This article draws on Promundo and RWAMREC’s programmatic experiences in Rwanda of implementing MenCare+, a gender transformative approach to engaging young and adult men (ages 15–35) in caregiving, maternal, newborn, and child health, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The paper presents initial results from fathers’ groups with more than 600 men, including the impact of participation in these groups on men’s participation in care work. The results confirm the importance for practitioners’ planning strategies to engage fathers to think beyond men’s token participation in care work, to use father participation as an entry point to truly transform gender dynamics within the home. The article provides practical lessons learnt to guide other organisations interested in working with men to transform norms around fatherhood and care work.
Key findings:
- Gender equality requires men’s full participation as equal partners in caregiving and domestic work, expanding the scope of efforts to engage men beyond the usual spaces of SRH promotion and gender-based violence prevention. Across the globe, we have seen that men’s involvement in care work has not kept pace with changes in women’s participation in paid work. Women continue to perform the majority of unpaid care work, despite playing a greater role in economic life.
- Research has shown that gender norms are ‘sticky’ and, in many places, continue to define women as caregivers and men as financial providers, enabling unequal power relations to persist. Efforts to engage men in care work must confront these underlying social norms, and work with men in ways that transform unequal power relations within and outside the home.
- The preliminary results from father groups in Rwanda affirm our belief that gender-transformative programmes, which engage men in deliberate questioning of gender norms, can increase men’s involvement in ways that shift the burden of care work and address unequal power relations. The programme has seen men taking on new and greater caregiving roles, with men perceiving a range of benefits for their partners, their children, and themselves. Men say they are not just participating in care work, but are sharing these responsibilities fully with their partners. Creating spaces for dialogue between men and their partners appears to be critical to this change.
- Though anecdotal at this time, the results suggest a shift towards more equitable partner relations for some couples, including changes in women’s decision-making power within the home. Fatherhood is an important entry-point for engaging men in activities that promote their roles as caregivers and in domestic work. However, work with fathers must move beyond men’s token participation, so that fatherhood involvement becomes a transformative experience where power is shared and relationships become equal. Efforts to engage fathers must be careful not to involve men in ways that reinforce their roles as financial providers and decision-makers, or only promote their limited participation in their children’s lives. Instead, these programmes should challenge existing norms and encourage men to be equitable and involved fathers, who share the full range of caregiving and domestic work with women, and perceive benefits from doing so.
- Changing social norms around caregiving is a long-term process and requires integrated approaches at the societal, community, group, and individual levels. We must work with communities to transform social norms that discourage or excuse men from participating in care work. We must also engage with the health and employment sectors to advocate for policy changes that support and promote men’s roles as equitable and involved fathers and caregivers. Preliminary results from Rwanda and existing research show that these approaches can bridge the caregiving divide and ensure that men value the full potential of their partners in both the public and private spheres.