The International Conference on Masculinities: Engaging Men and Boys, for Gender Equality
On March 6-8, 2015, the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities (CSMM) will host the first International Conference on Masculinities: Engaging Boys and Men for Gender Equality, in New York City. Timed to immediately precede the meeting of the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations (March 9-27, 2015), this conference will bring together more than 500 activists, practitioners, and academic researchers from all over the world who are working to engage men and boys in fulfilling the Platform for Action adopted by the CSW twenty years ago at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. The conference will review the success of programs to engage men and boys, share research-in-progress, discuss new and possible policy initiatives, and chart research needs for the future.
The timing for this conference is propitious. Twenty years after the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women will hold its annual two-week meeting in New York. There, thousands of participants from UN agencies, NGOs and national governments will discuss the progress made towards greater gender equality over the past two decades. Those twenty years have also witnessed unprecedented efforts to engage men around gender equality. At the International Conference on Men and masculinities, we will document and celebrate many of these efforts, even as we identify areas that need continued efforts to engage men.
The Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities was established at Stony Brook University (SUNY) in 2013. The Center is dedicated to engaged interdisciplinary research on boys, men, masculinities and gender. Its mission is to bring together researchers with practitioners and activists to develop and enhance social reform projects focusing on boys and men.
For this conference, CSMM has partnered with the American Men’s Studies Association and the MenEngage Network to build opportunities for dialogue, critique and inspiration across three days of presentations, panels, workshops, and trainings. The twin goals of the conference are: (1) To infuse men’s activism in support of gender justice with the rigor and insights of the most up-to-date research; (2) To ground the research community in the pressing need for improved knowledge, outcomes measurement and impact assessment to guide interventions and to help the research community learn from research, policy work, and organizing being done by NGOs and social service organizations.
CSMM invites all those committed to engaging boys and men in these global efforts to promote women’s equality and rights to share their ideas, programs, projects, and research.
Some basic themes of the conference will include:
– boys’ development, healthy boys’ development, education, bullying;
– involved fatherhood;
– balancing work and family life;
– men’s friendships;
– promoting men’s health, reducing health risk, especially HIV, and supporting women’s reproductive health and rights;
– joining the global struggle against men’s violence against women, sexual assault, trafficking, and harmful traditional practices;
– engaging men in policies to promote gender equality in education, employment, and the political arena.
Some specific issues might include: the challenges of reaching men in post-conflict settings; transforming fatherhood; best practices for working with boys and young men, including issues around boys’ education; successful approaches to engaging men and boys in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS; engaging religious authorities; challenging homophobia; understanding and preventing gang rapes and mass-murders by boys and men; understanding and challenging domestic abuse, bullying and harassment; using media for change; intervening in the military and police; media’s role in violence against women; best practices for campus programs for preventing sexual violence; reaching men in prisons; new approaches for work with men who use violence; policy around men and child custody; the debate on men and prostitution; preventing alcohol and drug abuse.
Presentations can cover any of a range of research, policy, interventions, and activist work. Presentation formats may include: 3 -5 person panels, short one-person talks (with Q-&-A), workshops, films, art, music, and performances. We will accept formal academic papers but at the conference we will ask that presenters not read papers but to be more informal and interesting. The premium at each session will be on discussion. We encourage creativity.
The working language will be English. Sessions completely in Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese will be accepted but the conference unfortunately does not have the resources for translation. Conference costs will be kept low to enable widespread participation, and some limited financial support may be available to those in need, especially from the Global South.
E-mail Proposals (or questions) asap, to Abstract Committee Co-Chairs: Dr. Robert Brannon, Brooklyn College (rbran999@gmail.com) and, Dr. James Maurino, SUNY-Empire College (Jim.Maurino@esc.edu).
Please include: a title, name(s) of presenters, contact information, short personal biographies (up to 70 words), description of the presentation (up to 350 words), and any equipment or other special needs.
