Should women engage men in the push for progress?
WHILE many men don’t identify as feminists or may not vocalise their support of women’s movements, they play an important role in the advancement of women’s interests.
Dr Keino Senior, dean of the School of Arts Management and Humanities at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, said women should engage men in the push for progress as we cannot talk about women’s upward mobility without talking about men in the conversation.
Dr Senior pointed out that both men and women make up the gender realities of any society, and one area that comes readily to mind is engaging men in anti-violence campaigns.
“Men against violence [is a movement that] seeks to urge men to loosen their powerful grip, whether over women, girls, boys or other men. Male violence is a significant element in contributing to the organisation and maintenance of gender inequality,” he said.
He added: “In fact, rape, bodily assault and other forms of violence have been paradigmatic expressions of the operation of male power over women. It is therefore going to be important that while men embrace violence against women and girls, that women are resocialised to change men’s understanding and practice of masculinity. By shifting women’s expectations of partners and intimate relations, interventions may increase the pressures on and incentives for men to adopt non-violent practices and identities.”
He said though it may appear to be inequitable to ask women to play a role in changing the behaviour of men, it is no more unfair or damaging than the consequences of current gender relations.
For his part, psychologist and chief ideator at Above and Beyond, Dr Leachim Semaj, said while women push for equality and equal rights and equal pay for equal work, the real endangered component in Jamaica is men, hence the need to include them.
“Men are in serious peril; data shows that boys are treated harsher by mothers and receive more brutalisation. As we neglect our boys they become destructive and they are going to kill us. My concern is that we honour the women, we applaud them, but we don’t use the situation to ignore the nuances and subtlety in our situation. A lot of our men are seriously at risk and the results are what you see in the crime figures. The male that is non-productive becomes very parasitic and then becomes destructive. We have to get them on board also,” he said.
