Comments:


I also agree. The society tells also to men to "man up" if needed. Hence, men

alike suffer from patriarchal structers. Take example violence in broader

sense. This is something that follows men all their lives (especially in younger

age).


I think all areas of social life are strongly connected to the men and gender equality

issues. We already mentioned fatherhood, health, violence and poverty, but there is

also work (labour market segregation, gender pay gap, bread winner issue etc), care in

general (not only childcare but also selfcare and elderly care), politics (institutional

and non-institutional) as well as more and more important aging and migration issues.

37. MARTA CASTILLO | 11/09/2014, 11:01 EEST (+03:00)

Good morning, everybody.

My name is Marta Castillo, i'm from Spain and i work as a consultant to Spanish

Public Administration and NGOs on gender equality and equal opportunities subjects.

From my point of view, men are as important as women in gender equality and they

should play the same role as we do, in a balanced way, theorical and practically.

The first problem is making the feminist issue a gender equality issue. Men would

never consider their own problem the feminist question but they would look at the

gender equality question with different eyes. We want them to be corresponsible for

gender equality and that involves a change on the focus of training, sensibilization,

etc.

Comments:


Welcome, Marta! And thank you for your contribution.


As regards areas. It would be a dream if more men realized and talked about the fact

that being a (real) man is a privilege in many respects but that it costs a lot - look for

example at the number of men in prison (in Sweden 93 per cent), suicides (70 per

cent), accidents etc. Also, that many men tend to surpress emotions etc which

causes big problems and by which we men also create big problems in our relations

with women and children - and also other men..

Critical areas: violence, criminal behaviour, fatherhood, health, education (boys in

Sweden are lagging more and more behind), etc.


I would like to come back to Christian's question on how to make men more

interested? I can only confirm that the debate is too often only led by women (I am

happy that this is not the case today!). Is education a solution? What could EIGE do to

bring the topic on the agenda?

Comments:


What EIGE can do is to consult, get ideas (like we are doing now) and propose

those ideas. We are bound by our work programme.


I agree with Alexandrina about women's issues. For example, much times the

question about nurseries in considered a female question. I think, instead, it involves

the quality of democracy, and, obviously, of the welfare states, including services they

are able to offer in different countries.


I sometimes wonder if it's a question of making men more interested, or of creating

the spaces for men to express their interest.

In my experience, people are generally very interested in these issues, but lack the

spaces, and time, to express their interest.

There's also the question of peer pressure - men often don't want to talk about

masculinity for fear of being ridiculed.

A common attempt has been to create consciousness-raising groups, safe spaces for

discussion of many issues - health, parenthood, sexuality. But this lacks a greater

societal impact, there needs to be something more than this, otherwise the continuous

impact of society will erase all the contributions of the group.

Comments:


Thank you Daniel, I believe you said something that is very important: fear of

speaking about masculinity.



I would like to come back to Christian's question on how to make men more

interested? I can only confirm that the debate is too often only led by women (I am

happy that this is not the case today!). Is education a solution? What could EIGE do to

bring the topic on the agenda?

This is a very interesting question.

The thing is that men have to develop their own processus of change, as women have

done before. Men and male point of view should be sistematically considered (and

included) when taking decisions in this field. So working with gender equality men

NGOs is a must.


EIGE could perhaps collect and publish more statistics on the costs of masculinity in

order to raise our (mainly men) awareness. We men need to question the concept of "a

real men". To reach our brains, use statistics. To reach our hearts, go via our

children.

Comments:


Thank you for the suggestion, Claes. Indeed, we could have a better critical

look what is available already at EIGE and think more how we can make the

existing information and knowledge more appealing for men too.


MARTA CASTILLO wrote:

[quote=Dorothee Fischer]

Men and male point of view should be sistematically considered (and included) when

taking decisions in this field. So working with gender equality men NGOs is a must.

Good point, Marta. This could lead us to one of the other questions we wanted to

touch:

What kind of synergies exist between women's and men's organisations and how

could we enhance the cooperation between the two?


As for the space, both physical and mental, held by men in the debate, I want to tell

you about an episode that happened a few years ago. I was in the checkout line of a

supermarket. Before me, two middle-aged men; the first one says to the other: "let go

she has a few things to pay and must go to cook." As long as there will be similar

comments, there's just the space nor the place to enter the men into the debate; why

insist on the education of feelings, as well as school education. The man, however, he

should say: "let's pass that she has a few things. Stops." Of course, I realize that such

attitudes are very pronounced in countries like mine, Italy, where it is still very strong

contrast between the woman queen of family (caregiver) and man king of job

(breadwinner). What do you think about?


Claes Sonnerby wrote:




children.

Rationality and emotion, it does seem like the necessary two-way street for engaing

with men towards gender equality.






children.

More statistics is a good idea but they shouldn't be published without (qualitative)

comments on how the costs of masculinity derive from the patriarchal society and

what is the relation between privileges and costs of being men.

EIGE should collect/conduct more complex research on the men and masculinities

issues.


I like Claes' last suggestion very much, to point out the cost of unhealthy masculinity.

I believe change is possible at those places where the problems men encounter

intersect with the problems men cause. So indicating how the problems in men's lives

are connected to destructive and limiting ideas about masculinity.

Another thing that I feel is important in this discussion is the connection between the

personal and the political. There are many men working on personal change,

overcoming the problems of masculinity, taking care of their children, etcetera - but

still without connecting these issues to the wider concept of gender equality or

solidarity with women, lgbtiq community, etc. And at the other hand, sometimes I feel

that people working on the political issues are not always integrating the issues as

much in their own lives as good rolemodels perhaps could...

49. Kristaps Petermanis | 11/09/2014, 11:28 EEST (+03:00)

Some reactions to Christian's questions:

I think it's quite generally accepted in the EU and member states' policy circles that

gender equality is also about men. However, the focus seems to be on how to get

women on par with men in certain areas, e.g., decision making, availability of

economic resources, free time. This of course is valid and must be continued, but I'd

like to see this analysis be complemented by something else, outlined below.

If the "men's position" is problematized, it is very often from a perspective of women

as a more or less coherent group, by comparing where women are less well off. I only

seldom encounter instances of analyses of men's situation from men's perspectives.

What I mean here are two things: 1) how men suffer because of complying or trying

to comply with the dominant form of masculinity in a certain society (the health-care

sector seems to provide most analysis on this issue so far) 2) what men would gain if

they would explore other models of masculinity, seek to adopt them (involvement of

younger men in childcare and their overall satisfaction with this or more equal

heterosexual relationships with better distribution of private life burdens, a good

examples heres).

What I'm trying to get at here is that if we want to (to use some concrete examples)

get more women in decision making positions and free women from unequal burden

of household chores, showing men the benefits of involvement in childcare and more

equal relationships would greatly help in this. While we often don't want to talk about

gender equality in this way, it is at least in some instances a zero-sum game, where no

advances of one party are possible, if the other doesn't give up its positions. The

challenge to tackle here regarding men is to show them that 1) there are clear negative

costs to, for example, their health when trying to retain the status quo of gender roles

2) there are benefits many men are not aware of in conforming less with hegemonic

masculinity or whatever else it is fancy to call this phenomenon now.


Cooperation between men's and women's organisations. Difficult question. One area

we have in common is however is being a parent and when we tend to talk about

children and how to be a good parent our hearts tend to soften. So starting the

discussion on this matter instead of starting of difference between men and women

could one of many areas to meet.


Jens van Tricht wrote:

[...]

There are many men working on personal change, overcoming the problems of

masculinity, taking care of their children, etcetera - but still without connecting these

issues to the wider concept of gender equality or solidarity with women, lgbtiq

community, etc. And at the other hand, sometimes I feel that people working on the

political issues are not always integrating the issues as much in their own lives as

good rolemodels perhaps could..

I think the question of generating combined efforts with other social movements

(lgbt, anti-poverty, anti-racist, etc.) should always be at the forefront. Overall, men

who face discrimination/oppression on such matters may more easily understand the

need for equality, and serve as necessary allies in that area.


Thank you very much for all these valuable contributions so far. I think we got a good

list of issues that we can also continue to debate in the following sessions (e.g. critical

areas for men will be taken up again this afternoon in the discussion on the gender

equality index).

We will take a 30 minute break now. I hope you can all come back at 11am to discuss

the role of men in reducing gender-based violence.

If you have any further contributions to make on the discussions of this session, do

not hesitate to post them in the break. They will be used for the final report.


Katarzyna Wojnicka wrote:


EIGE could perhaps collect and publish more statistics on the costs of

masculinity in order to raise our (mainly men) awareness. We men

need to question the concept of "a real men". To reach our brains, use

statistics. To reach our hearts, go via our children.

More statistics is a good idea but they shouldn't be published without (qualitative)

comments on how the costs of masculinity derive from the patriarchal society and

what is the relation between privileges and costs of being men.

EIGE should collect/conduct more complex research on the men and masculinities

issues.

I totally agree with this ideea.

We need some studies, quantitative and qualitative, in order for us to have an idea

about the men issues out there.

54. Ana Fernández de Vega | 11/09/2014, 11:42 EEST (+03:00)

Hello everyone!

Thanks for sharing your interesting ideas.

I think men will be only completely interested in gender equality when they already

notice how gender roles and stereotypes damage them too. I know we have plenty of

fights to resolve and sometimes we (feminist) just don’t want to spend time in trying

to “convince” anyone (especially men) to embrace gender issues. But, as same as you

have expressed, I also think this is completely indispensable for going on.

In my view one of the answers is in making efforts for naming those things and

consequences that men also suffer from gender based structures. I mean, only

when people identify and take awareness of their oppression are in position to deal

with it. Maybe our duty could be displace part of our attention from women to

men as similar subjects of gender inequalities.

Even though, this strategy actually has an objection: How can we still defend women

interests placing men in first position? How can be women the main subject of

feminism if we pay special attention to men and the ways to involve them in gender

equality debates and actions?

Comments:


Welcome to the debate Ana and thanks for your contribution and interesting

questions raised. Let's see if apart from Claes anybody wants to comment

before we will move on to our next topic.


Ana, I fully agree. And, I have no perfect answer to your question. However there

ought to be possible to have two concepts in our minds and the general debate at the

same time - 1) men as a group is the privileged group (positions, financial resources

etc) - and this is not fair, 2) many men suffer from the idea (demand upon them?) of

being a "real" man.


Actually it always seems so strange to focus on the differences between men and

women in our struggle to overcome these differences. There is a tension between the

world we are living in and the world we envision. We must beware that we don't

reinforce the gender division by focusing on women on the one hand and men on the

other hand, but we must also beware that we don't neglect the real existing differences

in the way law, culture and internalized mechanisms treat us and ourselves.

It seems important to distinguish between gender equality and feminism, although

these are strongly interconnected. In my opinion, feminism is the justified struggle for

the advancement of women in a sexist and patriarchal society on the one hand, and on

the other hand a struggle for positive social and political revaluation of what

traditionally has been labelled as 'feminine'. In the first meaning, the struggle for

enhancing the position of women, men gain because the women in their lives gain,

and because the world becomes more just. In the second meaning, the revaluation of

femininity, men gain because this will allow them to become more human: their own

so-called feminine traits will also be liberated and valued more. So in my opinion

feminism is about the liberation of women and the liberation of femininity - also in

men!

Gender equality then is a more general struggle for the liberation from gender

inequality, often based on stereotypes in theory and practise. The good thing about

gender equality is that it implies that we have to look at the whole system, taking

men/masculinity and women/femininity equally serious. The risk is that we come to

overlook the systemic inequalities between men and women and that men will claim

to be discriminated against because in some statistic they are worse off than women.

Of course, these issues have to be taken seriously, but they are sometimes too easily

used to suggest symmetry in oppression or reverse sexism. I suggest there need to be

both a struggle for women's rights and a struggle for gender equality - and these are

not automatically the same!

Comments:


Thank you very much for these interesting thoughts, Jens. They will definitely

be taken on board for the final report!


Welcome back to the second session in our debate on Engaging Men for Gender

Equality. In this session, which will run until 12.30, we are going to discuss how men

can contribute to the reduction of gender-based violence.


On 1 August 2014, the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and

combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention)

entered into force. The convention obliges the 14 governments that have ratified it

(another 22 States have signed it) to take specific steps to counter all forms of

violence against women: from stalking and sexual harassment to domestic violence,

forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

The Convention has a strong focus on prevention. Governments that agree to be

bound by the Convention will have to do the following:

1. train professionals in close contact with victims;

2. regularly run awareness-raising campaigns;

3. take steps to include issues such as gender equality and non-violent conflict

resolution in interpersonal relationships in teaching material;

4. set up treatment programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence and for sex

offenders;

5. work closely with NGOs;

6. involve media and the private sector in eradicating gender stereotypes and

promoting mutual respect.

Preventing violence against women and domestic violence should not be left to the

state alone. In fact, the Convention calls on all members of society, in particular men

and boys, to help reach its goal of creating a Europe free from all forms of violence

against women and domestic violence.


So the first question I would like to raise is the following:

The Istanbul Convention puts a special emphasis on men and boys in the prevention

of violence against women. How could that be done? What kind of additional

information and/or research is needed?


the most powerful tool is the feelings’ education, as I already said previously. From

the earliest age boys, and obviously girls too, must be educated to recognize and

respect others’ opinions, thoughts, ways of be . In addition, is necessary to accept and

respect the many “NO” and waste which inevitably you will come across in life.

Family and school, first of all, have this important task. Moreover, it could be very

useful a public awareness campaign, to be conducted through videos, testimonials,

newspaper articles, discussions in class, so as to understand the everyday dimension

of the problem.


If you are joining in to the debate only now, do not hesitate to introduce yourself to

the others!


Welcome back. I would here also like to draw attention to the report on Violence

agains Womenpublished by the Fundamental Rights Agency. Also, there was a

follow-up meeting at the agency on the role of men in combatting violence against

women.

Now, we know that the situation in Europe and globally when it comes to violence

against women is alarming. To change the situation a comprehensive approach is

needed (including prevention).

What can we do and how? How to make this issue also more relevant for men?

63. Zulema | 11/09/2014, 12:08 EEST (+03:00)

Hello to everyone,

I am Zulema Altamirano, SNE, working as Gender-based Violence Expert in EIGE.

I look forward to the debate for this part of the online-discussion.

Best!

Zulema

Comments:


Welcome Zulema! We look forward to hearing your opinion as expert on the

topic...


As often, an important question to me is how national (and local) governments are

going to fullfil their duties resulting from this convention. A first step is the

acknowledgement that violence is really a men's issue, that we need to take the role

that violence plays in boys' and men's lives seriously, and that we have to work on

these issues with the perspective of making boys and men a part of the solution.

Violent masculinity is a major part of the problem, non-violent masculinities are a

major part of the solution


Education is indeed the core of the issue. We should educate boys that violence in

general is not the way of proving (unhealthy) masculinity and we should focus not

only on violence against girls and women (which at least in "official" discourse is

already consider as an unacceptable behaviour) but also on boys/men violence against

other boys/men as this type of violence is still not considered as a big problem and it

very often commented with the sentence "boys will be boys". Without comprehensive

actions against any type of violence struggling with struggling with violence against

women can always remind sisyphean task.


Another thing is the importance of a truly intersectional approach here! The public

discussion on violence against women sometimes tends to reinforce classist,

xenophobic and racist agenda's whereas as far as I know the problem is widely spread

across classes, cultures and religions.


Again there is a need for studies and analysis on this subject. Hegemonical

masculinity is embedded of violent and discriminatory behaviours, addressed to

control women and maintain power and politial, sconomical and social prevalence.

So, in my opinion, it is necessary to go on studies about men perceptions,

perspectives, opinions and feelings on gender based violence (including the whole

range of violent situations), and what is acceptable and non acceptable. That

information would give us the key to designing focused actions



Another thing is the importance of a truly intersectional approach here! The public

discussion on violence against women sometimes tends to reinforce classist,

xenophobic and racist agenda's whereas as far as I know the problem is widely spread

across classes, cultures and religions.

Yes, research on the topic shows that violence is not a phenomenon of a certain class,

culture or religion. Sadly enough, it is spread throughout all levels of society.


Yes, education is very important, but we shouldn't think that we can solve all society's

problems just by teaching youth to behave different than adults do. We should be

aware that our actions speak louder than our words, so we need to rolemodel

nonviolence in our own lives, in our concepts of citizenship, in political

decisionmaking. And in sports, for example! In The Netherlands we had the tragic

event where an amateur referee was beaten to death by a few boys, everyone was

disturbed, the big sports foundations urged for measures etc, and in the same period a

popular football/soccer player vstarted a macho fight with another player outside the

field in front of tv camera's. So much for all the talking, this guy just gave the most

important lesson to young boys about how to violently 'solve' a dispute. We really

need these kind of popular figures to become aware of their responsibility and

influence.

70. Philip McCormack | 11/09/2014, 12:20 EEST (+03:00)

Hi

I'm Philip - Research Office with Ireland's national office for the prevention of

domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

This is an area of particular interest to myself. Our office has spent quite a lot of time

thinking and working with the NGO sector on messaging to men around violence

against women and so I am interested in others' ideas on the topic.

Thanks

Comments:


Welcome to our discussion, Philip! It would be nice if you could also share

with us your experiences and "good practice" int he area of violence

prevention.


Jens, I agree with you.

Men's violence against women is a big problem and is very abjectly. Also in prisons

men's violence against women is very low "ranked".

We have also to put into the debate the fact that many men suffer from other men's

violence. In Sweden, 75 % of the persons who have been medically treated as a result

of violence are men.

It ought to be possible to make many more men distance themselves from violent

men.

72. Christina Andersson | 11/09/2014, 12:25 EEST (+03:00)

Good morning from Brussels!

Comments:


Hi Cristina, nice to see you here again!


Violence against women does not happen in isolation though. It is part of the wider

violent culture that is part of men's lives. This sort of culture also makes men feel that

they need dominance over other men.

On the other hand dominance and violence are becoming more critical issues when

we look at the situation in Europe and beyond its borders. Society, in times of conflict

tells also men to "man up" as I said earlier. Men are seen as potential protecters,

fighters or threat. Depending on the view.

However, I do agree that we need to have quite clear what sort of violence we are

looking at, but just remembering that nothing happens in isolation.


Referring to research carried out by ourselves, 60% of men expressed the view that

they felt domestic violence to be common. The majority of the population are aware

of the issue. Should our question to men not be "when you encounter domestic

violence, what should you do?"


So, I believe that when we acknowledge that we focus on violence against women, in

order to create the change we need to speak to men in their terms and make them

reflect also on their behaviours with other men or in wider societal contexts.



Jens, I agree with you.

Men's violence against women is a big problem and is very abjectly. Also in prisons

men's violence against women is very low "ranked".

We have also to put into the debate the fact that many men suffer from other men's

violence. In Sweden, 75 % of the persons who have been medically treated as a result

of violence are men.

It ought to be possible to make many more men distance themselves from violent

men.

Yes, it is a fact that men are more violent than women (against other men or women).

I can even confirm it myself as a mother of two girls when I see them play with the

boys in the park... Even at that age boys are more violent than women. And there are

phenomena like "angry young men" in their teenage years..I feel that one of the

questions is how to better canalise men's violent energy?


When we take men's violence against men into account, men suddenly become very

important stakeholders in ending this culture of violence. From my work with boys

and fathers I learned that many men see the problem but at the same time they want

their son to be prepared to survive in this world where violence is such a threatening

reality. So they teach their sons to 'man up' because otherwise they risk being bullied

or worse. This is how the cycle continues.


I think is necessary too work on prevention field. In the last months almost every day

we listen to men (especially husbands and boyfriends) who kill their ex partner. In

most of the cases the same victims had denounced stalking behaviours and so on.

Why, I ask, for example, police do not act BEFORE the tragedy? Why sometimes to

the victims is said that is only a moment, that the husband is stressed by work, and so

on? Is a coincidence, ONLY a coincidence that much times the police operators, for

example, are MEN? How a woman operator could face to the problem? Is there some

difference, if any?I wuold like to understand


So, the question remains - what is the role of men in reducing violence against women

and how would you do that? How to make men and boys understand the complexity

of the violent culture.

What sort of resources in terms of additional reseacrh are needed for this?


Messaging around "manning up" can mean any number of things. One route could be

to ask our men as bystanders to violence to 'man up' and act / intervene / help in

situations we know are abusive and wrong.


Some other figures to add into the debate. In our Swedish report we published data

from Swedish prisons about men being imprisoned as a result of violence or sexual

crimes. 63 % av the men were diagonsed with ADHD when they were children. 43 %

had the same diagnos as grown up.

So, the society needs to act and help at an early stage when one observe children with

these kind of problems - not at least in order to help themselves.



[quote=Claes Sonnerby]

I feel that one of the questions is how to better canalise men's violent energy?

Dorothee I agree that we have to look at what we can offer men in order to deal with

the challenges in their lives and perhaps in their bodies. However, we should take care

not to generalize or even essentialize. Most boys and men are not violent! I don't

believe there is a natural 'violent energy' in boys or men. And I do believe there are

very strong cultural (and by now media) messages telling boys how to turn their

energy into violence. Indeed, boys and men who are not willing to receive and use

violence are considered unmanly and risk being treated like women and or

homosexuals. This is also where misogyny and homophobia come into play. We

cannot work on solving the problem of violent masculinity without looking at

dominant messages that prescribe boys and men in the first place to be not like

women, not feminine, not effeminate, not gay. And, to close the circle, I believe this

is where boys start to learn to hurt themselves, to be violent against themselves, for by

'manning up' they ignore, neglect and suppress an important part of their inherent

human qualities, in fact of their humanity.

83. The Men's Development Network | 11/09/2014, 12:42 EEST (+03:00)

Hi,

It's Alan O'Neill here CEO of the Men's Development Network in Ireland. It's

10.35am here!

I am struck by what Jens has said, " So they teach their sons to 'man up' because

otherwise they risk being bullied or worse. This is how the cycle continues."

It's important for fathers and mothers to make the home a safe place for boys to be

vulnerable while also reminding them that their home is an exception i.e. that the

world outside still remains tough for boys and young men. In this way boys can start

to dientify other places that it is safe to be vulnerable. When my own sons were young

they told me the houses they could cry in and the ones they couldn't cry in. They said

they knew by the atmosphere in those homes the minute they walked into them. So

"manning up" is not necessary; wisdom and developing sensitivity in boys is really

important and awareness of what and who is safe and what and who is not.

Comments:


Welcome to our online discussion, Alan!


Further research on the experiences of men participating in perpetrator programmes

for their violence against women is needed.


Philip McCormack wrote:

Further research on the experiences of men participating in perpetrator programmes

for their violence against women is needed.

I totally agree. The Work with Perpetrators - European Network I represent as well is

promotes such research. The already existing reports, workingpapers and other

products can be found on our website (http://www.work-with-

perpetrators.eu/index.php?id=66) but there is still a big gap in the knowledge about

the experiences of men (and also women) connected to participation in perpetrators

programmes as well as more general research on the men and violence issues.




[quote=Claes Sonnerby]

I feel that one of the questions is how to better canalise men's violent

energy?

However, we should take care not to generalize or even essentialize. Most boys and

men are not violent! I don't believe there is a natural 'violent energy' in boys or men.

And I do believe there are very strong cultural (and by now media) messages telling

boys how to turn their energy into violence.

Jens, I agree that we should not generalise too much and girls also have violent

energies for sure (although sometimes they may erupt in different ways, even against

themselves - but again this also exists in boys). I guess it is the eternal discussion of

what is innate and what is learned in human behaviour...

It is good to get back to the general discussion of what can actually be done about it

and what additional research is needed on the topic?


The Men's Development Network wrote:

Hi,

It's Alan O'Neill here CEO of the Men's Development Network in Ireland. It's

10.35am here!

http://www.work-with-perpetrators.eu/index.php?id=66

http://www.work-with-perpetrators.eu/index.php?id=66

I am struck by what Jens has said, " So they teach their sons to 'man up' because

otherwise they risk being bullied or worse. This is how the cycle continues."

It's important for fathers and mothers to make the home a safe place for boys to be

vulnerable while also reminding them that their home is an exception i.e. that the

world outside still remains tough for boys and young men. In this way boys can start

to dientify other places that it is safe to be vulnerable. When my own sons were young

they told me the houses they could cry in and the ones they couldn't cry in. They said

they knew by the atmosphere in those homes the minute they walked into them. So

"manning up" is not necessary; wisdom and developing sensitivity in boys is really

important and awareness of what and who is safe and what and who is not.

"When my own sons were young they told me the houses they could cry in and the

ones they couldn't cry in. They said they knew by the atmosphere in those homes the

minute they walked into them. So "manning up" is not necessary; wisdom and

developing sensitivity in boys is really important and awareness of what and who is

safe and what and who is not."

I believe this is very very important. We have to listen to our heart AND the

children and their emotions from the very beginning. here we can find solutions for

the future.


Is necessary too a networking of information. Today internet is a great opportunity to

share information and news in real time, and sometimes to ask help too. Obviously,

this must match a legislative response effective and long-term, durable, aiming not

only to deal with the emergency, but gradually to prevent and eliminate all forms of

gender-based violence.


In order to meaningfully engage men in this issue we need to acknowledge that the

vast majority of men do NOT abuse their partner's. All need to acknowledge that

violence is not just a women's issue... that it is an issue for women, men, children,

families, extended families, communities, all of society.

Comments:


I completely agree.



[quote=Jens van Tricht]

It is good to get back to the general discussion of what can actually be done about it

and what additional research is needed on the topic?

Another interesting research would be to investigate the motivations of men who

actually act against gender-based violence. Such research may help with creating a

guidebook of very practical actions which can encourage other men to combat gender-

based violence.

Comments:


This is a very good proposal.


An additional idea may be a better understanding of the available resources in the

different countries. There should be a wider platform where field professionals,

researchers, policy makers and others could interact and share experiences on a more

consistent basis. Such efforts exist, but in my opinion they are too scattered: too

many, too widespread.

A more continuous effort at managing the different experiences of NGOs in the field

could create a more in-depth body of research/action.

92. Zulema | 11/09/2014, 12:54 EEST (+03:00)

From my previous working experience as psychologist in prison, providing treatment

programs for perpetrators of intimate partner violence, I can add that:

a) Violence is a tool to exert control and dominance to the other part, rather than a

energy they cannot control.

b) Grounds to use different types of violence against a women in a close relationships

are built upon the structural and cultural imbalance between men and women in the

society.

c) social acceptance of still many forms of gender-based violence against women

needs to be properly addressed

Comments:


Thank you for this additional input, very relevant for the debate!





based violence.


I agree with Katarzyna... More research on what motivates men to act to counter

gender-based violence would be most beneficial. This should also include those men

in same sex relationships.


Dear all,

due to some other commitments I have to leave the discussion now for half an hour. I

will see you in the next session. Please do continue, your suggestions and ideas are of

great value!


Also ... Obvioulsy, ongoing roll-out of the "White Ribbon" and "Other Half"

campaigns calling men to action around violence against women should be built upon.






based violence.

The practical actions are already outlined in campaigns like the White Ribbon

Campaign, see www.whiteribbon.ie. Our motivations in acting against gender-based

http://www.whiteribbon.ie/

violence are to make the personal world and the wide world safer places for men,

women and children. I don't think too much more research is needed. Ongoing

practical engagement with men at all levels on ending male violence is what is

needed.



Also ... Obvioulsy, ongoing roll-out of the "White Ribbon" and "Other Half"

campaigns calling men to action around violence against women should be built upon.

Good point mentioned here, Philip. We will get back tot he topic in our last session on

Campaigning for men in gender equality starting at 15h.


There is a need for arenas where men meet and discuss violence and violent behaviour

in relations. This could be done in connection with when men become fathers. For

example, in Sweden, men are invited to meetings at mothercare-centers before they

become fathers. One topic there ought to be violence and how to tackle difficult

situation in the relation and the family.


We have about half an hour left in this debate and it would be great to also hear your

feedback on the question of how men’s organisations and other stakeholders in gender

equality should co-operate better in order to reduce gender-based violence?


It was a pleaure, I must go now

See you later

have a nice lunch

Comments:


Thank you, Concetta. See you later hopefully!



We have about half an hour left in this debate and it would be great to also hear your

feedback on the question of how men’s organisations and other stakeholders in gender

equality should co-operate better in order to reduce gender-based violence?

This is a trick question. In Romania, we have few men organizations and those that

exist are very conservative and against gender equality. It sounds like a paradox, but it

is not.



In order to meaningfully engage men in this issue we need to acknowledge that the

vast majority of men do NOT abuse their partner's. All need to acknowledge that

violence is not just a women's issue... that it is an issue for women, men, children,

families, extended families, communities, all of society.

Yes, but....violence is a huge issue in men's lives. Look at how scared we get of each

other, how hard it is sometimes to be ourselves, how much homophobia curtails even

how we move, stand, walk, speak, the sentiments or thoughts we express, how

dangerous it can be to not look "manly" in front of other men. In gender-based

violence it is our own gender we struggle with first: 90% of men's violence is against

other men. Then 90% of gender-based domestic violence is perpetrated by men

against women.


Good qestion. Women's NGO organisations could work more closely with perpetartor

programmes monitoring partner contact arrangements, understanding the

methods/tools used on these programmes and learning more about men's recogntion

of their abusive behaviour and their motivations for change.




Another interesting research would be to investigate the motivations of

men who actually act against gender-based violence. Such research

may help with creating a guidebook of very practical actions which can

encourage other men to combat gender-based violence.

The practical actions are already outlined in campaigns like the White Ribbon

Campaign, see www.whiteribbon.ie. Our motivations in acting against gender-based

violence are to make the personal world and the wide world safer places for men,

women and children. I don't think too much more research is needed. Ongoing

practical engagement with men at all levels on ending male violence is what is

needed.

I think research and practical engagement should go along with each other. That

world is changing and therefore, social research should be carried out constantly as

there are always new circumstances which should be taken under consideration.







That is exactly what we are trying to do in Work with Perpetrators - European

Network as many members of our are women's and/or victims organisations and such

cooperation seems to really work in the area of work with perpetrators.





Another interesting research would be to investigate the

motivations of men who actually act against gender-

based violence. Such research may help with creating a

guidebook of very practical actions which can

encourage other men to combat gender-based violence.

The practical actions are already outlined in campaigns like the White

Ribbon Campaign, see www.whiteribbon.ie. Our motivations in acting

against gender-based violence are to make the personal world and the



wide world safer places for men, women and children. I don't think too

much more research is needed. Ongoing practical engagement with

men at all levels on ending male violence is what is needed.

I think research and practical engagement should go along with each other. That

world is changing and therefore, social research should be carried out constantly as

there are always new circumstances which should be taken under consideration.

Absolutely: action research is good. The practitioner work is where the need is

greatest however. There is a real shortage of trained/experienced people on the ground

in Europe who can work with men week in week out to end their violent behaviour

and bring them to more beneficial ways of being in relationship and in society, which

may mean imprisonment for some of them. The FRA brought out a hugely

comprehensive report on violence against women this year. To be acted upon it needs

resources invested in practitioners in every country in Europe.


Back to education... Dealing with these sensitive issues in the classroom is very

difficult. But what about starting with exploring with boys (and girls) the

consequences of such violence.


I think we had many interesting ideas on the table in this session: from discussing

why men are violent to the need of doing more research on men participating in

perpetrator programmes or finding out more about the motivations why men act

against gender-based violence. And the confirmation that we need to combine

research and actions and should not forget about the importance of education in all of

this debate.

Thank you all for these very valuable contributions to today's online discussion. We

will now take a lunch break and be back at 13.30 for the last two sessions dealing with

critical areas for men in the gender equality index and the final session on

campaigning for men in gender equality. We will leave the session open so you

can also continue your contributions in our absence.







On our MEND Programme (www.mend.ie) we work in partnership with Women's

refuges, Rape Crisis Centres and their reps are on the committee that oversees the

work. The prorgamme was developed with their agreement. MDN is represented on

the National Committee on Gender-based violence along with the main women's

organisations in Ireland. MDN is a member of RESPECT UK which has most of the

UK women's organisations and DVIPs as members.


Dorothee, good but very difficult questions. However, if one starts with realising that

as long as violence between men are "normal", "acceptable" etc, men's violence

against women will also go on.

So, here most men and all women have something in common. Most men don't like

violence and violent behaviour against themselves. Wouldn't that be a good basis for

cooperation?

112. Sonia Villar | 11/09/2014, 13:31 EEST (+03:00)

Greetings from Spain

It is important to note that even today there are a large number of men and women

who continue justifying somehow gender violence in "some cases". This justification

arises from "beliefs and values" socially ingrained to be visible to discredit and

remove. In this paper I consider the role of men as "educator" of children is essential

to plant in the new generations the seed of real equality. Work from schools, through

associations of parents of students in the reeducation of parents could be a useful

strategy to involve type when men in this struggle for equality and against gender

violence.

Comments:


Welcome to our debate, Sonia!


Thanks Dorothee. I'll not make the next session due to work committmenst but you'll

find me again at the last at 15:00.

http://www.mend.ie/

Comments:


Good to know, see you later then!


It is worth saying that in our work with men who use violence against women we

haven't yet met one of these men who hasn't experienced seriuosly damaging trauma

when a boy. This not an excuse for their behaviour, but it is an insight into how a

beautiful baby boy snuggling in his parents arms becomes a violent man. It is hard to

allow ourselves consider what happened him when we are addressing the horrible

violence he is committing at present. But it can be a way into changing his behaviuor.

It is amazing what many men don't know that once explained to them can start a

process of realisation and change. It takes lots of time however.



Back to education... Dealing with these sensitive issues in the classroom is very

difficult. But what about starting with exploring with boys (and girls) the

consequences of such violence.

Your right Philip it is difficult. In our work in schools we find it works better if we

work with the boys separately as otherwise it can descend into a debate between the

boys and the girls when what's needed is boys talking honestly with each other. We

ask them first to tell us what's good about being a boy so they are starting from a

positive perspective before they delve into the difficult issues like violence. That way

they are less likely to lose themselves in guilt and defensiveness.


Welcome back. Our third session today will deal with critical areas for men in the

gender equality index. The session will run until 2.30pm.


As you probably all know, the Gender Equality Index is a unique measurement tool

combining gender indicators into a single summary measure.

It consists of six core domains (work, money, knowledge, time, power and health) and

two satellite domains (intersecting inequalities and violence). The Gender Equality

Index measures how far (or close) the EU-27 and its Member States were from

achieving complete gender equality in 2010. It provides results at both Member States

and EU-27 level but also for each domain and sub-domain.

It measures gender gaps that are adjusted to levels of achievement, ensuring that

gender gaps cannot be regarded positively where they point to an adverse situation for

both women and men.

For example, in the domain of health, gender inequality and stereotypical gender roles

and norms have damaging effects on the personal health and well-being of men, as

well as women. Men and boys face specific health problems such as premature death

through an accident or suicide and higher levels of drug and alcohol abuse.

Consequently, they have a lower life expectancy (82,6 years women, 76,7 years men).

The domain “health” in the Gender Equality Index measures the differences between

women and men in health status and in access to health structures. It measures not

only sex-based differences in self-perceived health, life expectancy and healthy life

years but also gender gaps in unmet needs. What is missing, however, is data on

health behaviour.


So my first question in this session would be: What are the critical topics when we

speak about men’s health?


Hello and welcome back! As I reminder I would like to say that the Gender Equality

Index consists of six core domains: work, time, money, knowledge, health and power


One of the questions of course is the health behaviour. This, according to various

theorists, relates to the perceptions of masculinity. What should we look at when we

look at health behaviour?





Some critical health topics for men include:

Isolation.

Fear of vulnerability.

Lack of self-care.

Leaving it too late.

Embarrassment.

Male gender conditioning.

Felling invincible.

Not taking ourselves seriously.

Not prioritising our own personal health issues.

Ignorance of our bodies and our emotions.

Ability to bear or ignore pain or injury. There is a saying in english for this: "soldier

on". It means carrying on with everday life and work despite the health issue that is

affecting us.

Comments:


Thank you, Alan, for the suggestion. I think everything you pointed out is

highly relevant. What possibilities for research in this field?


Thank you for breaking the ice after lunch, Alan!


Hello again! There are a number of critical areas

- men have a lower life expectancy

- men tend to ask for medical support at a later stage than women

- men die more than women as a result of risk-taking, alcohol, drugs, violence,

accidents, depression and suicide

- men die more than women as a result of accidents at their workplace

However, it has to be observed that the differences in health status between persons

with high and low education is higher than between men and women (Swedish data).


All relations between men's health and men's aging are the critical topics here.





Institutionally there are issues too. Ireland was the first country in the world to have a

National Men's Health Policy. It also included an action plan. MDN made its

contribution to this policy being adopted and actioned for the last five years. The

policy is now up for review and there is a major suggestion that it be overtaken by the

latest health policy which is called "Healthy Ireland" that is not gender specific. So

having had the major achievement of having a gender specific men's health policy we

are now fighting to retain it until 2025. There is a survey that can be filled in for the

review of our men's health policy. I'm at [email protected] if you want me to

send you a link to fill it in.




So my first question in this session would be: What are the critical

topics when we speak about men’s health?


Isolation.


Lack of self-care.



Embarrassment.


Felling invincible.




Ability to bear or ignore pain or injury. There is a saying in english for this: "soldier

on". It means carrying on with everday life and work despite the health issue that is

affecting us.

I am picking up on Alan's and Christian's comments. What kind of research is needed

in this field? What kind of indicators could measure such health behaviour (e.g.

frenquency of visits to the doctor)?


Hi, here I am.

Men are much more shy to talk about their health problems, for shame, much times.

In addition, they are also most reluctant to take part on prevention actions held by

Health'd Departments. In the last years, truly, I note more awareness by young men,

more careful to their health.


There are a large number of indicators. One interesting among others is number of

healthy years.


The tendency of men to avoid health care, to go to a doctor only (too) late, to pretend

not to have any problems, to 'suck it in', to think care is for pussies, etcetera. In fact,

like the issues we discussed before, it is all about unhealthy conceptions of

masculinity. Research could focus on ways to make men feel more responsible for

their own health and that of others. Analogous to the 'men who don't use violence'

research, we might investigate the background of those men who do live healthier

lives than others...



The tendency of men to avoid health care, to go to a doctor only (too) late, to pretend

not to have any problems, to 'suck it in', to think care is for pussies, etcetera. In fact,

like the issues we discussed before, it is all about unhealthy conceptions of

masculinity. Research could focus on ways to make men feel more responsible for

their own health and that of others. Analogous to the 'men who don't use violence'

research, we might investigate the background of those men who do live healthier

lives than others...

"Men who live healthier" - data from Sweden easily show that the ones who live

healthier have higher education, better income, live geographically closer to areas

good hospitals, etc ... so class is important. And that class is more important than

gender.


Similarly to the "men and violence research" in the health area the intersections

gender, class, race and migration background have to be take under the

consideration.There are a big differences in the health condition of men from different

social groups.



Similarly to the "men and violence research" in the health area the intersections

gender, class, race and migration background have to be take under the

consideration.There are a big differences in the health condition of men from different

social groups.

I agree. generally, men more educated are also men more interested in health's care

132. Irina Costache | 11/09/2014, 15:03 EEST (+03:00)

Hellos from Romania to everyone,

I was thinking that another important issue impacting men's health has to do with the

labor sectors many men are involved in. For example in Romania, men within the low

income bracks are usually still employed in risky or hazardous fields - such as mining,

heavy industry, constructions.

Moreover many men from the poorer countries in the EU migrate to other countries

where they are also involved with labor sectors that are particularly dangerous for

their health.

Comments:


Welcome to the debate, Irina!


Thank you Claes and Katarzyna for pointing out once again that we cannot talk about

men as if they are of one homogeneous kind, and that other power structures influence

our daily realities and the ways we perceive gender relations. So yes, we need to

explore the different ways in which different groups of men are affected by (and able

to affect in general) the indicators from the gender equality index.


Very interesting discussions. I see that very often it is highlighted that in addition also

class (socioeconomic background) should be taken into account. This reflects debates

that we have had earlier - men far too often belong to extremes (eg, percentage of

homeless people). How to take this into account in further research?





So my first question in this session would be: What are

the critical topics when we speak about men’s health?


Isolation.


Lack of self-care.


Embarrassment.


Felling invincible.




Ability to bear or ignore pain or injury. There is a saying in english for

this: "soldier on". It means carrying on with everday life and work

despite the health issue that is affecting us.

I am picking up on Alan's and Christian's comments. What kind of research is needed

in this field? What kind of indicators could measure such health behaviour (e.g.

frenquency of visits to the doctor)?

What's happened in Ireland over the last ten years is a good place to start. From health

coming up as an issue in our men's development groups in 2000 to our local health

managers getting interested in that and then meeting us at a men and cancer seminar

where we were the only men in the room except for the four consultants at the top

table, it moved into research, then a conference that brought the Department of Health

on Board. This led to the policy itself and now the review of it after 5 years of

implementation. So 14 years later there will be a report on the evaluation of the policy

that will be worth seeing. This model could be applied across the EU27.




Similarly to the "men and violence research" in the health area the

intersections gender, class, race and migration background have to be

take under the consideration.There are a big differences in the health

condition of men from different social groups.

I agree. generally, men more educated are also men more interested in health's care

This true. Have a look at Ireland's National Men's Health Policy and Action Plan and

how it covers all of these issues and is holistic in its approach.


Just a short logistical info from my side: don't forget to fill in the evaluation form

which is available here http://eurogender.eige.europa.eu/polls-and-

surveys/surveys/evaluation-on...

(or can also be accessed directly on the right of this page)


Christian Veske wrote:





Could you do anything else than publish data which covers both; gender and class?

And this way raise awareness.

Comments:


Well, we would have to sit down with our research people to see what is

available and possible. I will definitely ask.


Don't hesitate to continue your contributions on men and health. I would,

nevertheless, also like to draw your attention on another interesting topic.

A recurring debate also centres around the time spent on care activities. The amount

of time spent by women and men in the EU on activities other than economic, shows

strong differences. A wide gender gap exists in the time spent caring and educating

children and grandchildren in addition to time spent on cooking and housework.

Throughout all Member States, it is women who perform the bulk of these caring

activities. Men are, however, more likely than women (in the vast majority of

Member States) to participate in sporting, cultural or leisure activities on a regular

basis.

The situation is more divided when it comes to involvement in voluntary or charitable

activities because in some Member States it is non-existent, while in others it shows a

wide gender gap.

http://eurogender.eige.europa.eu/polls-and-surveys/surveys/evaluation-online-discussion


The European Commission’s “Roadmap for equality between women and men 2006 –

2010” specifically stresses the need for men to be more involved in care activities. It

emphasizes that men should be encouraged to take up family responsibilities, in

particular through incentives to take parental and paternity leave and to share leave

entitlements with women.

How to reduce this time gap between men and women in care activities?


Christian Veske wrote:





The unfortunate consequences about male gender conditioning is that it pushes men to

extremes. It encourages men not to seek help and it teaches men not to be able to

express their needs especially when under stress. This has a huge affect on men's

physical and mental health. A terrible example of the extremes that men will go to is

reflected in the male suicide figures world wide.


Regarding the time spent in care activities, it is also interesting to look at it in contrast

with the parental leave schemes of the country












basis.



wide gender gap.







Working with men to connect to our hearts and our love and to express love of our

selves, our partners and our children, and each other, is key to men becoming more

caring and wanting to more involved in caring. Confidential men's development

groups are useful places to do this work so that men can come to realise that

embarassment won't kill them!












basis.



wide gender gap.







A couple of weekes ago I found out about a programme in Phillipines that focused on

stay-at-home dads and was offering classes in parenting.

(http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/fatherhood-101/)

I believe it would be necessary that this kind of programs to exist also in our countries

to teach men what are the needs of a child and how to approach them.












basis.



wide gender gap.







One needs to link this discussion to the difference in hours spent at paid work. One

"simple" solution - men should work less hours paid work, women more hours.


I don't know... men can't be obliged to care for, I wouldn't like a partner that would

help me as he must, I wuoldl like he would help me as he really want to do it; in my

experience (I live in Italy) men don't ask for parental leaves due to the economic gap

between female and male salaries (the first one always lower than the latters); so, I

think is also an economic difficult which prevent men to request leaves, in order, for

example, to stay at home and care for children.

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/fatherhood-101/



[/quote]

A couple of weekes ago I found out about a programme in Phillipines that focused on

stay-at-home dads and was offering classes in parenting.

(http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/fatherhood-101/)

I believe it would be necessary that this kind of programs to exist also in our countries

to teach men what are the needs of a child and how to approach them.

Thank you very much for this interesting link! I agree that many men (but also

women) need more good examples/role models to follow. Our parents' generation is

just not what many of us who are having children nowadays would like to repeat

(father working, mum at home), but often we lack examples of how it could work

differently.


I'm looking forward for our next session on campaigning!


We have about 20 minutes left in this session, and maybe we can dedicate them some

concrete proposals. How should men’s organisations and other stakeholders in gender

equality co-operate better in order to reduce the gender gaps mentioned before?


Sorry. Very interesting discussions but I have to leave you now.

Comments:


No problem don't forget to fill in the evaluation questionnaire!


http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/fatherhood-101/

I think one of solutions comes from economics: an equal pay can avoid the slavery of

money, allowing men and women to choose to stay at home, avoiding to loose job or,

in the better hypotesis, to perceive a lower slavery just when a complete slavery is

more necessary (for example the birth of a son). it needed a political (and concrete,

not rethoric) response, I think.


Pardon

salary, instead of slavery

a freudian lapsus



We have about 20 minutes left in this session, and maybe we can dedicate them some

concrete proposals. How should men’s organisations and other stakeholders in gender

equality co-operate better in order to reduce the gender gaps mentioned before?

Because in my country we have no men NGOs that would be interested in gender

equality this thing is very hard to do.

As conclusions, what would be interesting to do together is to start sketching ideas for

research and, why not, for some campaigns (just to see how deep the water is).

+ In Romania a white ribbon campaign would be lovely to do, but for this I think I

have to talk with Christian :)

+ I am also interested in research and if you need help and perspectives from a

country that has a lot of work on gender equality area, I am here :)

Have a nice evening and thank you for this meeting!

Comments:


Andreea, please indeed do get in touch with me on the White Ribbon

Campaign. We are trying to get to all member states with the campaign.


I retain from this session that there is a lot to be done so that men live healthier lives.

The research needed in this area should also take socio-economic factors like class

and education into account. And when we are talking about changes in behaviour (in

the area of health and household/caring for children or elderly), we always come back

to the important role of education.

If there are no more contributions on this session, I would suggest to move already on

to the final session. We are not going to take a break, but will continue immediately

with our last session on campaigning on men for gender equality. The session will

run until 16.00pm.

154. Aap Toming | 11/09/2014, 15:51 EEST (+03:00)

Hello!

All of your thoughts and opinions on this issue are much appreciated as I myself am a

novice but very much interested in everything related to men's rights, gender roles and

their harmonious integration with women's rights and issues.

I am a final year medical student here in Estonia and as such have to treat all patients

equally regardless of their gender, world views, hygene level etc.

I've also been interested in politics, gender roles, economics, international relations

and psychology, biology and evolution for years.

I hope this background is a good foundation to start being more active in the field of

equal treatment for both genders.

In addition to all the issues raised here, I would like to point out that while Claes

Sonnerby's

argument about the issues between men and women being more to do with education

than differences in sex is attractive and probably true in many aspects:

"...men is not one group of people and women another group. Many men have more in

common with other women than other men. Not seldom do they have more in

common with persons belonging to the same class in the society than with other men.

Make an easy test yourself, which people do you wish to work together with at your

work-place? Which people do you invite to your home? I have to "admit" that the

people, men and women, coming to my home mainly belong to the same class as

myself."

I wholeheartedly agree with this and also see the differences between peoples'

socioeconomic backgrounds as being a large influence on why it is so very difficult to

talk about gender equality. Assuming there is much understanding between a women's

rights activist and an uneducated man or an educated men's right's activist and an

uneducated woman is hard to imagine.

I find that the same goes for a women's rights activist who lacks the empathy for

seeing the issues of the opposite sex and a men's rights activist who is so afraid of

what the radical facets of feminism represent that he simply dismisses the issues of

women entirely.

With this in mind I as a medical student would like to emphasize that there are

biological differences between men and women. Not just reproductively but when

talking about averages then also in the fields of psychology which stem from

differences in brain structure:

"Disparities in how certain brain substances are distributed may be more revealing.

Notably, male brains contain about 6.5 times more gray matter -- sometimes called

'thinking matter" -- than women. Female brains have more than 9.5 times as much

white matter, the stuff that connects various parts of the brain, than male brains."

With such huge differences in mind, I've found that I would sometimes like to discuss

how the rhetoric when dealing with men vs. the rhetoric when dealing with women

has to oftentimes be substantially different.

Perhaps the image of the feminism movement is geared towards being attractive

towards women rather than men simply because on average, men enjoy different

things.

I would like to ask the members of this forum: How could we talk about the biological

differences between men and women and the need to use different methods in

reaching men and women without discriminating against men who, despite their

biology, have more feminine traits and women, despite their biology, have more

masculine traits?

How to do this in a civilized form without demonizing the messenger?

Overall, while there are nurture reasons for why men and women are as they are in

traditional roles and since this hurts both men and women we should be dealing with

how to change nurture with gender neutral upbringing and such but leaving out

biology also seems to be a detriment to finding ways how to reach the average man

(dependant on nation of course) in being more active in seeing the issues with

patriarchy.

I'm sincerely worried because it seems to be the radical sides of the men's rights

movement such as MGTOW and A Voice for Men are taking root in the US because

the methods of feminism are ineffective in reaching the average man. Radical ideas of

unproportional social injustice against men seem to be more attractive to men in the

US and I don't want to see the same thing happening anywhere else in the world.

It is true that dealing with the fact that men are lagging behind in education is a large

factor but the broader issue to me seems to be that methods to make men want to be

more educated and to make them see the feminism movement not as the enemy but as

a platform for change in which their voices can be heard should somewhat differ from

the methods which are used in reaching women.

In essence, the sooner we realise that there are some inherent differences between

men and women, the sooner we can start to come up with policies which more

efficiently reach both sexes in making them more active in seeing the issues in the

status quo and working towards a more gender equal world.

How to do this without seeming like someone who advocates preferential treatment

depending on the recipients gender and is thus uneducated and doesn't support the

choice of everyone to be the way that they want to be is beyond me.

And this worries me.

Comments:


Tere Aap! thank you so much for this substantial contribution. I think you

gave lot of food for thought for everyone. The balance of nature and social

construct has been for long time the topic in gender studies. I don't think there

is any concluding agreement on this which indeed puts us to dangers of radical

and anti-feminist rhetorics. I will get back to you on this.








Thank you very much for your contributions, Andreea. This is a great link to our next

topic.

What stakeholders could work together on campaigning and how?


Aap Toming wrote:

Hello!

All of your thoughts and opinions on this issue are much appreciated as I myself am a

novice but very much interested in everything related to men's rights, gender roles and

their harmonious integration with women's rights and issues.

I am a final year medical student here in Estonia and as such have to treat all patients

equally regardless of their gender, world views, hygene level etc.

I've also been interested in politics, gender roles, economics, international relations

and psychology, biology and evolution for years.

I hope this background is a good foundation to start being more active in the field of

equal treatment for both genders.

In addition to all the issues raised here, I would like to point out that while Claes

Sonnerby's

argument about the issues between men and women being more to do with education

than differences in sex is attractive and probably true in many aspects:

"...men is not one group of people and women another group. Many men have more in

common with other women than other men. Not seldom do they have more in

common with persons belonging to the same class in the society than with other men.

Make an easy test yourself, which people do you wish to work together with at your

work-place? Which people do you invite to your home? I have to "admit" that the

people, men and women, coming to my home mainly belong to the same class as

myself."

I wholeheartedly agree with this and also see the differences between peoples'

socioeconomic backgrounds as being a large influence on why it is so very difficult to

talk about gender equality. Assuming there is much understanding between a women's

rights activist and an uneducated man or an educated men's right's activist and an

uneducated woman is hard to imagine.

I find that the same goes for a women's rights activist who lacks the empathy for

seeing the issues of the opposite sex and a men's rights activist who is so afraid of

what the radical facets of feminism represent that he simply dismisses the issues of

women entirely.

With this in mind I as a medical student would like to emphasize that there are

biological differences between men and women. Not just reproductively but when

talking about averages then also in the fields of psychology which stem from

differences in brain structure:

"Disparities in how certain brain substances are distributed may be more revealing.

Notably, male brains contain about 6.5 times more gray matter -- sometimes called

'thinking matter" -- than women. Female brains have more than 9.5 times as much

white matter, the stuff that connects various parts of the brain, than male brains."

With such huge differences in mind, I've found that I would sometimes like to discuss

how the rhetoric when dealing with men vs. the rhetoric when dealing with women

has to oftentimes be substantially different.

Perhaps the image of the feminism movement is geared towards being attractive

towards women rather than men simply because on average, men enjoy different

things.

I would like to ask the members of this forum: How could we talk about the biological

differences between men and women and the need to use different methods in

reaching men and women without discriminating against men who, despite their

biology, have more feminine traits and women, despite their biology, have more

masculine traits?

How to do this in a civilized form without demonizing the messenger?

Overall, while there are nurture reasons for why men and women are as they are in

traditional roles and since this hurts both men and women we should be dealing with

how to change nurture with gender neutral upbringing and such but leaving out

biology also seems to be a detriment to finding ways how to reach the average man

(dependant on nation of course) in being more active in seeing the issues with

patriarchy.

I'm sincerely worried because it seems to be the radical sides of the men's rights

movement such as MGTOW and A Voice for Men are taking root in the US because

the methods of feminism are ineffective in reaching the average man. Radical ideas of

unproportional social injustice against men seem to be more attractive to men in the

US and I don't want to see the same thing happening anywhere else in the world.

It is true that dealing with the fact that men are lagging behind in education is a large

factor but the broader issue to me seems to be that methods to make men want to be

more educated and to make them see the feminism movement not as the enemy but as

a platform for change in which their voices can be heard should somewhat differ from

the methods which are used in reaching women.

In essence, the sooner we realise that there are some inherent differences between

men and women, the sooner we can start to come up with policies which more

efficiently reach both sexes in making them more active in seeing the issues in the

status quo and working towards a more gender equal world.

How to do this without seeming like someone who advocates preferential treatment

depending on the recipients gender and is thus uneducated and doesn't support the

choice of everyone to be the way that they want to be is beyond me.

And this worries me.

Dear Aap, thank you for joining our debate and sharing all your thoughts with us. We

will definitely take them on board for the final report and if somebody wants to

comment further, he or she is more than welcome to do so. I would, however, like to

stick to the next discussion topic concerning campaigns/messages at this stage.



I think one of solutions comes from economics: an equal pay can avoid the slavery of

money, allowing men and women to choose to stay at home, avoiding to loose job or,

in the better hypotesis, to perceive a lower slavery just when a complete slavery is

more necessary (for example the birth of a son). it needed a political (and concrete,

not rethoric) response, I think.

Equal pay and support is key.


I will put my question in another way to overcome the afternoon siesta silence;-)

We know that there is a growing number of men’s organisation in Europe and beyond

and they could be one of the first target groups to be involved in an intensified

campaign on the involvement of men in the gender equality debate.

How could information be shared and targeted best using men’s networks and co-

operation with other gender equality organisations?





As conclusions, what would be interesting to do together is to start

sketching ideas for research and, why not, for some campaigns (just to

see how deep the water is).

+ In Romania a white ribbon campaign would be lovely to do, but for

this I think I have to talk with Christian :)

Thank you very much for your contributions, Andreea. This is a great link to our next

topic.

What stakeholders could work together on campaigning and how?

I've go to go now but before I go let me say that EIGE should now email to us its

plans for White Ribbon Day 2014 and for the 16 days of Action Against Violence

Against Women that follow 25th November. Some men in EU including MDN have

been promoting the White Ribbon campaign for years now so we should build on that

with our connections to other men's organisations around EU to achieve Christian's

goal.

Comments:


Thank you very much for your active participation. This is the link to the

evaluation form: http://eurogender.eige.europa.eu/polls-and-

surveys/surveys/evaluation-online-discussion


Hi again!

Part of our work here in Ireland involves a public awareness committee on violence

against women. Members of this committee include communications experts, State

officials (justice, health etc), and representatives of non-state domestic and sexual

violence support services. Their work contributes greatly to how State funding in

awareness raising around these issues is coordinated and their advice has assisted in

the drafting of guiding principles and messaging in the area.



Hi again!

Part of our work here in Ireland involves a public awareness committee on violence

against women. Members of this committee include communications experts, State

officials (justice, health etc), and representatives of non-state domestic and sexual

violence support services. Their work contributes greatly to how State funding in

awareness raising around these issues is coordinated and their advice has assisted in

the drafting of guiding principles and messaging in the area.

Hi Philip. This committee provides support to MDN's national White Ribbon

campaign and is a model for the EU.


EIGE joined the White Ribbon Campaign last year. We are continuing the campaign,

but would like very much to hear your thoughts on how to use in the possible way the

existing White Ribbon Ambassadors.




We have about 20 minutes left in this session, and maybe we can

dedicate them some concrete proposals. How should men’s

organisations and other stakeholders in gender equality co-operate

better in order to reduce the gender gaps mentioned before?

Because in my country we have no men NGOs that would be interested in gender

equality this thing is very hard to do.





+ I am also interested in research and if you need help and perspectives from a

country that has a lot of work on gender equality area, I am here :)

Have a nice evening and thank you for this meeting!

We have those reactionary men's groups here too. There are other men in your

country who will get what we are talking about. We can help you with that.


This is my last contribution of today, running between all kinds of work and care

responsibilities...

It's great to see so many people involved in this discussion, here and elsewhere! The

attention for men in gender equality is definitely growing and it comes in many

shapes.

As for campaigns etc, I think we should value the diversity in topics, contexts etc and

at the same time strive towards growing cooperation and connectedness. It would be

great if the people who participated here today would be able to find each other also

on other moments and through other channels. Could EIGE play a role in this?

Finally, I want to point your attention once again to the Global and European

MenEngage Network. We are having an interesting meeting in Zagreb this coming

week:

http://menengage.org/events/menengage-europe-regional-membership-meeting...

MenEngage's 2nd Global Symposium is coming up in November:

http://www.menengagedilli2014.net

Anyone interested in participating in the European MenEngage network is very

welcome to contact me:

[email protected]

Thank you all, have a great finish of this discussion, hope to meet you somewhere in

real life!

Comments:

http://menengage.org/events/menengage-europe-regional-membership-meeting-capacity-building-training-men-caregiving/

http://www.menengagedilli2014.net/



Thank you very much for your valuable contributions, Jens. We will definitely

bear your suggestions in mind and include them in the final report. Don't

forget to use the evaluation form before switching off accessible on your right.


Another national campaign our office is involved in is this

http://www.manup.ie/ rolled out by the domestic violence sector.

Comments:


Very interesting campaign, thanks for sharing this with the network! I like the

videos a lot.



[...]

How could information be shared and targeted best using men’s networks and co-

operation with other gender equality organisations?

Perhaps through centralizing efforts... designing a website that maintains accurate

and up to date information on the various organisms, NGOs, etc, that work in this

particular field. I believe the information is too widespread at the moment.


Daniel Matias wrote:

Perhaps through centralizing efforts... designing a website that maintains accurate

and up to date information on the various organisms, NGOs, etc, that work in this

particular field. I believe the information is too widespread at the moment.

Could EIGE play a role in this?

What materials looking at the role of men in gender equality should be available on

EIGE’s web?

http://www.manup.ie/


It's not the afternoon siseste, I have difficult to answer...the question is so

complex....but I think is necessary to find a common ground, and, for example, during

the traditional male programmes, such as, football games, show spot on gender

equality, in order to break all the traditional schemes


How could different NGO's and platforms work together for the same goal in

campaigning?


The project "Blue High-School" was part of the "Respect" campaign that was

supported by an international company. A renowned singer in Romania spoke to

teenagers from 10 highschool throughout Romania about "violence among teenage

couples". The whole campaign is worth noticing and analysing as a good practice of

men's envolvement in fighting against violence.

Watch the video of the campaign here. Even if you don't understand the lyrics, you

will get the story.


I remember coming across one of ABC's "What Would You Do?" in the States where

they made a number of reality-style video's of scenarios where male bystanders were

exposed to incidents of domestic violence. How they did (or didn't) respond was

filmed unknown to them. And once the scenario was completed they talked through

with the makers of the programme why they responded in the manner that they did. At

the time, I thought it to be very effective in having men address their response to

domestic violence. Perhaps in dveloping materials we could take a look at this

approach.


The need for male campaign "champions" is paramount and, if possible, for them to

be well known. One such champion in Ireland who assisted with a national

campaign around men's awareness of violence against women in Ireland was a well

know international rugby player.



Could EIGE play a role in this?

What materials looking at the role of men in gender equality should be available on

EIGE’s web?

I was thinking that in a first phase it would be necessary to have a sort of database of

all NGOs involved directly in this field. My concern is that this knowledge exists but

is not focused, is too widespread - attainable for the researcher, but difficult for the

practitioner who needs hands-on information.

Materials concerning good practices, challenges faced and solutions found, guides on

funding, scholars/experts on the field by country... these are some of the aspects.

Again, this is all available, but scattered. The issue is one of centralizing the

information.

Comments:


Daniel, EIGE has available on their website database of organisations working

on men and gender equality across EU. This is one of the resources. There is

also database relating to gender-based violence.


A key issue/challenge to getting NGO organisations to work together around

awareness raising is funding and the centralising of same. In an increasingly

competitive environment between NGO organisations it can be difficult to seprate out

the need to create awareness of the issue itself from the need to promote indivdual

support services available to victims. In focussing on men's awareness and "call to

action" on violence against women details of support services available can become

secondary.


Thank you all for your contribution to this final discussion session concerning the

engagement of men in gender equality. This page will remain open until 10pm today

if you wish to make any additional comments. All contributions will all be taken into

consideration for the final report, which will help EIGE’s to draft a concept paper on

the issue, which will be presented to its Management Board in November.


We have seen different good practice examples today (campaigns, research

projects…) and it was confirmed that there is a growing number of men’s

organisations across Europe which work on changing stereotypical views of

“masculinities” and aim at promoting non-violent behaviour or raising awareness on

health issues for men.

We also saw that there is a need to keep on working (together!) in order to engage

more men in gender equality. Or as stated in study on the “Role of Men in Gender

Equality – European strategies and insights”:

“Men need gender equality and gender equality needs men, there cannot be full

gender equality without the commitment of both genders.”

Campaigning and developing other communication tools such as websites is definitely

an important step into this direction.

Please note that we have also scheduled another online discussion on 2 October

concerning “Communicating Gender Equality” where we will continue some of the

issues raised today, in particular concerning campaigning and communication

strategies. You are all invited to participate in this debate.

Don’t forget to evaluate today’s discussion http://eurogender.eige.europa.eu/polls-

and-surveys/surveys/evaluation-online-discussion (here you can also tick a box

whether you would like to receive the discussion report)


Thank you to EIGE for this opportunity of sharing ideas and experiences.


Thank you for the fruitful discussion!


Thank you Dorothee, Christian and all contributors. I was delighted to be able to

particpate in todays debate and also learned a lot. I look forward to the report. All the

best! Phil.




I agree with Daniel

Thank tou too

Very interesting debate

See you hopefully on 2 October

Goodbye to everyone and thank you very much to all you


It was a pleasure for me, too. I learned a lot of interesting things on my side as well.

So thank you very much - I look forward to more debates.


Thank you all! Looking forward to new debates!

183. Aap Toming | 11/09/2014, 17:19 EEST (+03:00)

Question, is quoting from this discussion to external sites allowed if one does not

reveal the identity of the person who made the statement?

There are some excellent points made in this debate which I would like to share with

others in Estonia.


Good evening Thank you somuch for the invitation to jointhis very

interesting discussion! Unfortunately I could only join in for a few hours then I had

to leave, but I will read and comment. Greetings


Good evening Thank you somuch for the invitation to jointhis very

interesting discussion! Unfortunately I could only join in for a few hours then I had

to leave, but I will read and comment. Greetings


Hi, back again!

One reflection. If we all, working with gender equality and really longing for it, wish

to reach a larger male audience, I think the headline in many discussions should be

"Men's life situation" or something alike rather than "Men and gender equality".

When most men hear the word "gender equality" they think of women's rights (only)

and a lot of the men, sad to say, get tired and become uninterested.

If however the start of the discussion is on the situation of men in the society I think a

lot more men become interested. This could lead to discussions among men about the

pros and cons of being a man, including the "costs of masculinity". A lot of men

would hopefully then wish to get rid of the demands put upon them and would look

forward to a more relaxed role, more focussing upon being a good member of the

society,having good and equal relations to women and being good fathers.

You could say that this is only a play with words but for me it is not, in particular not

for us who wish much more men to be aware of existing norms and roles in the

society.

Another final reflection. Are there actually a large number of fathers in the society

who wishes to give less chances and possibilities to their daughters than to their

sons? Do, we fathers, really like to have daughters heavily dependent of a husband or

other male persons?

187. Association for Men's Equality | 11/09/2014, 21:33 EEST (+03:00)

The most important thing is that You should offer something positive for men also.

At the moment, for example, the EU and the EIG are only campaining against the

violence against women. In other words, they don't care about the violence against

men. The message is very clear: The EU and the EIGE do not care about men. They

think that men are less valuable than women.

Is it really so surprising, that men are not that interested in this sort of "equality"?

Documents

Engaging Men for Gender Equality Online Discussion · equality. I really look forward to this day. Best regards, Claes 11. Dorothee Fischer | 11/09/2014, 10:14 EEST (+03:00) Welcome