Promundo’s Top 5: Reflecting on 20 Years of Activism and 20 Years of Solutions to Engage Men and Boys in Ending Violence Against Women and Girls
What works to prevent men’s violence against women?
By Gary Barker, President & CEO, Promundo-US
From November 25 to December 10, we join thousands of organizations around the world for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign. It has been 20 years that the campaign has been active. It has also been more than 20 years that Promundo has worked in partnership, first in Brazil and then internationally, to build an evidence base that affirms this: we can prevent men’s violence against women and girls.
The solution to ending this violence starts with calling it what it is: men’s violence against women. Ending violence also means talking about shifting power, about changing harmful, sexist, and inequitable norms, and about ending impunity for those who perpetrate violence. It also requires understanding and affirming that men aren’t born violent, that violence is learned. Individual men must be held accountable for the violence they use against women and we must also challenge and break down the systems and structures, and understand the life experiences, that create cycles of men’s violence against women and girls.
Based on our work with men and boys, and informed and inspired by activists, researchers, and women survivors of violence, our top five lessons learned when it comes to what works to prevent men’s violence against women are:
1) Make universally available safe spaces for children and youth, and provide psychosocial support for those who witness violence at home. Results from our studies across 24 of 27 countries reveal that when boys are exposed to violence by their father or another man against their mother while growing up, they are nearly three times more likely to use violence against a future partner, wife, or girlfriend. We must target our prevention efforts to reach all children who have experienced violence: to support their mental health, help them heal from trauma, and to break the cycle.
2) Engage boys and young men to be part of the solution to end violence by embedding evidence-based violence prevention in all the spaces where boys and men hang out. Parents, educators, coaches, and policymakers all have a role to play in challenging the belief that for boys and men, violence is normal. Our Global Boyhood Initiative provides tools for parents to support boys to be caring, connected allies — to become part of the solution in ending men’s violence against women. This space will continue to grow and provide new tools and resources for adults in boys’ lives.
3) Scale up effective parent training along with the national policies needed to engage men in doing their share of hands-on care of children. Our research finds that men’s greater involvement in care work has benefits for women, children, and men themselves; and it is linked with a reduction in rates of men’s violence against women. Boys who have fathers and other male caregivers who model healthy, caring, nonviolent manhood are less likely to use violence later on. Girls who are cared for by nonviolent fathers and male caregivers are less likely to tolerate violence from a male partner. An impact evaluation of Promundo and partners’ fatherhood training in Rwanda — and many other parent training programs worldwide — have found that men who are participated in the program use 40% less violence, nearly two years later, as compared to those who did not. It’s time to integrate such programs into national early childhood, maternal health, and women’s economic empowerment programs, to amplify their impact.
4) TV and film content creators should commit to inclusive storytelling and avoid common, harmful gender stereotypes. Our research with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media affirms how much the TV that boys watch presents men and boys as inherently more violent, stoic, and less competent as caregivers than women are. We’re using that data to engage the media to flip the scripts so our sons see examples of healthy, caring manhood.
5) Men must be true partners — side-by-side with women, not instead of women nor taking over women’s voices — and show leadership at the highest levels in workplaces, sports, the health sector, politics, universities, and schools in questioning and changing institutional cultures that encourage violence and harassment. We need men to challenge harmful ideas about manhood, to call out the harm they see around them, and to be allies for gender equality.
The lives of too many women and girls have been harmed by the violence of too many boys and men. As we consider our 20 years of activism to end men’s violence against women, we also reflect on 20 years of evidence and solutions. It is time that men and boys everywhere see themselves as allies and partners in ending violence and advancing gender equality; we must do the work to listen and learn; speak out against violence and inequality and walk shoulder to shoulder with our sisters. That men everywhere see our stake in and our responsibility to work in partnership to create a world free of violence against women and girls. That we build our schools, our health centers, our houses of congress and parliament to build into their policies and structures a clear message that men’s violence against women must end.
