CONFERENCE/MEETING: WPS Panel Series: Men, Peace and Security: Engaging Men and Boys to Promote Gender Equality and Eliminate Gender-Based Violence

The topic of Women, Peace and Security has become recognized as a key issue in global discussions today. It is rare to question men's role in these discussions, yet creating partnerships with men is critical to establishing gender equality and ending gender based violence. To address this key gap, PeaceWomen, along with the Mission of Liechtenstein and Princeton University, hosted the eighth panel of our Women, Peace, and Security series on July 9th, titled “Men, Peace and Security: Engaging Men and Boys to Promote Gender Equality and Eliminate Gender-Based Violence”, with speaker Gary Barker, International Director of the civil society organization Promundo. More than a 100 people attended this standing-room only event, with almost a quarter being men.

Recognizing the importance of the full and equal participation of all to eliminating gender-based violence, Promundo works to engage men and boys in gender equality and violence prevention. Their work has included coordinating research on men and masculinities in several post-conflict settings. In this lecture, Barker presented findings from this research as well as experiences from Promundo's work to engage men as change agents in the context of post-conflict settings.

The event highlighted how engaging men and boys to promote gender equality and eliminate gender-based violence must be in partnership with women and girl empowerment. Barker noted that the strongest factor associated with men's use of gender-based violence was seeing their fathers and family members do it, and that violence then creates more violence. Therefore, there needs to a shift in the understanding of masculinities in order for there to be a shift in understanding gender relations and equality. If men instead see male family members in the role of caregivers, they are much more likely to endorse gender equality and engage as allies in women's economic empowerment.

Further, Barker emphasized that if we want women in 50% of negotiations in conflict and post-conflict settings, we need men to believe in gender equality from the household to political levels. Promoting men as caregivers can lead to men and boys advocating for gender equality and not participating in gender-based violence. Thus, real change is when we change the institutions of where men and boys become men and boys and begin to challenge general and traditional understandings of masculinities.