Men and Gender Equality
Gender equality is an important concern in our society which recognizes the historical disadvantages that women have faced in society. Gender equality requires both women and men to take on different roles and responsibilities in society. Women’s empowerment their autonomy and transforming institutions to provide greater space to women and their needs and decisions has been an area of keen interest for the women’s rights movement. However, there is less emphasis on the changes in men which are equally important for gender equality. CHSJ has consistently worked to highlight the need to involve men and focussed on practical ways of doing so.
Program Implemented by CHSJ
2005 – 2010
2010 – 2015
2015 – 2020
1st Phase (2005 – 2010)
Several of the founding advisors and leadership of CHSJ were involved in community level interventions to promote the involvement of men and boys of gender equality. This work had started in Uttar Pradesh through the network MASVAW (Men’s Association for Stopping Violence Against Women) and CHSJ initiated several processes to draw lessons from this work as well as building a larger community of practice on this issue.
2nd Phase (2010 – 2015)
During this phase CHSJ started implementing a series of Field Interventions in partnership with community based organisations in different states in India. At the same time CHSJ was involved in drawing lessons from its own practice in these states and sharing these among gender practitioners in India and globally. CHSJ played an important role of convening learning communities on the issue and also hosted the 2nd MenEngage Global Symposium which brought together interested stakeholders from across the world.
3rd Phase (2015 – 2020)
After hosting the 2nd MenEngage Global Symposium CHSJ started functioning as a global resource centre on masculinities and gender Equality. It continued to implement field level interventions starting new initiatives in Jharkhand and West Bengal exploring the role of men in fathering and with the ‘gender synchronous’ approach of working with both women’s groups and with men. The Symposium had also given CHSJ to work closely with a large number of organisations across India and CHSJ consolidated the work through the EkSaath Campaign which was launched across several states to build a large network of male gender advocates in the community.