This paper advocates an approach to gender issues that includes men and boys. It shows how applying a more sophisticated gender analysis to conflict and to HIV/AIDS increases understanding of how men and women, and boys and girls, are made vulnerable by rigid notions of manhood and gender hierarchies. The paper also finds that versions of manhood in Africa are socially constructed, fluid over time and in different settings, and plural. It includes lessons on fostering non-violent versions of manhood and more gender-equitable attitudes among young men.
The research involved an extensive literature review and identified promising programmes applying a gender perspective to work with young men. It involved interviews and group discussions in Botswana, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. Findings include the following:
- The main requirement to attain manhood in Africa is perceived to be achieving some level of financial independence, employment or income, and subsequently starting a family.
- Older men also have a role in holding power over younger men and thus in defining manhood in Africa.
- For young men in Africa, sexual experience is frequently associated with initiation into adulthood and achieving a socially recognised manhood. Prevailing norms suggest that young men should be knowledgeable, aggressive, and experienced regarding sexuality and reproductive health issues.
There is little empirical evidence on gender approaches to working with young men. Lessons from international experience, however, suggest that the following factors can help to promote gender equality, health-seeking or health-protective behaviours and non-violence:
- A high degree of self-reflection and space to rehearse new behaviours
- Young men having constructed a positive lesson out of having witnessed the impact of violence on their own families
- Tapping into men’s sense of responsibility and positive engagement as fathers
- Rites of passage and traditions that have served as positive forms of social control, and that have incorporated new information and ideals
- Family members that model more equitable or non-violent behaviours
- Employment and school enrolment (in the case of some forms of violence and conflict)
- Community mobilisation around the vulnerabilities of young men.
While still rare, work with young men in Africa is beginning to incorporate a gender perspective. Programmes that involve discussions of gender socialisation in their work with young men include the Men as Partners Program in South Africa, Stepping Stones in Uganda and South Africa, and Conscientizing Male Adolescents in Nigeria. Key operating principles of such programmes are:
- The discussion of masculinities in educational activities
- The creation of enabling environments in which individual and group-level changes are supported by changes in social norms and in institutions
- Broader alliance-building
- The incorporation of the multiple needs of young men.
Broader gender policies are needed that recognise the gender-specific needs and realities of men and that support their involvement in the promotion of gender equality. Similarly, youth policies need to include gender from both a female and a male perspective.
