The most progressive countries in the world are beginning to talk about including men and boys in gender equality efforts. Happy International Men’s Day!
Yesterday, I attended a seminar titled ‘Inclusion of men and boys in gender equality efforts’ organised by the five Permanent Representations of the Nordic countries to the Council of Europe.
The event signalled a change in the European approach to gender equality: moving away from perceiving it as a zero-sum game and towards recognising the struggles men face, taking a more nuanced view of the lines of discrimination, and including men from different backgrounds in the discussions about equality.
Read on to find out what they proposed, and what are some potential pitfalls ahead.
Top-Level Players in Gender Equality
This event was particularly interesting as it was organised by the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. They aren’t just some of the most liberal countries in the world. All five are in the top ten of the United Nations’ Gender Equality Index. For comparison, Germany is 20th, China 39th, Kazakhstan 44th, and the US 46th.
Meanwhile, the Council of Europe is an international organisation that upholds human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Europe. It cannot make binding laws, but it produces international treaties such as the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and hosts the European Court of Human Rights.
It also produced the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence and hosts the Gender Equality Commission which formulates a Gender Equality Strategy to inform the policies of European countries.
Basically, the event was organised by the most progressive countries and institutions in the world.
So, what do they have to say about men?
Gender equality is not a zero-sum game
The guiding thought of the session was expressed by Mr Helge Seland, Norway’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Council of Europe, in his introduction:
We need to break out of zero-sum game narratives which imply that we cannot care about both men’s and women’s issues. Instead, we should address all people’s problems proportionally and recognise that helping men makes things better for women, and vice versa.
Many speakers commented on how politically difficult it is to talk about men’s needs and problems. Ms Kira Appel, representing Denmark and the Nordic Committee of Senior Officials for Gender Equality and LGBTI, said she felt treated like a traitor to feminism for saying that achieving gender equality requires that we focus on men’s as well as women’s rights.
Meanwhile, Mr Ralph Kass, the Executive advisor to the Government of Luxembourg and chairperson of the Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe, reflected on how hard it is to talk about the issues of men at official levels, especially as the Commission includes 6 men and 40 women.
He noted a very small but significant step forward as the Commission’s 2024–29 Gender Equality Strategy became its first official document to include notes on men. It recognises that men can also be victims (though it very carefully recognises that women are much more likely to be victims, and men — perpetrators of gender-based violence).
Fortunately, most speakers reported a marked change in attitudes in recent years, as feminist organisations and parliamentarians seem to move away from seeing addressing men’s needs and issues as competition and towards seeing it as part of the same fight.
Mr Claus Jervell, representing Norway and its Men’s Equality Commission, stated that there are two narratives around men and equality:
- Men are a problem for gender equality and have to change
- Equality is a problem for men as it doesn’t allow them to be ‘real men’
He pointed out how both stories don’t really consider men as subjects with their own needs, problems and limitations, but rather as objects to be moved around when creating policy.
Instead of talking only about men, he said, we should talk with men, too. This would allow us to make sure that our policies include points which address the problems men and boys face in areas such as employment, family life, or health, and recognise the areas in which men fare worse than women and girls, such as education or opportunities to be caregivers.
Ms Appel then presented the Danish Action Plan On Men And Boys, which identifies four such areas of focus:
- Fathers and families. Equal parental leave and the requirement for childcare institutions to contact both parents by default would allow men to be caregivers and promote a cultural change towards men seeing themselves as caregivers.
- Health. Too many men suffer mental health issues due to loneliness and lack of friends. The Plan encourages creating spaces and institutions which could encourage men to limit their screen time and meet in the physical world to interact and make friends.
- Vulnerable groups. While men dominate the top levels of society, it’s also mostly men at the bottom. Many are vulnerable and subject to violence. The Plan promotes the creation of support groups which will help them with work and health, and give them a right to access crisis centres for victims of violence.
- Education. The Plan outlines policies aimed at getting more men into the care sector.
Men are not all the same
In his introduction, Mr Seland also stated that while men are on average privileged, this privilege is not spread equally. Many men enjoy little of it and there are some areas in which men fall behind and need help.
Various speakers agreed that gender equality policies should take a more intersectional approach to men: recognise the differences in terms of power and opportunity resulting from ethnicity, ability, socio-economic status or immigration status. Mr Jerwell spoke about the need to recognise that the problematic behaviour of low socio-economic status or otherwise marginalised men, is likely impacted by the problems they experience, and addressing it requires addressing those problems.
Mr Kass offered some examples of institutions which recognise that men can be victims, experience hardship, and deserve help:
- InfoMann, the first Centre For Men In Distress, offers help on a variety of issues ranging from violence, through job loss, to divorce. It opened in 2012 after considerable resistance from women’s organisations concerned about diverting money from the already existing Centres For Women In Distress.
- Centre For Male Perpetrators Of Violence focuses on helping men understand and address the reasons which led them to resort to violence, thus preventing future violence.
- The first Centre for Male Victims of Domestic Violence is about to open and is designated to work together with its Female counterpart.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe seems to be moving in a similar direction, as outlined by Mr Edmunds Cepuritis, the Chairperson of its Sub-Committee on Gender Equality. While their work focuses on preventing violence against women and girls and stopping men and boys from perpetrating it, it also recognises that there is a wide variety of men who perpetrate violence for a wide variety of reasons, many of which are motivated by the problems they experience.
The Sub-Committee advocates for creating prevention programmes and discussion centres to better understand why different men engage in violence and thus how to prevent it. It further works on interesting reports including Eliminating gender stereotypes in the media, Sexual violence against men and boys, and AI and gender equality.
Men need spaces and opportunities to grow
The research and activist part of the panel included Ms Stine Helding Rand, a psychologist working with the Centre for Digital Youth Care in Denmark, and Mr Alexander Dimitrijevic from the Maltese NGO Men Against Violence, and my colleague from the Steering Committee of MenEngage Europe.
They spoke about the difficulties men and boys face in cultures which offer them a very narrow ideal of masculinity. It allows for little diversity and makes it hard to fit in but easy to fail to be a ‘real man’, thus creating constant insecurity and precariousness forcing men to act like they have to prove something all the time.
We might try to raise boys in more inclusive ways but they still meet this ideal everywhere. Social media algorithms will push such content on boys just because they’re boys.
It is thus essential that we create spaces which offer a counterbalance to those narratives, where men can safely step outside the narrow ideal and explore their humanity. Until recently, there was no political will to do so, largely because it was seen as diverting focus and resources away from women’s issues and needs. While this is changing,
It is further essential, because of how hard it is to motivate men to even begin thinking about gender equality as an issue that concerns them. Ms Rand stressed the importance of finding an approach which appeals to men, too, and doesn’t put them on the defensive or turn the discussion into an us-vs-them argument.
Asked about how to change our cultures to make men care about gender issues, Mr Dimitrijevic said that such change requires institutional support which continues to be scarce. Ms Rand added that we need to recognise that such changes will take time, it won’t happen in even one generation.
Men need to be included in the creation of gender equality policies
Why do so many policies and institutions fail to address the issues and needs of men and boys? Why do we fail to stop the ongoing cultural backlash against gender equality?
The speakers suggested that this has at least in part to do with our reluctance to include men and boys in the development of gender equality policies, institutions and interventions. Unless we ask them what their problems are, we won’t understand them, won’t address them, and won’t give them any alternative to the misogynist ‘solutions’ they are bombarded with.
This is particularly relevant with respect to boys. Policymakers are typically far removed from the world of games and online spaces where young men live. They also rarely know about the problems men from various (especially marginalised) sub-groups experience. They won’t know unless they listen to them.
Doing so could further help in the actual implementation of gender policies. Ms Appel and Mr Jervell said that men typically don’t see themselves as a gender and thus aren’t invested or interested in gender policy. Should gender policy think about them as a gender and treat their problems as social problems, they might follow suit.
Will this turn into another Men’s Rights Movement?
You might have read all of this thinking: great, this could be a legit discussion but it sounds very much like it could get easily hijacked by the MRAs or other groups which stand for anything but gender equality! If so, you’re not alone: this question was raised by Ms Frida Hellen from the Youth Panel and indeed by myself and my colleagues in MenEngage.
The panellists acknowledged that this will be happening whether we want it or not, as there is no way to prevent such voices from speaking. What we can and should do, is to offer alternative options to the men who listen to them. So long as we don’t talk to them (except attacking them), it’s hardly a surprise that they get hijacked by the MRAs.
Ms Appel said we need to offer them better narratives, solutions, and what they seek: a brotherhood, a community. Ms Rand argued we need to be prepared to talk without judgment with guys who follow Andrew Tate, to meet them halfway without dismissing them, as otherwise, they will simply become defensive and entrenched in their views.
In a way, this was also brought up in the seminar preamble by Ms Marja Ruotanen, Director General of Democracy and Human Dignity in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She spoke to how it is precisely because of the depressing statistics on how many men don’t see violence against women as a problem, or how easily young people can access social media which promote extremist views, that we need to step up, take control of the narrative and include men and boys in the fight for gender equality.
Personally, I think that there’s a lot of work required to make sure that we don’t lose control of the narrative. The changes proposed must be framed in ways that leave no chance for reframing them outside the context of true equality or in a way which would, in fact, take focus away from the issues of women and girls or various marginalised groups.
They should also probably focus a bit more on inspiring a cultural shift towards healthier masculinities, instead of looking purely at policies relating to different demographics of men and boys.
We must also be careful with our language and make sure we acknowledge that men struggle and need help but don’t at the same imply they are structurally discriminated against. Likewise, it’s important we create initiatives which target actual problems rather than MRA talking points which aren’t really serious problems.
Furthermore, the changes need to acknowledge the ground-breaking contributions of feminism and women in terms of challenging gender norms in society and avoid making men’s needs or problems the responsibility of women. Seeking the support and approval of feminist organisations would certainly help to ensure that.
But overall, it’s really great to see so many people acknowledge at such a high level, that those difficulties can no longer be a reason to simply ignore the topic.
Summary
The seminar left me in a very optimistic mood. The perception of gender equality policies as a zero-sum game is slowly giving way to the realisation that resolving women’s problems helps men, and resolving men’s problems helps women, too.
I observe the same change of approach in the various organisations I encounter through the MenEngage Alliance. I heard it at a recent Equimundo seminar on What’s next for men and boys in Trump’s America?
Personally, this is what I have been looking forward to for years. I’ve been pushing for a more holistic approach to gender equality which requires addressing men’s problems, too. Hearing the top dogs of progressive European politics say the same is massively validating.
The ice is thawing on including men and boys in conversations on gender equality and taking their needs and problems seriously. Much remains to be done and we certainly need to work hard and early to find the right balance and ensure the scales don’t tip too far in the other direction, undoing important work on empowerment of women and girls.
But it is great to see some serious movement on the topic, especially coming from the most progressive countries in the world and the Council of Europe.
I am extremely happy to be part of this conversation and I’ll be updating you on it as it develops.
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