Work With Men to End Violence Against Women: Critical assessment and
future directions
Michael Flood
Citation: Flood, M. (2014). “Work With Men to End Violence Against Women: Critical
assessment and future directions.” Paper to the 2nd MenEngage Second Global Symposium
2014: Men and Boys for Gender Justice, New Delhi, 10-13 November.
Contact:
Dr Michael Flood
Email: mflood@uow.edu.au
Academic writings: https://uow.academia.edu/MichaelFlood
Writings, publications, and talks:
http://www.xyonline.net/category/authors/michael-flood
This presentation may be reproduced and cited, with acknowledgement.
Introduction
It is time for a critical stocktake of efforts to involve men in the prevention of violence
against women. In particular, it is time to assess a series of assumptions about this work
which are influential and yet which are unsupported by evidence or dangerous.
Time for critical assessment
I have long argued that men have a positive and vital role to play in ending men’s
violence against women. But advocacy must be accompanied by reflexive and critical
assessment.
I provide an assessment of three dimensions of the field:
1. Its relations with feminism (practical and conceptual)
2. Its understandings of men, gender, and violence
3. And its approach to engaging men
1. Relations with feminism
From the beginnings of violence prevention work with men, feminists have expressed
concern about its practice and politics. To what extent have these concerns been
realised?
Taking away funding?
There are few examples where violence prevention work with men has directly taken
funding away from work with women. But there have been tensions between efforts to
engage men and boys and other feminist efforts focused on women and girls themselves.
Taking over campaigns?
Some have expressed concern that men may ‘take over’ violence prevention campaigns.
But I’m more concerned that they won’t take it up. Few men support such efforts, and
most of the work is done by women.
However, some men in the movement do dominate interactions, claim unearned
expertise, or act in other patriarchal ways.
Male advocates may be given greater status, power, and recognition than women doing
similar work and rise more quickly to leadership positions. This echoes the ‘glass
escalator’ effect documented among men in other feminised professions.
Collaborations with women’s organisations
Around the globe, work with men often is done by women’s and violence-focused
organisations, although men-specific organisations are increasing particularly in North
America.
Still, most organisations collaborate with women’s organisations, although this may not
mean effective partnerships or the absence of resource competition or the dilution of
feminist efforts.
Weakening the legitimacy of women-focused strategies and programs
The growing emphasis on the need to involve men in stopping violence against women
is a feminist achievement. But it has diminished recognition of the need for women-only
and women-focused programs and services. It may have fuelled a mistaken belief that all
interventions should include men.
2. Understandings of men, gender, violence, and social change
I focus now on typical understandings in this field, and I highlight three weaknesses
here.
Not only attitudes
First, violence prevention efforts often have focused on changing men’s attitudes. There
are several problems here. A focus on attitudes neglects the structural and institutional
inequalities which are fundamental in shaping men’s violence against women.
Changing attitudes does not necessarily change behaviour, and the relationship between
attitudes and behaviour is both complex and two-way.
Violence prevention efforts focused on men and boys often echo the public health
approach to interpersonal violence. And there are some tensions between this and
feminist approaches.
Which men?
The second issue is how men are seen and treated. Feminist scholarship takes as given
an intersectional approach: gender intersects with other forms of social difference and
inequality.
Despite this, there has been very little comparative assessment of the value of
approaches tailored to specific populations. Although there is evidence that culturally
relevant interventions are more effective than ‘culture-blind’ or generic ones.
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Intersecting forms of social disadvantage also make it hard to engage men in violence
prevention. One key issue here is the problem of asking disadvantaged men to critically
evaluate their power and privilege, and to be agents of social change.
Much violence prevention work often neglects gay and queer men and transgender
people.
Which violence?
Efforts to engage men and boys in ending violence tend also to treat violence itself as
homogenous.
Scholarship shows an increasing emphasis on the ways in which violence is
heterogenous. There are different patterns of violence in heterosexual couples, which
demand different explanations and different responses.
Problematic framings
There are also some problematic framings in this field.
That the problem is ‘masculinity’
One is a pervasive distinction between ‘masculinity’ and ‘men’, allowing a critique of
sexism and violence as a problem of ‘traditional masculinity’. This can lessen attention
to men’s violent practices.
That there are two types of men
Another is that some men in this field make distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’,
between ‘well-meaning men’ or ‘men of conscience’ and those ‘other’ men who assault
women.
This can involve a focus only on obvious forms of violence and not also on other forms
of coercion or violence-supportive attitudes and relations. It can neglect men’s
privileges and entitlements in a patriarchal society.
Approach to engaging men
The third dimension of this field I assess is its approach to engaging men.
There are some ‘mantras’, some assumptions which are part of an emerging consensus
in men’s violence prevention, but are based on shaky evidence, have potentially
dangerous effects, or should be articulated more carefully.
It doesn’t necessarily work.
The first assumption is that our efforts work. Instead:

Most interventions are not evaluated.

Existing evaluations often crappy.

But there is evidence that some interventions do work.
There have now been three systematic reviews of published studies among men and
boys. These reviews show that interventions, if well designed, can produce change in
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the attitudes and behaviours associated with violence against women. But they also
show that the body of evidence is weak. For example, in Ricardo and colleagues’ review
of 65 studies, only seven studies with strong or moderate research design demonstrated
an impact on the perpetration of non-sexual violence, and only one of the well-designed
studies demonstrated an impact on sexually violent behaviour.
Men will lose
The second assumption is that men will benefit from progress towards non-violence and
gender equality. This is a common element in appeals to men in violence prevention,
one I have often made myself.
A single-minded emphasis on the benefits of non-violence and gender equality for males
is dangerous. In the first instance, men who use violence against their partners or other
women benefit directly from this. More widely, men in general benefit from some men’s
violence against women. In limiting women’s autonomy and safety and their access to
economic and political power, this violence has the social consequence of reproducing
men’s authority over women.
There is a real sense then in which men will ‘lose’ from progress towards non-violence
and gender equality. Efforts to involve men must acknowledge the costs to men of
undermining the patriarchal privileges which underpin men’s violence against women.
They should also acknowledge the potential costs of involvement in violence prevention
itself, given that the men and boys who participate may be ridiculed or harassed for lack
of conformity to masculine norms.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to appeal to men purely on altruistic grounds.
We should also appeal to men’s reconstructed or anti-patriarchal interests – the stake
that some men already feel in freer, safer, more egalitarian lives for women and girls.
Men should listen to women
A third common assumption is that the best people to engage and work with men are
other men. There are two parts to this: an emphasis on all-male groups, and an
emphasis on male educators and trainers.
The actual evidence regarding the merits of single-sex versus mixed-sex groups is more
mixed. The most effective sex composition of groups may depend on such factors as the
focus and goals of the teaching sessions and the nature of the teaching methods used.
What about the use of male educators? Yes, the use of male educators has particular
pedagogical and political advantages. But again, there is little robust research evidence
in the violence prevention field regarding the effectiveness of matching educators and
participants by sex. And various studies find that many men’s initial sensitisation to the
issue of violence against women was fostered in particular by listening to women and
women’s experience.
Use diverse men
Another common practice is the use of ‘real’ men to engage men, e.g. in marketing
campaigns: sporting heroes, popular men, and so on. Such men are seen as ‘bell cows’,
able to lead other males into this work because of their conformity to gender norms.
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However, a exclusive reliance on men who conform to (many) gender codes may also
limit social change. Men’s violence against women is sustained in part by rigid gender
codes, the policing of manhood, and rigid gender binaries.
Violence prevention efforts among boys and men also should affirm and promote men
who do not fit dominant codes of masculinity: ‘girly’ men, gay men, ‘sissy’ men, and
transgender men. They should break down narrow constructions of manhood and
powerful gender binaries. They should ‘turn up the volume’ on the actual gender and
sexual diversity in men’s lives.
Remove, don’t only reconstruct
A fourth, common mantra is that the goal is to encourage new, positive masculinities
among men.
Some campaigns explicitly appeal to ‘real’ men, stating for example that ‘real men don’t
use violence’. Other campaigns appeal to stereotypically masculine qualities like
strength or courage while simultaneously seeking to redefine them.
There is an obvious logic here, an effort to undermine the socially produced association
between violence and masculinity.
At the same time, campaigns also should actively encourage males’ disinvestment in
gendered identities and boundaries. Violence prevention work among boys and men
should seek not only to challenge the dominant cultural meanings given to manhood,
but the gender binaries and hierarchical policing of gender which complement them.
Change men by empowering women
The fifth and final assumption I want to complicate is that the best way to change men
is to work with men. Changing men may be best achieved in some circumstances by
engaging and empowering women and by focusing on transforming inequitable gender
relations. Changing men can be achieved by working with women, and by shifting the
wider conditions within which men make choices about violence and non-violence.
By shifting women’s expectations of partners and intimate relations, interventions may
increase the pressures on and incentives for heterosexual men to adopt non-violent
practices and identities. Interventions can harness men’s motivations to be accepted and
liked by women, by encouraging women’s unwillingness to associate with sexist and
aggressive men.
There are other strategies which also ‘force’ men to change. Violence prevention efforts
should include efforts to change the structural and institutional conditions within which
men make choices about how to behave. Strategies include empowering women,
decreasing their economic dependence on men, shifting workplace and sporting
cultures, and changing laws and policies.
Conclusion
‘Engaging men’ has become almost a routine element in efforts around the globe to
reduce and prevent men’s violence against women. This is a significant feminist
achievement, feminist because it embodies the fundamental recognition that violence
against women is a problem overwhelmingly for which men are responsible and which
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men must join with women to address. As the field develops however, it risks the
uncritical adoption of some taken-for-granted truths which are inaccurate, dangerous,
or simplistic. A critical assessment of the field’s working assumptions is vital if it is to
make progress in reducing and preventing men’s violence against women.
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