The Male Order Development Encounter

In order to more helpfully take the men and masculinities field forward within international development, we must reveal deep patriarchal structures of constraint to gender equality. This article frames an approach, by drawing on feminist thinkers, writers on masculinities and thinkers on power, to propose a set of considerations informing how patriarchy might be analysed in depth. Setting out four dimensions (representational, material, ideological and epistemological) in which to undress patriarchy, the article explores male centredness, male privilege, male supremacy and a concept of ‘male order’. The latter provides both the deep?level syntax and the inbuilt directionality of patriarchal power structures, through diffuse micro?technologies of gendered knowledge?power. The four dimensions are applied to a characterisation of recent policy discourse on the role of men in gender equality, to then conclude with priorities for research and highlighting the need for making the work more explicitly political as well as personal

Reframing Men and Boys in Policy for Gender Equality: Conceptual Guidance and an Agenda for Change

Gender inequality remains a critical challenge and threatens to severely undermine progress towards the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).1 On average and globally, women only earned in 2015 what men earned almost a decade earlier and they accounted for only 18 per cent of ministers in government by 2015.2 However, women spend two to ten times more time on caring for children or older persons than do men (World Bank 2012). It is also estimated that 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence at some point in their lives. This continued challenge is recognised in the policies and commitments of various development agencies. For example, the UK government’s new development strategy (DFID and HM Treasury 2015) emphasises mainstreaming the empowerment of women and girls under its strategic objective of ‘tackling extreme poverty and helping the world’s most vulnerable’, also seen as linked to stability, security and opportunities for all. The SDGs also recognise these challenges, with a stand-alone goal for gender equality (SDG 5) having seven of its nine targets specifically addressing women’s disadvantage. However, whilst many gender equality policies and programmes only target and work with women and girls, compelling evidence and experience shows that engaging men and boys in these processes is crucial for lasting change. Drawing on global evidence from the Department for International Development (DFID)-funded EMERGE programme, this paper explains why better engaging men and boys is crucial, the implications for reframing policy design and implementation, and provides key recommendations for policy

Veterinary services in Mongolia: issues and options in the context of liberalisation of the livestock economy

Veterinary services play a vital role in the economy of Mongolia by reducing livestock production losses and improving welfare of poor herder families. Not only does the livestock sector contribute about 70 percent of total agricultural output and make up approximately 40 percent of the country's exports, but this sector is crucial in providing food security directly for the population as a whole, almost half of which live in rural areas and whose employment and incomes depend largely on livestock. The Mongolian diet is largely based on livestock products, as domestic vegetable and crop production is limited (due to agro-climatic constraints) and as imports of food have never been very important in overall terms. However, what has been imported has in the past primarily been imported at rather low prices from Russia. The veterinary services were set up to meet the needs of the livestock economy during the communist era, characterised by (predominantly) collectivised ownership and a centrally planned economy. The old command economy is giving way to a new free market economy, though many pjrsctilcEl obstacles remain. The central question which will be addressed in this report is "how can the veterinary sector be reformed in order to better perform its roles of improving the profitability of herding and enhancing the contribution of extensive herding to food security?

Intersectionality: A Key for Men to Break Out of the Patriarchal Prison?

Reflecting on male gender activists’ lessons from India, this article explores how intersectionality can help men (and women) better understand the structure of patriarchy, by connecting it to other forms of oppression, based on class, caste and age. The centrality of the gender and class/caste intersection is well illustrated, as is how understanding this can help men better understand their own internal conflicts around masculinity in the politics of everyday lives. Whilst taking a structural perspective, the work also engages with dynamic and personal change, by balancing structure and fluidity to understand the interactive shaping of identities, as well as of institutions and projects of justice. We see how using intersectionality can facilitate activists’ work on personal change as well as on building critical consciousness, by linking it to other social justice struggles. The article closes with reflection on the need for practical tools and directions for further research

Introduction: Undressing Patriarchy and Masculinities to Re?politicise Gender

Much has happened in debates, practice and policy on gender in development since the millennium, when an IDS Bulletin was first published on ‘Men, Masculinities and Development’. The present issue picks up on several developments in the interim, by drawing contributions from participants at a recent international symposium, ‘Undressing Patriarchy’. It explores the shifting field of men and masculinities in development and how the field's often conflicted engagements with the feminist project of redressing gender inequalities might be radicalised through a deeper analysis of patriarchy and our relationship to it, as well as by linking it to other struggles for sexual and human rights, or social justice. The introduction sets the context and gives a brief background to our rationale for ‘undressing patriarchy’ as our chosen approach. The authors then comment on the contributions to each section of the IDS Bulletin , and conclude with an outline of some future priorities

Lessons from Senegal's Database System for Case Management for Child Protection: A Pilot Project on Web?based and Mobile Technology

This case study on the Database System for Case Management for Child Protection in Senegal focuses on rapid monitoring for immediate use in service delivery and (thus) complements other country studies in this IDS Bulletin . The case provides an exciting initiative with much potential for improving child protection services, as well as additional information generation with the potential for broader monitoring, advocacy and operations research. The challenges centre on the need for clearer definition and agreement of roles and responsibilities between actors at different levels, as well as coming to an agreed balance of the sharing of data on individual cases with data protection, for confidentiality. The key lesson has been the importance of a collaborative process of developing the system with diverse actors in child protection, coupled with an accompanying consultative process of developing an inter?sectoral national child protection strategy: in other words, a way of establishing common standards together

Engendering Men: A Collaborative Review of Evidence on Men and Boys in Social Change and Gender Equality

This evidence review is part of a two-year learning and evidence project, EMERGE – or ‘Engendering Men: Evidence on Routes to Gender Equality’ – being undertaken by the Institute of Development Studies, Promundo-US and Sonke Gender Justice between January 2014 and January 2016, with funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The evidence review, combined with other project elements, aims to cultivate stronger leadership for working with boys and men to promote gender equality, by gathering, interrelating, analysing and strategically disseminating evidence and lessons in targeted and accessible formats for improved learning, policy and practice

Swapping the Stick for a Broom: Men Supporting Women in Local Politics in India

Women’s engagement, leadership and decision-making in the public sphere continues to be suppressed in much of rural India. It is controlled by cultural norms which place women as subordinate to men, and prescribe their roles as confined to the domestic sphere. . Understanding and supporting women’s pathways of empowerment within and between private and public life continues to be a feminist struggle for women’s rights and gender equality. This paper shares findings of case study research exploring how work with men can contribute to this process of change, and support women’s participation in public and political life. The work of the Samajhdar Jodidar (meaning ‘understanding partner’) project in rural Maharashtra, provides an interesting, and important example of the role men can play in contributing to progressive social change on women’s public participation. Research with 42 men and women involved in this initiative, either directly as activists or as key stakeholders, including women local government representatives, provides some important lessons for how this kind of approach can work. Importantly the commitment to democratic accountability on gender equality spans both private and public spheres. Men first work through consciousness raising to transform their own practices within their homes and intimate relationships. This provides a platform for social action in the wider community and enables trusting relationships to be built with women to work together to drive political change. Demanding accountability from existing legal mechanisms for affirmative action on women’s participation and transforming local level institutions from within have been important strategic areas