Follow-up activities : Male Roles and Masculinities

Follow-up activities
to the Expert Group Meeting Male Roles and Masculinities in the Perspective of a Culture of Peace Oslo,
September 1997

The report of the Expert Group Meeting has been met with a particularly huge interest by other UN agencies, Member States, Institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations and individuals. The large amount of requests for information and follow-up activities that keep coming in, indicate that the time is ripe to look into men’s roles and positions in connexion with the world wide concern related to the persistence and proliferation of violence and armed conflict. UNESCO is co-operating with different partners and seeks further partnership in the follow-up of the meeting with a particular focus on socialization and training of boys and young men for gender-sensitivity and non-violence, and support for the establishment or strengthening of young men’s associations against violence.

Some of the follow-up activities (undertaken by UNESCO and/or some of the participants) are listed below. If you want to get in contact with some of the experts, please see the list of participants of the Oslo meeting and their addresses included in the report of the meeting or visit UNESCO web-site.

(I) Within UNESCO

1. UNESCO, Paris, 30 September 1997: Presentation of the findings of the Oslo-meeting to UNESCO by the rapporteur, Mr Robert Connell, speaking on “Masculinity, Violence and War: The Problem of Men in a Culture of Peace”, in the presence of the Director General. 2. A short documentary from the meeting was shown on wide-screen in UNESCO during the General Conference (October-November 1997). 3. The 29 General Conference of UNESCO, Commission V, expressed interest in the follow-up of the meeting, and the decision of Member States is reflected in the Programme and Budget for 1998-1999. 4. The Programme and Budget of UNESCO (1998-1999) (29 C/5) paragraph (06017) reads: “....promote reflection on the gender-related factors that hamper or favour the development of a culture of peace, especially in relation to masculine and feminine roles in different socio-cultural contexts”.

(II) The report

- The report has been translated into English, French, Spanish and Russian. A Kiswahili version will be finalized autumn 1998 (Tanzanian National Commission for UNESCO). Interest has also been shown for translation into Italian and Mongolian.

- The report is included in the UNESCOCulture of Peace web-site: http://www/unesco.org/cpp/uk/projects/

The report has been widely disseminated. It has also been used to introduce the topic of Male Roles and Masculinities in the Perspective of a Culture of Peace in different context, e.g. in several cities in the Russian Federation, strengthening the ‘No to violence’ men’s association (Mr Andrei Sinelnikov).

The Report is included in the site of the ‘European Pro-feminist Men’s Network’, in the CD-Rom ‘Cité, Citoyenneté et Genre’ produced by the ‘European Pro-feminist Men’s Network’ (Reference person: Mr Daniel Welzer-Lang, University of Toulouse.

(III) Publication

A publication containing the main papers from the meeting is forthcoming (early 1999) in the UNESCO series: Cultures of Peace.

(IV) Advocacy The report and its findings have been presented by UNESCO’s Secretariat and by participants of the meeting in a series of conferences and meetings, including at : the Council of Europe the Commonwealth Secretariat UNICEF, ILO, CEDAW and inter-agency meetings OAU ECLAC the Red Cross/UNESCO (February 1998) and training courses in Sweden (August 1998) (Göran Bäckstrand) Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Baltimore, July 1998) Articles have been written, e.g. in UNESCO Sources (N° 95), Sydney University News (R. Connell), PPSEAWA International (Paddy Walker), Violence, Masculinity, Peace, four conferences - A new vision (Hilkka Pietilä - Finland), UNESCO News (Norway) and in several Norwegian Newspapers and Information bulletins. Special interest is noted from the National Commissions of UNESCO in Tunis, Mongolia, Costa Rica, Canada and the Ivory Coast, the Ministries of Women and Gender issues in Italy and Hungary and the Ministry of Work and Social Affairs in Spain. - A documentary was shown three times on CNN, October/November 1997. A Men’s March against violence was organized in Johannesburg (November 1997) (R. Morell, Durban University)

(V) University Programmes and Courses

Several universities are working on the topic besides those represented at the Expert Group Meeting on Male Roles and Masculinities in the Perspective of a Culture of Peace such as the Social Studies Research Unit at University College, Cork; Wilhelms University, Munster, the University of Bologna and the University of Barcelona (UNESCO Chair).

A University Programme has been developed at the Institution Studiorum Humanitatis (Svetlana Slapšak), Ljubljana, Slovenia. A cycle of conferences is being organized on the theme: conflict - gender -peace (November 1998 - May 1999), University of Fribourg, Switzerland (Alberto Godenzi).

(VI) Network

- In addition to the ‘White Ribbon Campaign’ network initiated in Canada (Robert Kaufmann), the National Organization of Men against sexism ( Robert Kimmel), the networks in the Russian Federation, the European Network, the association in El Salvador (R. Pineda) a new Latin American network of ‘Men against Violence’ has just been established

(VII) Training for gender-sensitivity and non-violence

- UNESCO has established a ‘best practices’ page on the Culture of Peace web-site. The first presentation is the project “It is fun to be nice” at the Krokelvdal School, Tromsø, Norway, part of the UNESCO Associated Schools’ Project.

(VII) Plans UNESCO is making a feasibility study with a view to developing plans for a Summer School on a Culture of Peace, possibly to be launched in connection with the International Year for the Culture of Peace, Year 2000. The school will provide training and practical tools to develop gender-sensitivity and non-violent conflict resolutions. Tromsø, Norway 20-26 June 1999. Some of the participants of the Oslo meeting are organizing a discussion on Masculinities in connection with the Conference: “Women’s World 1999". ((Mr. Ø. Lorentzen/Ms Therese Lothrington)