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1.2Why is it in Men’s Own Interests to Change?

While men as a group do exercise power over women and other men, at the individual level many men feel powerless. The abundant ways in which men experience coercion in their sexual lives, irrespective of their sexual orientation or identity, suggests that men are not always the ‘winners’. Men may be orphans or refugees, they may be unemployed or homeless; they may be dying of AIDS.

Men are also vulnerable in other, more subtle, ways. There are many potential costs for men who conform to, or try to conform to, rigid social expectations of ‘masculinity’ (the culture-specific ideas, roles and behaviours that men are supposed to live up to in order to become accepted members of their own communities). Making men more aware of the costs of conventional forms of masculinity, both for themselves and for women and children, is an important step towards challenging gender inequalities.

‘In all parts of the world, there are men who are aware of the straightjacket imposed upon them by traditional notions of masculinity, and who are more open to reassessing their roles and responsibilities.’

(Barbara Stocking, Director of Oxfam GB cited in Ruxton, 2004)
In most cultures, men are expected to be physically strong and sexually successful, to be risk-takers and decision-makers, to provide financially for their wives and children. These characteristics are referred to as ‘gender norms’ – the culturally accepted ideas about being a man or woman in a particular society.

Conventional gender norms for men and boys, such as those listed above, are often described as ‘dominant’ (or ‘hegemonic’) masculinities. Internalising these ideals is not enough, however; rather they must be repeatedly acted-out by men (Harris 2004) to demonstrate and prove their masculinity.

Yet dominant masculinities are not achievable for all men at all times. For many men there is a significant gap between the dominant model of masculinity in society, and the reality of what they themselves can achieve. This is particularly true in the case of young or low income men, or men who have sex with men rather than women. In fact, no man can fully live up to all these ideals throughout his entire lifetime. Like women, a man’s experience of power fluctuates across his lifecycle, and also depends on his class or caste, his sexual orientation, his ethnicity and race. Men may experience power and powerlessness at the same time – being powerless in relation to an employer but powerful in relation to a sister, for example (Karkara et al., 2005). The range of different positions that men occupy in their relationships with women and men need to be brought into the frame: “While it is unquestionably the case that many men do occupy positions of power, it is one thing to name those subject positions and another to go on to presume that all men have access to these positions or indeed want to take them up” (Cornwall, 2000:23).

Still, the social pressure to conform to dominant versions of masculinity is often intense and the consequences of not conforming can be severe. A study in Kenya revealed that nearly forty per cent of men who have sex with men (MSM) had been raped outside their home and thirteen per cent had been assaulted by the police (Niang et al., 2002, cited in Barker and Ricardo, 2005). This makes it harder for men to adopt alternative, more equitable, masculinities. Even for those men who are able to conform to dominant norms of masculinity, the consequences may be no less harmful. The principal causes of death for young men are violence and traffic accidents, both of which are directly related to how boys are socialised (the process by which individuals learn and teach others to abide by cultural norms and expectations) (Barker, 2005). It is estimated, for example, that in fifty years time there will be six million men missing from the Brazilian population, mostly as a result of death in traffic accidents and homicide (ibid).

Prescribed masculine traits, such as the notion that men’s sexual needs are uncontrollable or that men should have multiple sexual partners, also have serious consequences for men’s health, placing them – and thus their partners – at high risk of HIV infection. The prevalent assumption in many cultures that ‘real men’ do not get sick, combined with the perception that health clinics are ‘women’s spaces’, means that men tend not to get tested for HIV. This has devastating consequences both for men themselves and for their wives or partners. Men who do not conform to dominant masculine norms around sexuality, such as men who have sex with men (MSM) are also at particularly high risk of HIV infection, either because they are overlooked in national HIV prevention strategies, or because legal and social sanctions prohibit them from asking for help or information. This is exacerbated by the fact that there has been very little research carried out to establish how many MSM are at risk and how best to provide them with the information they need to protect themselves and their sexual partners, who may be both male and female (International HIV/AIDS Alliance, 2003).

Dominant masculine norms are also one of the main factors driving gender inequality. For instance, the assumption that men are primary breadwinners means that women are generally expected to take care of the majority of domestic or care work, which is less socially valued and thereby contributes to women’s lower status in society. Another example is domestic violence, which has been repeatedly linked to men’s inability (real or perceived) to live up to society’s expectations of what it means to be a ‘real man’ – being the breadwinner and household decision-maker, for example. In East Africa, as elsewhere, widespread unemployment has left many men unable to fulfil traditional gender roles. As a result, some men are turning to violence against women and children because it is one of the few remaining ways that they can display power over others and ‘feel like a man’ (Correia and Bannon, 2006).

If we are to make real progress towards achieving gender equality we must support men to challenge these strict gender divisions – at home, at work, in the community (Stocking in Ruxton, 2004). Insufficient attention has been paid so far to ‘liberating’ men, as well as women, from the constraints of gender roles and expectations: “Why can’t men cry? Why must they be strong and silent? Why can’t boys love the smell of flowers or the smell that little babies carry with them? [U]ntil we break this idea of ‘girls should be like that’ and ‘boys like this’ a harmonious world will remain out of reach” (Karkara et al., 2005:5).

Recognising this does not mean that we can simply gloss over men’s personal accountability for the ways in which they choose to act out their male privilege. While masculinities are socially constructed identities, men must nonetheless be held responsible for the choices and actions they take: “Accountability confronts the danger of men simply excusing their attitudes and behaviours as products of gender pressures and norms, rather than examining their attitudes and behaviours in light of gender pressures and norms” (Greig, 2005:6). Programmes should help men both to understand the oppressive effects of gender inequality on women and men, while also talking to them about the responsibilities they have because of their privileges to take actions in ways that women usually cannot (ibid).