Working with boys and men in
primary prevention: What works
and what does not
Dr Michael Flood
mflood@uow.edu.au
Citation: Flood, M. (2015). “Working with boys and men in primary prevention:
What works and what does not.” DVNSW Annual Conference, November 3-4,
Sydney.
Three contributions
1. What works in engaging men and boys in
primary prevention of MVAW
2. Making the case to men
3. Challenges in work with men and boys:
– Feminist agendas and movements
– An intersectional approach
– Mobilising men
Prevention: Evaluations
• Evaluations of primary prevention strategies are rare.
– In Australia there is not a single methodologically strong
evaluation (pre- and post-intervention, with a control or
comparison group).
• Existing evaluations are limited, methodologically and
conceptually.
• But there is an increasing expectation of ‘evidencebased practice’.
Existing evaluations
• Weaknesses in existing evaluations, to do with:
– Measures
– Control and comparison groups
– Follow-up
– Mediators of change
– Applicability, transferability, scalability
• ‘Economy’ and ‘deluxe’ models of evaluation…
There is evidence of effectiveness
• 3 reviews of published studies among men and
boys (WHO 2007; Ricardo et al. 2011; Dworkin
et al. 2013). Plus other reviews…
• Interventions, if well designed, can produce
change in attitudes and behaviours.
– And that’s a big ‘if’.
The foundations of
prevention practice
• Informed: Based on a sound understanding of
both the problem and of how it can be changed.
• Comprehensive: Use multiple strategies, in
multiple settings, and at multiple levels
• Engaging: Meaningful and involving
• Relevant: To the communities and contexts in
which they are delivered
An intervention framework
and logic
• A feminist theoretical framework
– Address the fundamental links between gendered
power relations or inequalities and violence against
women.
– Address both physical and sexual violence.
– Address the factors known to be antecedents to
violent behaviour, including e.g. constructions of
gender and sexuality.
– Go beyond attitudes.
A spectrum of prevention: micro to macro
Level of Spectrum
Definition
Strengthening Individual Knowledge and
Skills
Enhancing an individual’s capability of
preventing violence and promoting safety
Promoting Community Education
Reaching groups of people with
information and resources to prevent
violence and promote safety
Educating Providers
Informing providers who will transmit
skills and knowledge to others and model
positive norms
Fostering Coalitions and Networks
Bringing together groups and individuals
for broader goals and greater impact
Changing Organizational Practices
Adopting regulations and shaping norms
to prevent violence and improve safety
Influencing Policies and Legislation
Enacting laws and policies that support
healthy community norms and a violencefree society
The field: Transforming men and masculinities
through combined changes across the social ecology
Level 2: Community Education
• Face-to-face educational groups and programs:
– Strong evidence of positive impact on attitudes and
behaviours.
• Although not all programs are effective.
– 5 criteria for good practice: (1) a whole-school
approach; (2) a program framework and logic; (3)
effective curriculum delivery; (4) relevant, inclusive
and culturally sensitive practice; (5) impact evaluation
Level 2: Community Education
• Some issues in practice:
– Duration
– A whole-of-school approach
– Men educating men among men?
Community Education continued
• Communication and social marketing
– Well-developed campaigns have produced positive change
in men’s attitudes and behaviours
• Some issues of good practice
– Combined with on-the-ground community development and
mobilisation
– Intensity and duration
– Difficulties in reaching and changing men…
– Understanding men
Level 3: Educating Providers (and
other professionals)
• Organisational and workplace strategies:
– Often involve working with men in male-dominated
institutions.
– Examples: with coaches, police, military forces, faith leaders
• Some issues of good practice
– Intervening in sexist and violence-supportive cultures
– Building institutional gender equality
Level 4: Engaging, Strengthening,
and Mobilising Communities
• To change the social norms, gender roles, and power
relations which feed into violence against women.
• Strategies include: economic empowerment, social
empowerment interventions with vulnerable groups
(such as sex workers), community mobilisation
• Issues in practice:
– Male backlash when empowering women
Community mobilisation
among men
• Including networks, movements, and collective
advocacy
• Examples:
– Men’s Action to Stop Violence Against Women
(MASVAW), India
– One Man Can, South Africa.
– The White Ribbon campaign, in over 60 countries
Level 5: Changing Organisational
Practices
• And organisational or institutional cultures.
• Especially male-dominated and homosocial
contexts.
Level 6: Influencing Policies and
Legislation
• Law and policy:
– have a wide-reaching effect
– can shift social norms
– are vital for establishing and disseminating particular strategies
of prevention
– are enabling.
• Evidence e.g. of associations between levels of funding
and levels of MVAW
Making the case to men
• The things which stop men from getting
involved…
• Appeals:
– Personalise the issue, Show that men will benefit,
Start where men are, Build on strengths, Start with
small steps and build to bigger things, Show that
other men agree, Popularise violence prevention and
feminism, Diminish fears of others’ reactions,
Provide knowledge and skills in intervention, Provide
opportunities and invitations for involvement, Build
communities of support
Start where men are
• Start with men wherever they are.
• Have ‘messengers’ with whom those men can
identify.
• Risk: failing to challenge male privilege.
• Invite men into processes of personal and
collective change.
Start with small steps and
build to bigger things.
• Offer both a desired end state and small steps
and mini-goals.
• Acknowledge ‘well-meaning’ as a launching pad
for men’s involvement.
• And challenge men to reach further.
Popularise violence prevention
and feminism
• Counter negative perceptions of feminism in
general and (feminist) violence prevention in
particular.
• Work with men to:
– Reclaim the F-word.
– Develop a language of support for feminist ideals.
Provide opportunities and
invitations for involvement
• Go to where men are. Reach them particularly
through personal networks.
– Using tailored, individual conversations with men in
their existing social, family or professional networks.
• But also reach out past existing networks.
Build communities of support
• In both informal friendship groups and formal
organisations and networks
– Both face-to-face and online.
• Create new kinds of social networks or peer
groups for men, which meet men’s social and
expressive needs and are different from men’s
traditional homosocial networks.
Three challenges in work
with men and boys
1. Embed the work in feminist agendas and
movements for gender justice
2. Adopt an intersectional approach
3. Mobilise men: Build a movement
1. Embed the work in feminist
agendas and movements
• The ‘turn to men’ in gender politics
– Too much of this work has only a weak feminist
politics.
– HeForShe campaign (UN Women, 2014-)
• Protectionist, individualist, sets the bar very low, and appeases
men.
– The White Ribbon Campaign in Australia
• A feminist project. But much of the work is done by women, the
campaign has less focus than other countries’ on men’s roles
in prevention, and the WR Foundation has weak relations with
feminist groups and the sector.
• A renewed feminist agenda
• Address material and structural gender
inequalities
2. Adopt an intersectional
approach
• Gender intersects with such forms of social
difference such as class, race and ethnicity,
sexuality, age, and disability.
• Men’s violence against women is shaped by
intersecting forms of disadvantage and privilege.
• Efforts to engage men must be intersectional in
their practice.
3. Mobilise men: Build a
movement
• Raise men’s consciousness, politicise them, and
turn them into activists.
• Build alliances and networks with women’s
groups and movements.
• Build alliances with other social justice
movements.
To continue to make progress,
we must…
• Draw on effective forms of prevention, and build
the evidence;
• Make the case to men for involvement;
• Build activist networks and movements.
Contact: mflood@uow.edu.au
Resources
• Online resources on men’s roles in ending
violence against women:
– http://www.xyonline.net/category/article-content/violence
• Dr Michael Flood’s publications:
– http://www.xyonline.net/category/authors/michael-flood
• Contact:
– mflood@uow.edu.au