Addressing gender norms and the role of men and boys and the use of

Gender Transformative approaches to address VAW and HIV

Bafana Khumalo & Nkonzo Khanyile

Radisson Blu Hotel, Dakar, Senegal17th September 2013

About Sonke

Established in 2006 with offices in Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Mpumalanga, About 85 fulltime staff, Part of the Men Engage Alliance, Global Co-Chair and MenEngage with Chapters in five continents, African secretariat of the ME

Overview of Concepts Underlying Gender Transformative Programming

• Objective: Review conceptual frameworks and theories on gender-transformative programming and introduce the concepts around gender synchronization.

• Presentation on how to “see” gender and gender inequality and understand how they play out in health and wellbeing.

Why engaging men?• Prevention: fostering +ve attitudes/behaviours• Men’s role in supporting others: direct benefits or

health implications for women and children• Regional public health concerns require men as part

of solution: HIV, GBV, MCH, care • Men’s own HIV needs and concerns• Men as gender justice advocates• Existing global mandate• It works – evidence-base

Evidence confirms that it Evidence confirms that it works:works:interventions with men can lead to changes in attitudes and interventions with men can lead to changes in attitudes and practicespractices

Type of Intervention n Effective Promising Unclear

Group Education 20 - 11 9Services-Based 8 2 4 2Community Outreach/Mobilization

8 6 2 -

Integrated (includes more than 1 of the above)

21 6 5 10

TOTAL 57 14 (24.5%)

22 (38.5%)

21 (36.8%)

WHY GENDER NORMS MATTERIn numerous applications of the Gender Equitable Man (GEM) Scale, gender-

related attitudes correlated with men’s and boys’Self-reported physical violence toward female partnersParticipation in care work, Taking care of children,Use of health services,Self-reported acts of delinquency,Number of sexual partners,Condom use,Substance/alcohol use,Rates of self-reported STI symptoms

The underlying norms that create and sustain men’s domination of women also create harmful outcomes for men’s and boys’ lives and inhibit men from connecting to others in relationships of equality and solidarity.

Girls, Women and Gender Inequality• Education: The significant gender gap in education has largely

closed for primary school but remains at the secondary school level

• Maternal mortality: Women have elevated mortality rates from pregnancy-related causes that are easily preventable

• Employment: Women engage in a huge proportion of the world’s unpaid labor: household work, agriculture, to other productive work

• HIV/AIDS: Young women 15-24 have 3 times the HIV rates of young men of the same age in sub-Saharan Africa

• Violence/Conflict: Girls and women are subject to gender-based violence in the home and harassment and the threat of violence on the street that constrains their mobility

Boys, Men and Gender Inequality• Education: In Latin America, in 20 of 27 countries, girls’

educational attainment exceeds boys’• Health: Globally women’s life expectancy 5-8 years higher than

men except in South Asia; men’s lower health-seeking behavior, risk-taking, risks of work

• HIV/AIDS: Men engage in risky sexual behavior; less likely to seek VCT and ARVs

• Violence/Conflict: Men represent 90%+ of the world’s prison population, more than 90% of deaths in conflicts & homicide

• Traffic accidents: Men three times more likely to die of traffic accidents globally

• Suicide/Mental Health: Men have higher alcohol, tobacco and drug use, higher rates of suicide globally

Gender challenges in the region• Early marriage,• Bride kidnapping,• High teenage pregnancies,• High maternal mortality,• GBV,• High rates of rape and sexual crimes,• Forced arranged marriage,

What else?

Gender Integration

Refers to strategies applied in program assessment, design, implementation, and evaluation to take gender norms into account and to compensate for gender inequalities.

Gender Integration Continuum

A way of measuring how successful we are in integrating gender into our programs

Gender Integration Continuum

Gender exploitative: take advantage of rigid gender norms

and existing imbalances in power to achieve the health

program objectives. Gender accommodating approaches, in the middle of the

continuum, acknowledge the role of gender norms and

inequities and seek to develop actions that adjust to and often

compensate for them. Gender transformative :actively strive to examine, question,

and change rigid gender norms and imbalance of power as a

means of reaching health as well as gender equity objectives

Gender-Transformative Programs with Women

• Change the gendered power dynamics between men and women

• Provide access to education and skills

• Provide access to economic resources and assets

• Build social capital and support

Gender-Transformative Programs with Men • Allow men to come together and

discuss masculinity

• Examine the costs of ‘manhood’

• Engage men in social action to challenge existing gender norms

• Allow men to focus on being allies to women

What is Missing from These Single-Sex Approaches?

• The broader awareness of how gender norms are reinforced by everyone in the community.

• Recognition that true social change has to come from work with both sexes – with everyone.

Gender-Synchronized Programs Have Evolved in Different Ways

1. Addressed the needs and vulnerabilities of women and girls and then included men and boys

2. Started with men and boys to deconstruct harmful gender norms and then included women and girls

3. Worked with men and women together from the outset

Key questions for developing a gender transformative program

1. How will the different roles and status of women and men within the community, political sphere, workplace, and household affect the work to be undertaken?

2. Does the proposed program respect and support individual rights?

3. Does the intervention try to overcome some of the gender inequalities that limit men’s and women’s lives?

4. How do you plan to address these different roles and statuses of women and men with this intervention?

5. How will the anticipated results of the work affect women and men differently?

Thank You!Asante!

Siyabonga!

Merci!www.genderjustice.org.za

www.menengage.org

www.engagingmen.net