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Male gender issues in development
28 August 2008
Vanguard
Lagos: The widely-held view point in both the media and the development literature is that a discussion of gender and development relates to how best to empower women to ensure their full participation in the development process. Consequently, gender studies and gender sensitivity are interpreted to mean concern with, and support for, female empowerment in all fields of human endeavour. The last three decades have witnessed significant progress in promoting female empowerment in both developed and developing countries.
Rwanda President, Paul Kagame, has summed up the advanced state of awareness on the subject as follows: "We cannot expect to develop if we disqualify half of our population - women - from full and equal participation in national endeavours. Equal rights for women are an economic, social, cultural and political necessity".
In contrast, attention to male gender issues in development is a more recent development with social scientists in Australia, Britain and USA leading the way. Across rich and poor countries, men's issues relating to health and crime, violence, and armed conflict are very similar. To reduce violence against women, men must be involved. Predictably, it quickly emerged that, as with the case of female gender issues, male gender issues have strong similarities in rich and poor countries.
There are two main areas of concern. First, a case is made for attention to some specific development issues that relate to the male gender: the linkage between masculinity (the idea of being male expressed through marriage/fatherhood...) and HIV/AIDS pandemic, conflicts and wars, urban crime and delinquency, insecurity, and terrorism. Second, it is argued that addressing male gender issues is central to achieving the goal of women's equality.
The Other Half of Gender: Men's Issues in Development (2006) co-edited by two World Bank social development specialists, Ian Bannon and Maria Correia, is a bold corrective to the prevailing virtual exclusion of "the other half of gender" from the discourse on gender and development. The eleven chapters in the book focus on varying aspects of one or both points with particular references to one or more countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The treatment of masculinity (the plural, masculinities is used in a couple of chapters) in the book is worth sharing. From the accounts in several of the chapters, masculinity is strikingly similar across countries in the two regions: from Columbia to Jamaica in Latin America and the Caribbean to Rwanda and Kenya in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The strong linkage between masculinity and violence is juxtaposed with the inadequate attention of males to their roles as fathers and heads of families. It is striking that men's gender issues are very similar across countries in the two regions covered in the book. They are summed up in the concept of masculinity because of some variations on the theme in some countries.
The key message in the book is the need to move from zero-sum to an inclusive, win-win formulation of the gender agenda - what is referred to in parts of the book as "a holistic gender framework."
This is a sensible plea for writers and activists to move from views such as: "... until the disadvantages faced by women are addressed, the needs of men and boys should be secondary" - a viewpoint that is strongly linked to the idea of "women as victim and men as a problem".
As one of the authors insightfully points out, "Women's well-being often cannot improve without including men because gender is relational ... interventions directed at women are often ineffective or unsustainable if men do not cooperate or are not involved." In another chapter, attention is drawn to the fact that neglected and frustrated males in rural areas where development activities focus on women resort to domestic violence and alcoholism.
Of the recommendations provided in different parts of the book the following would be relevant to the situation in Nigeria - some could be more relevant in some parts than in others.
1. Youth policies should include gender from both a male and female perspective.
2. There is need to study the underachievement of males in education: "Boys tend to undervalue education and opt for quick financial returns in the labour market"
3. Gender and discussion about masculinities should be included in classroom and workforce training.
4. Governments need to focus on jobs and skills of rural and urban youth.
I would strongly recommend The Other Half of Gender to policymakers, gender activists (female and male), students of sociology as well as the general reader.
* Review by Ladipo Adamolekun
Keywords: gender,
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