Engaging Men in the Fight against Gender Violence: Case Studies from Africa

198 Pages·2012·1.377 MB·English

by  Jane Freedman (eds.)

Engaging Men in the Fight
against Gender Violence

Engaging Men in the Fight
against Gender Violence
Case Studies from Africa
Edited by Jane Freedman
ENGAGING MEN IN THE FIGHT AGAINST GENDER VIOLENCE
Copyright © Jane Freedman, 2012.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-1-137-01473-3
All rights reserved.
First published in 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United
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world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
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ISBN 978-1-349-43689-7 ISBN 978-1-137-01474-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137014740
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Contents
1 Masculinities, Gender, and Violence:
A Framework for Analysis 1
Jane Freedman and Sarah Jacobson
2 What Do Men Think? The Role of Cultural
(Mis)conceptions in Perpetuating Male Violence
against Women in Neocolonial Africa 17
Christopher Isike
3 Militarized Masculinities and the Political Economy
of Wartime Sexual Violence in the Democratic
Republic of Congo 39
Sara Meger
4 “You Must Sit on the Old Mat to Ply the New One”:
Rethinking Threatened Masculinities and Postconflict
Gender Violence in Liberia 69
Kerrie Thornhill
5 Listening to Perpetrators: Connecting Wartime
Violence with Postconflict Interventions 101
Zoe Marks
6 Masculinity and Gender- Based Violence in Rwanda:
The Potential Contribution of Community- Based
Strategies to Make a Change 131
Henny Slegh and Annemiek Richters
vi CONTENTS
7 About the Notion of Hope: Simelela:
A Model of a South African Rape Crisis Center 159
Sabine C. Hirschauer
Conclusions: The Way Forward in Engaging Men
and Boys in Prevention of Violence 185
Jane Freedman
About the Authors 189
Index 193
1
Masculinities, Gender,
and Violence
A Framework for Analysis
Jane Freedman and Sarah Jacobson
Gender-b ased violence is a global phenomenon that has drawn
much attention from policymakers and activists. However,
despite the increasing attention that is now paid to gender-b ased
violence and the resources invested in trying to eliminate this phe-
nomenon, statistics and data seem to indicate that these efforts
are not having as great an impact as may have been hoped. In all
countries of the world, reports of gender-r elated violence remain
elevated, while many incidents of such violence probably remain
unreported due to fear of stigma or reprisals for those who are vic-
tims of such violence, resulting in mass underreporting.
One of the issues that can be identified as problematic in responses
to gender-b ased violence is that of the involvement of men in find-
ing solutions to the violence. Men are often labeled as perpetrators
of violence, but they are perhaps too infrequently considered also
as potential victims or as partners and actors in the fight against
violence. Constructions of masculinities are not adequately studied
to analyze how dominant forms of masculinities may contribute to
cycles of violence and may also oppress and traumatize men them-
selves. This volume aims to critically address the issues of men, mas-
culinity, and gender- based violence, asking how men can be fully
2 JANE FREEDMAN AND SARAH JACOBSON
engaged in the prevention of gender-b ased violence and how this
engagement can strengthen prevention initiatives.
The case studies presented in this volume focus on various
countries in Africa. Many of these have undergone or are under-
going violent conflicts and struggles for liberation, and these
conflicts have clearly had an impact on forms and levels of gender-
based violence even in countries that are now relatively peaceful.
However, although the context of armed conflict may add another
dimension to the occurrence of gender- based forms of violence
and might, in some circumstances, lead to increasing levels of such
violence, it should not be seen as producing a separate or different
form of violence. As Cynthia Cockburn argues, all gender-b ased
violence can be conceptualized as part of a continuum, founded
on unequal relations of power between men and women (2010).
As can be seen in reading the various case studies in this book,
there is a continuum that exists between the various forms of vio-
lence, a continuum based on unequal gender relations and various
dominant constructions of masculinities and femininities. Thus
wartime violence is not in a separate or different category from
those forms of violence experienced during more peaceful periods.
While studies of masculinity have become more developed in
recent years, the study of masculinity in Africa may still be argued
to be “in its infancy” (Hamber, 2007). The chapters in this book
attempt to shed some more light on masculinities within sev-
eral national contexts in Africa and to link these to incidences
of gender-b ased violence to present recommendations on better
engaging men and boys in the prevention of such violence. The
focus on Africa does not imply that problems of gender-b ased
violence are worse there than in other parts of the world. On the
contrary, these case studies should provide food for thought for
academics, policymakers, and members of civil society around
the world concerned with preventing and eventually eliminating
gender- based violence.
What Is Gender- Based Violence?
One of the difficulties in tackling gender-b ased violence is the mul-
tiplicity of forms of such violence; that is to say, the means of pre-
vention and elimination of this violence must also be complex and
MASCULINITIES, GENDER, AND VIOLENCE 3
multifaceted. While some types of violence have been addressed
more closely than others in past research and policymaking, think-
ing that links all the varying types of gender- based violence and
attempts to explain them through the complex constructions of gen-
der and power relations between men and women are more recent.
As Charlotte Bunch points out, this new approach, “as a broad issue
reflecting male-f emale power dynamics and gender constructions
that should be altered across the globe, . . . resulted from the inter-
national interaction made possible by global networking among
feminists since the 1970s” (Bunch, 2008, p. 11). Transnational activ-
ism by women brought the issue of gender-b ased violence onto the
global agenda and has made sure that this violence is understood as
a human rights issue, which should be taken seriously in interna-
tional and national politics. As Bunch remarks, “In the short span
of 15 years, the standard setting and development of international
norms on gender-b ased violence has been nothing short of remark-
able, including among others the integration of gender into the UN
human rights bodies on torture, the recognition of rape as a tool of
war and the definition of gender- based persecution incorporated
into the statues of the International Criminal Court” (Bunch, 2008,
p. 12). All these measures have helped to create an international
regime against gender-b ased violence and violence against women,
but the effectiveness of this regime may still be questioned by the
continuing prevalence of such forms of violence.
Global feminist activism has succeeded in placing gender- based
violence on the international agenda, first in the fight against violence
against women, and more recently, in definitions of gender-b ased
violence, which link constructions of masculinities and femininities
with the occurrence of these types of violence and also acknowledge
that men may also be victims of this type of violence. The first official
definition of gender- based violence by the United Nations came in
1993 with the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against
Women, which defined this violence as the following:
Any act of gender- based violence that results in, or is likely to result
in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women,
including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations
of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. Accord-
ingly, violence against women encompasses but is not limited to the
following: