Work with men and boys has been growing rapidly in the last 30 years, especially around the issues of preventing violence and abuse, building gender equality, promoting fatherhood, and health and wellbeing. To what extent is this a positive development? What are some of the opportunities, challenges and problems that engaging men and boys brings? And how can this work be delivered most effectively, to have a serious impact in tackling issues such as gender-based violence? There are few experts around the world better equipped to provide answers to these questions than Prof Michael Flood. He gives an in-depth, critical overview of the ‘engaging men’ field, and discusses his own story of being an anti-sexist activist since the 1980s. He also explains why it’s vital to think about issues like pornography and online misogyny in this work, and gives some pointers for parents in how to address these issues with children, and sons in particular.
Michael is a Professor in the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. He has written numerous academic publications on issues including violence against women and violence prevention, men and masculinities, pro-feminist men’s advocacy, male heterosexuality, fathering, and pornography. This includes a book with Palgrave Macmillan in 2019, ‘Engaging Men and Boys in Violence Prevention’. He also runs the website XY Online, which is full of resources on men, masculinities and gender politics.
Read his articles mentioned in the episode:
In this episode we cover the following topics:
- Why the ‘engaging men’ field has been growing, and why that’s a good thing
- Key lessons from research about how to engage with men and boys
- Issues of concern in the development of this work
- Mistakes which can arise in work by and with men and boys
- The tensions of having a public platform as a pro-feminist academic and activist
- The usefulness of terms such as ‘toxic’ and ‘healthy’ masculinity
- Trends in work with men which should give us optimism
- Why it’s important to think about pornography when addressing sexual violence
- Talking to young men about pornography and online misogyny
- Michael’s PhD research on young men’s heterosexual relations with women
- How Michael first got involved in anti-sexist activism, and how he’s been able to maintain his commitment over time
