Institute of Development Studies
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Dangerous Ideas in Development ‘Troubling Developments? Men, Masculinities and Power’
- Dates: 10 November 2009
- Time: 17.00 - 19.00
- Location: Committee Room 18, Palace of Westminster
Challenging orthodoxies and promoting fresh thinking on international development
This series of seminars is run jointly by the Institute of Development Studies and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Debt, Aid and Trade.
Speakers: Andrea Cornwall, Research Fellow at IDS; Kate Bedford, University of Kent; Alan Greig, Men Engage; and Naila Kabeer, IDS
Recent years have seen growing attention being paid in social and health policy to men and masculinities. The argument that working with gender must include work with men to create more equitable societies has given rise to a host of initiatives. These include projects and programmes that seek to identify, support and extend 'alternative' - non-violent, more caring, more equitable - ways of being a man. But at the same time as initiatives aimed at changing men are making strides in addressing some forms of male oppression of women, such as violent behaviour towards women, questions are being raised about the extent to which these initiatives are addressing the fundamental structural power relations that sustain inequitable gender orders. These concerns include worries about the level of funding that is now being diverted to work with men, at the cost of work on women's rights and empowerment; about the failure of work with men to address either the personal or the political dimensions of male supremacy and men's abuse of power; and about the ramifications of projects aimed at creating more caring, sharing men for broader issues of social and economic justice. This session will explore arguments about men and masculinities, inviting speakers who represent different dimensions of the debate to exchange frank opinions and explore the implications for future engagement with men and masculinities in development.
To RSVP please contact c.matthews@ids.ac.uk