ENGAGING MEN IN ENDING MEN’S VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

There are empirical relationships between men’s violence against women and the social organisation of masculinities at multiple levels of the social order. This paper begins with an overview of such relationships, making the argument that investigating the configuration and meaning of men’s practices and relations is critical in accounting for violence against women. While men are the problem, they are also part of the solution. The paper then explores three ways in which men have been engaged in the efforts to challenge violence against women: as profeminist participants in men’s collective activism against violence,1 as the targets of public education campaigns, and as members of programs for perpetrators of violence. In each case, there are important questions of social structure and gendered power at stake. The paper assesses the efficacy of each strategy, in order to improve efforts to prevent and respond to men’s violence against women. 1 A longer version of the discussion of men’s anti-violence activism was publishe