Joining Forces – How can men and women work better together for gender equality?
by
By Magdalena Szwiec
WILPF Norge
Gender equality is not a women’s issue. Equal opportunities for men and women carry the hope of a safer, healthier and more prosperous world for all.
Care
In Oslo 7th and 8th December took place International Seminar and Workshops hosted by Norwegian section of Care. Monday the seventh at the Literaturhuset in Oslo, participants had an opportunity to take part in discussion between former Foreign Ministers Thorvald Stoltenberg, Kjell Magne Bondevik and Jonas Hahr Store. Moreover, they could listen to a speech given by Dr. Michael Kimmel one of the world’s leading experts on gender, men and masculinities. Dr. Kimmel in his speech pointed out importance of men as a gender being, visible and invisible privileges on which modern society is build. He briefly touched a matter of sharing household responsibilities between partners and its effect on mental and physical health of men, women and kids.
Last part of the Seminar was a short movie ”KjærePappa” which is a part of campaign against violence towards women. What is worth mentioning is that the movie was welcomed with great reviews and will most probably be translated into 90 different languages.
Second day was divided into 3 sessions of workshops, most interesting one was discussing – “Engagement of men for women’s economic participation”. That, session was focused on exploring experiences, challenges and opportunities for engaging men and boys for women’s economic empowerment. Part of a panel were presentations by Øystein Gullvåg Holter, professor at Center for Gender Research at Oslo University and Edouard Munyamaliza, Executive Secretary of Rwanda Men’s Resource Center, an NGO working to engage men for gender equality in Rwanda.
Professor Holter focused was on the economic gender gap, and he qualified it as perhaps most persistent type of gender discrimination. He presented partial data, which is an outcome of his newest research “Gender equality and quality of life, a study of Poland and Norway (2014-16)”. Full outcome of report will be available in spring 2016.
Edouard Munyamaliza talked about the same problems but in completely different perspective. In his homeland Rwanda, society is on the beginning of a path which most of European’s country already walked. The population is young and predominantly rural, with a density among the highest in Africa. Moreover, almost 28% of populations suffers from PTSD. Lessons, which Edouard found most valuable to share, are constant promotion of women’s rights, use of “men’s” language to discuss the momentary and non-monetary cost of GBV and most importantly economic empowerment of women within highly masculinized agriculture sector.
These two days of amazing intellectual stimulation and new challenges on the horizon lead to the unanimously conclusion that gender equality is a fundamental requirement for social justice and poverty reduction and the arena in which we, as global community, should see the most pressing need for change in order to reach the vision of better world.
Oslo, Desember 2015.
Men can change also.
