Strategies to Engage Men and Boys in Violence Prevention: A Global Organizational Perspective

Abstract

This study presents descriptive findings from in-depth interviews with 29 representatives of organizations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and North and South America that engage men and boys in preventing gender-based violence. In particular, the findings suggest that strategies are responsive to the specific cultural, economic and contextual concerns of the local community, with nuanced messages and appropriate messengers. Additionally, respondents reported key principles informing their organizational strategies to deepen men and boys’ engagement. Attention is also paid to respondents’ caution about the risks of framing of engagement practices as separate from both women's organizations and women and girls themselves.

Ending violence is a global priority (United Nations, 2010; WHO, 2009). In the last several decades, a wide spread emphasis on strategies to engage men and boys in preventing violence against women and girls has grown (Flood, 2011). This emphasis is evident across many different levels of organizations, from large scale ones such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations, and regional and national organizations (i.e. Partners for Prevention, Sonke Gender Justice, White Ribbon) to the grassroots level. Organizations and activists are instituting practices of engaging men and boys to end violence against women and girls, as well as other interconnected issues, such as gender equality, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health (Barker & Das, 2004; UNFPA & Promundo, 2010; United Nations, 2010; WHO, 2007). International discourse, such as at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, maintains that the elimination of gender-based violence is critical to a variety of population issues, and urges the use of a more interconnected approach in efforts to engage men and boys (Barker & Das, 2004). As practices to engage men and boys continue to develop globally, descriptive and comparative examinations of emerging engagement strategies will inform the refinement and efficacy of anti-violence efforts. Overall, engaging men and boys in violence prevention is defined as any effort that examines the fundamental causes of men and boys’ violence including social and structural ones as well as men and boys’ gender role socialization and men's sexism (Berkowitz, 2004b).

Strategies and supporting principles of engagement are shaped by a variety of factors. First, the range of efforts that organizations use to engage men and boys in violence prevention is varied, and therefore shapes their strategies. One explanation for this range may be the different levels of prevention at which men and boys’ engagement takes place, such as primary prevention (focused prevention before violence occurs), secondary prevention (once the violence begins) and tertiary prevention (responding to violence after it occurs, preventing recurrence) (Chamberlain, 2008). Finally, efforts may differ based on how they are tailored for particular contexts, such as for different age groups or cultural communities.

This study aims to increase knowledge about organizational strategies to engage men and boys in violence prevention by describing how 29 respondents described their organizations’ initial engagement efforts and ongoing engagement deepening principles. Implications of these findings for strategies to engage men and boys, particularly in light of gender equality and a pro-feminist framework, are then discussed.

Theories and Frameworks of Engaging Men and Boys in Violence Prevention

Although research focused on increasing men and boys’ engagement in violence prevention is on the rise, documentation of an overarching and guiding theoretical framework for this engagement is still evolving. One theoretical framework, often identified as a key paradigm applied to gender equality work, is a pro-feminist framework (Flood, 2011; Crooks, Goodall, Hughes, Jaffe & Baker, 2007). The pro-feminist rationale to engage men and boys in violence prevention, as articulated by Flood (2004; 2011), hinges on the argument that if the goal is to end violence against women then men must be involved, because they are the primary perpetrators of violence against women (Black et al., 2011); and because adherence to rigid or traditional notions of appropriate masculinity are associated with greater acceptance of and risk for perpetration of violence (Murnen et al., 2002). Following this pro-feminist rationale, Flood (2011) proposes that men indeed have a positive role to play in ending violence against women. Other activist and scholars agree that efforts to engage men and boys need to include positive messages that inspire them to become involved (Berkowitz, 2004b; Flood, 2005), as well as provide a positive experience (Crooks, et al., 2007). From a pro-feminist framework, engaging men and boys in violence prevention is in the interest of women and girls, but ending gender-based violence is also in the interest of the men and boys.

Addressing social norms is another theory-informed approach often used when discussing the engagement of men and boys in violence prevention (i.e. Berkowitz, 2004a). This perspective posits that correcting individuals’ misperceptions of social norms can decrease problem behaviors and increase the prevalence of healthy behaviors (Berkowitz, 2004a). Specific to engaging men, social norms approaches seek to identify the misperceptions of men's concurrence with each other's sexist and violence supportive norms and thereby, challenge men's own beliefs and attitudes (Fabiano, Perkins, Berkowitz, Linkenbach & Stark, 2004). For example, Kilmartin, Smith, Green, Heinzen, Kuchler, and Kolar's (2008) study illustrates the framework of social norms. Their study found that 128 young men they surveyed on a college campus in the United States overestimated other men's sexism and underestimated men's discomfort with sexist attitudes (Kilmartin et al., 2008). Through role models, education, surveys and even formal media campaigns, social norms approaches attempt to rectify these kinds of misperceptions, thereby potentially empowering the previously quiet majority of men who value respect and non-violence to take a more active stance in promoting these ideals. Also embedded in social norms approaches, is the goal of developing culturally relevant, comprehensive, and intensive interventions to engage men and boys in violence prevention (Berkowitz, 2004b).

The pro-feminist and social norms frameworks are two approaches to theoretically grounding violence prevention work with men and boys. Complementing these is the Prevention Spectrum (Cohen & Swift, 1999), a framework outlining specific prevention strategies across micro to macro levels of analysis. Applied to myriad social and health issues, this tool is regularly employed in the field of engaging men and boys in violence prevention (Flood, 2005-2011; Sonke Gender Justice, 2002; UNFPA, 2010; WHO, 2007). The six levels of strategy that make up Cohen and Swift's (1999) Prevention Spectrum include: 1) strengthening individual knowledge and skills, 2) promoting community education, 3) educating providers, 4) fostering coalitions and networks, 5) changing organizational practices, and 6) influencing policy and legislation. Based in a recognition of the limitation of exclusively individual-level education and change approaches (Cohen & Swift, 1999), the aim of the Prevention Spectrum is a multi-systems, multi-layered approach to organizing change strategies. In the context of engaging men and boys in violence prevention, this approach warrants organizations’ adoption of multiple, mutually-reinforcing strategies for engaging men and boys in violence prevention, not just individual and group but also structural and political efforts that aim to address social norms and structural gender inequality.

Specific Strategies to Engage Men and Boys

Worldwide, organizations with initiatives to engage men and boys in preventing violence against women and girls are increasing in number and focus, and typically include the practices of group education, community outreach and mobilization (Kimball et al., in press; UNFPA, 2010; WHO, 2007). WHO (2007) compared published documents on 58 programs engaging men and boys on the issue of gender-based inequity in health (one key focus was violence) to determine their effectiveness. The findings pointed to best practices that included: group education; community outreach, mobilization and mass media campaigns; and service based programs. Similarly, in 2007, experts from WHO, MenEngage and Instituto Promundo highlighted programs in the form of case studies and policies designed to engage men and boys in the promotion of gender equality and health equity. They identified three key programmatic strategies: group education; campaigns, such as social marketing, and community mobilization; health and human services (UNFPA, 2010). Although no one single set of strategies and tools to engage men and boys was suggested to be a simple fix to these complex issues, the authors proposed that the most effective strategies for changing attitudes and behaviors used an approach defined as “gender transformative.” A gender transformative approach applied to gender-based violence prevention challenged rigid gender roles and included critically questioning both the influence of social-cultural, community, and institutional factors as well as individual beliefs and attitudes (see Gupta, 2000 & 2002; UNFPA, 2010).

On a more basic level, evidence is also beginning to emerge about the recruitment and engagement strategies which may be effective at generating individual men's interest in and sustained involvement with violence prevention programs. Men's catalysts for joining anti-violence efforts include making a very personal connection with the issue of violence against women (Casey & Smith, 2010), peer support for getting involved (Coulter, 2003), and tailored invitations that highlight men's strengths and potential specific contributions (Casey & Smith, 2010). Additionally, general consensus among anti-violence allies and scholars suggests that, to be effective, outreach efforts must approach men as a critical and positive element of solving violence against women (e.g. Flood, 2005; Funk, 2008). Further, male anti-violence allies involved in efforts to engage other men report tailoring their invitations to the strengths of individual men and recruiting messengers who reflect the identities and concerns of the men they hope to involve (Casey, 2010). Still unknown, however, are the degree to which these engagement strategies are used by different types of organizations around the world and what additional approaches to engagement may best foster men's on-going investment in violence prevention efforts.

Purpose of this Study

Organizations and activists throughout the world have taken up the work of engaging men and boys in preventing violence against women and girls. There remain major gaps, however, in our understanding the larger picture of how organizational representatives describe their strategies to reach out to and partner with men and boys. Current information is largely limited to some organizations’ program descriptions and evaluations, thus focusing on broader program activities and likely omitting the more subtle strategies involved in reaching out and appealing to men. The strategies literature has also most often been constructed in a toolkit fashion for workers and agencies that may be engaging men and boys already, and shaped by the conceptual framework of the organization creating the toolkit. Finally, although descriptive literature on organizations engaging men and boys in violence prevention from a global perspective is emerging, limited analysis between countries has been performed. The purpose of this study was to delineate how organizational representatives across the globe describe both their initial engagement strategies and strategies to promote deeper engagement of men and boys in preventing violence against women and girls. Here we present descriptive analyses of interviews with representatives from 29 organizations around the world who self-identified as implementing efforts to engage men and boys in violence prevention. Specifically, the findings describe the key initial engagement strategies, the central principles of deepening men and boys’ engagement, and a critique of the gendering of violence prevention. The concluding discussion outlines the intersections between these findings and the current literature in the field, as well as suggests further research questions and implications for practice.

Methods

Interviewee Recruitment

Research procedures described below were approved as exempt by the University of [blinded for review] Institutional Review Board due to the professional nature of respondents. Organizations were recruited from interviewees in a prior survey study conducted by this research team, as well as a few additional referrals provided by these interviewees. In the first study, men's engagement programs were recruited through multiple global email listservs and online communities pertaining to violence prevention. Eligibility criteria included proficiency in English and identifying that their organization engaged men in preventing violence. “Engaging men in violence prevention” was defined as “men taking action to stop violence against women and children before it begins by advocating and creating respectful relationships” (see [blinded for review], in press, for a more in-depth description of the online research phase of this project). Respondents for this study indicated their interest at the conclusion of their anonymous online survey, providing their name and email address. Research team members contacted the respondents via email to set up a telephone interview for this study. After consent for participation was received, interviewees were then interviewed by phone or via Skype.

One hundred and four survey respondents indicated a willingness to participate in the interview by submitting their name and contact information at the conclusion of the earlier online survey. Two additional interviewees were added at the suggestion of original sample respondents during their interviews. Forty-eight individuals were contacted via email and invited to participate in the study. For the purposes of this study, interviewees from all countries outside of the United States (n=41), plus six randomly sampled interviewees from the United States were contacted for an interview. Of these, 29 responded to email and completed an interview that was included in this study. Twenty-one men and eight women from organizations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Grenada, India, Kenya, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Rwanda, Scotland, South Africa, Syria, Thailand, Uganda, and the United States were interviewed. Eighteen contacted interviewees either did not respond to repeated email contact, or did not follow through to schedule and complete an interview. Overall, the study achieved a 70.7% response rate.

Sample

Participating organizations’ diversity included several dimensions. The organizations’ length of program history ranged from less than two years (7%, n=2), two to five years (41%, n=12), six to eight years (14%, n=4), and eight or more years (38%, n=11). Organizations also varied in identification of organizational structure (see Table 1). Thirteen (45%) were stand-alone programs, largely non-profits, with a primary focus on engaging men; 6 (21%) were units within larger agencies that sponsored a range of activities and services; 6 (21%) were regional or multi-country coalitions, 2 (7%) operated within university settings; and 2 (7%) were governmental organizations. Interestingly, 7 (24%) of the programs could be characterized as partly or primarily Batterer's Intervention Programs (BIPs). Although these types of program fell outside of our initial definition of participation eligibility because they do not fall within common public health definitions of “primary prevention” (Chamberlain, 2008), these programs clearly defined their own activities as prevention, and often sponsored other activities with a primary prevention focus. These interviews were therefore retained for analysis.

Table 1.

Participating organization characteristics

Characteristics	N (%) of sample
Region
Africa	7 (24%)
Australia	5 (17%)
Central / South America	3 (10%)
Europe	3 (10%)
North America	7 (24%)
South Asia / Southeast Asia / Middle East	4 (14%)
Type of organization
Stand-alone agency (mostly non-profits)	16 (55%)
Unit or program within a larger, multi-service agency	5 (17%)
Regional or multi-national coalition	5 (17%)
Program in a university setting	2 (7%)
Governmental organization	1 (4%)
Length of program history
Less than 2 years	2 (7%)
2-5 years	12 (41%)
6-8 years	4 (14%)
8+ years	11 (38%)

Data Collection

Interviews were semi-structured, with broad questions about an organization's strategies to engage men and boys in preventing violence against women and girls, followed by prompts individualized to elicit more detailed descriptions about an organization's strategies. The interviews ranged from 45 to 90 minutes in length. Follow-up questions included what the organizational representative saw as the most effective strategies for reaching men, as well as what challenges their organization had encountered. All interviews were conducted over the telephone or via Skype in English by one of four interviewers on the team.ⁱ The interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed.

Data Analysis

Transcripts were entered into the qualitative software program ATLAS-Ti and analyzed using techniques drawn from grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2007). Close coding and constant comparisons across interviewees make up key analytic tools of grounded theory. Transcripts were coded for domains relevant to men's engagement strategies by two researchers. Taking pertinent portions of the transcripts, the first author reviewed the transcripts line by line in an open coding approach (Corbin & Strauss, 2007). Emergent themes were examined for broader conceptual categories. Constant comparison within and between cases was facilitated by the use of matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to refine concepts emerging from the data. Three members of the research team reviewed the emergent themes and supporting data as a check on analytical trustworthiness. ⁱⁱ

RESULTS

The following results are organized into three sections: strategies for initial engagement, principles for deepening men's engagement, and a critique of gendering violence prevention work. All three sections are based on key domains that emerged from the data as well as relevant violence prevention literature. In the data analysis process, a distinction emerged between the strategies employed by programs to gain initial access to men (to “recruit” them), and the approaches that held longer-term promise for sustaining men's engagement and creating deeper and more lasting social change; taken together, the first two sections – strategies and principles – highlight what the organizational interviewees described as their approach to the process of engaging men and boys in violence prevention efforts. The last section reflects the concern shared by a handful of organizations about the legitimacy of the current trend in gender-based violence prevention efforts toward engaging men and boys separately from women and girls. Overall, the findings presented below offer insight into the strategies of organizations from around the world that work to engage men and boys (and in some cases also women and girls) to prevent violence. In the supporting interviewee quotes associated with each theme, we refer only to an interviewee's identification number from our original on-line survey so as to preserve anonymity.

Strategies for Initial Engagement

All interviewees reported on the practice of recruitment or making initial efforts to engage men and boys. Responses illustrated the subtle yet substantive difference between recruitment to a pre-defined activity and a community organizing or mobilizing model, where the communities themselves are developing their goals. This difference will be explored in more detail in the subsequent discussion of initial engagement themes but, for the time being, recruitment and initial efforts will be used interchangeably. Overall, five main themes emerged from the data: accessible entry points, intentional invitation, enlist ambassadors, concrete opportunities and men's reasons for becoming engaged. The first four themes illustrate strategies organizations used to recruit men and boys, and the fifth theme elucidates interviewees’ views and experiences of why they thought men and boys initially become engaged. While the themes presented here emerge from the aggregated perspectives of all participants, the work described by each interviewee was profoundly context driven, grounded and tailored to the communities, as well as social and geographic location, of the work.

Accessible Entry Points

The first theme in the category of initial engagement strategies speaks to how organizations sought out means to connect with potentially disinterested or skeptical men and boys, and to locate specific places to “meet” them. Fourteen interviewees representing every region of the world (48%) described the importance of identifying these starting places, which took two forms. The first was locating specific physical locations or communication media to connect with men and boys (i.e. radio, schools, movies, newsletter, or face to face) that fit the group and the larger context of the group, be it cultural or geographical. For example, the following interviewee from Africa describes how reaching men necessitates creating a structure for starting the conversation in naturally occurring meeting places where the men can be found every day, and do not have to do anything extraordinary to participate:

In (country) is the Market general cleaning day. When they clean the environment. So on this particular day, after cleaning, by 10 is when they have meetings; each market must have a meeting. So on this meeting, we met with them to sensitize them on the issue and began to call out for those who are entrusted in by spreading the prevention training for peer educations, and of course, this was when we encouraged the men to take the lead. (P 32)

Another organization in South Asia described using popular films to attract busy, rural boys and young men to gather and talk about violence prevention and masculinity. In this context, in which many of the young men are not literate and have multiple, competing demands on their time, pairing a relaxing, accessible social activity with an entrée to get information about violence proves a viable way to gain access to young people, a method also written about by Roy (2001).

The second strategy for initiating contact is a conversation starter, such as a topic like fatherhood or domestic violence statistics, as illustrated in the following passage from an organizational representative in South America:

We used to show them statistics, statistical data, specially to the police officers...with more skeptical person you can show them statistical data and even with people...who are not very sensitized you can use...the economical implications of violence to convince them. (P 23)

Intentional Invitation

In addition to identifying approachable places and topics to meet and begin conversations with men and boys, interviewees described the practice of inviting them to take part in violence prevention activities. Twelve interviewees from all regions of the world except Europe and South America (41%) reported using an “invitation” as a strategy to recruit men and boys. One Australian interviewee illustrated the importance of invitation as a strategy stating that to engage men in violence prevention: “the first way and the major way is by invitation” (P 18). The idea of an invitation speaks to these organizations’ aspiration to have the boys and men join pre-defined work that the organization sponsored, which happened more often in regions where single day events were key engagement strategies. The people who were inviting men and boys were often fellow community members, as indicated by one interviewee's remark, “The people that are in the community themselves are the ones that are doing that piece of work” (P 61, North America). However, the list also included members of women's organizations, and famous sports figures. Less frequently formerly abusive men from the community made the invitations. While a formal invitation to become active in violence prevention events was a focal engagement strategy, some interviewees identified the process of engaging men as growing out of their strong, existing social networks, as reflected in the following comment from an interviewee in North America:

...a lot of them come by way of their own relationship. So the people here speak or people know men that involved and so they bring them. Men bring men, boys bring boys, the program, that's how it happens. So that's one way. (P 76)

Enlist Ambassadors

While some organizations “invited” boys and men's engagement, eight organizations (27%) disseminated the message of violence prevention outwards through peer educators or community representatives in their own communities and social networks. These organizations were located in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. The rationale for the ambassador approach seemed to be to increase credibility and to overcome a variety of cultural, political, and language barriers, as well as to inspire men and boys to connect to the ambassador as a role model, which would hopefully lead to engagement. Enlisting ambassadors is an inherently contextual approach, as representatives of a community can better anticipate and negotiate the specific cultural or logistical dynamics of a community. For example, a program in South Asia reported centrally training young men involved in a nation-wide youth organization, who then went out to their own outlying villages and communities to “sensitize” (P. 34) the older men in their towns. This was considered advantageous because direct contact by the organization itself could be viewed as suspect and even threatening to local power structures. Following, another interviewee describes the ambassador role and an example of how the ambassador puts a message out about violence prevention:

We have ambassadors we have identified in the community, you know males who are leaders in the community who will speak out against family violence. So one of the people, one is the captain of our footie club, is one our ambassadors, the chief executive officer of the football league is a White Ribbon ambassador and he produces the newsletter that goes out to 25,000 people every week for 20 weeks. And we have an article in that newsletter every week for 20 weeks around family violence.¹

Four of the eight organizations, including organizations from Australia and Europe, identified working to enlist White Ribbon ambassadors, who are men who take an oath to stand up and speak out for ending violence against women in their own lives and in their communities. White Ribbon is an international movement to engage men in violence prevention founded two decades ago after the murder of 14 women on a Canadian college campus and now has affiliates in 48 countries (see http://whiteribbon.ca/). In general, ambassadors tended to become active after participating in other parts of the organizations’ programs, or being moved by a personal event or experience regarding gender inequality and gender-based violence. Looking at regional differences, it is notable that organizations from South America and Africa did not identify enlisting ambassadors as an engagement strategy.

Create Concrete Opportunities

Nine interviewees (31%) described developing and offering men and boys actionable opportunities in discussing and taking part in events to bring about violence prevention awareness. All regions of the world except for South America were represented by at least one organization reporting this theme. For some interviewees, these were ongoing opportunities, such as weekly peer support groups in schools or on college campuses, forums to talk about male violence, and campaigns, such as those focused on changing gendered social norms. Others spoke about specific events (e.g. Walk a Mile In Her Shoes) as opportunities to get men involved, as indicated by one North American interviewee's remark:

...we actually have a thing we've done in the park here recently, which is like a positive Father's Festival. It's really small, but we get a lot of interest in that and guys come out and help volunteer and cook hotdogs and that kind of stuff. (P 25)

Four out the nine identified a wide range of concrete actions available to men generated by the implementation of local White Ribbon events, including taking an anti-violence pledge, becoming an ambassador, or participating in a White Ribbon work group or White Ribbon Cities program. Some organizations suggested that larger, higher profile events were a “recruiting tool” for the ongoing, longer-term efforts of the organizations.

Men's Reasons for Becoming Engaged

Uniquely interwoven in six interviewees’ (21%) descriptions of their recruitment strategies was their analysis of why boys and men wanted to be involved. Although the study's interview guide did not contain questions inquiring about organizations’ conceptions of why men became engaged, interviewees from Africa, Australia, and North and South America spoke about the men's reasons when talking about why organizations shaped their recruitment the way they did. These reasons often then drove the contextually specific topics addressed or engagement opportunities created by each organization. Fatherhood was most often the reason given.

Absolutely, (fatherhood), it's the way to hook men in because the men always talk about wanting to be good dads. When we talk about family of origins things it's really very moving. I think often that's the thing that moves men. (P 18, Australia)

Other reasons included men's desire to give back after they had benefited from a program, their recognition of their wealth and privilege, their relationships to others, and finally, men's focus on overall health behaviors brought them around to looking at violence as an issue and engaging in violence prevention.

Principles for Deepening Men's Engagement

Beyond getting men and boys in the door or taking part in community violence prevention work, interviewees spoke extensively about the strategies employed to deepen and sustain men's and boys’ commitment to an anti-violence involvement. All interviewees but two (93%) identified that the organizations they represented used several principles to deepen men's and boy's engagement in activism and participation in violence prevention. Four sub-themes emerged, including: (1) rooted in the community, (2) beyond workshops, (3) hopefulness about men, and (4) relationships and power. These themes will be discussed in greater detail here.

“Rooted in the Community”

The first of the deepening engagement subthemes, “rooted in the community” (P 108), was reported by 16 interviewees (55%) representing all regions of the world except for Europe. These interviewees described community-focused violence prevention to engage boys and men in violence prevention in two main ways: society-wide social change, and community-specific strategies. Eleven of the 16 interviewees (69%) described being focused on creating society-wide social change by encouraging individual men or by mobilizing communities of men to become active. This frame widened the focus of the initial work of engaging individual men and boys to prevent their own violence to harnessing that engagement to create social change on a broad scale. Interviewees talked about social change using words like community level change, changing community norms, and “people making change” (P 32, Africa). Others defined the work of engaging men and boys in violence prevention as community-specific, that is tailoring the strategies and goals to the community where it was done, as well as to the people who were engaged in that work. For example, a program representative describing an effort in South Asia noted how the specific strategies implemented by community members were both selected and effective because they were historically and culturally consonant:

They help to mobilize a real movement in (country) at the community level and that's one model I think is interesting in terms of, you know, it's men working as kind of volunteer outreach and mobilizing agents in the local communities and really, it's just raising the voices and saying “we stand up against violence against women. Come and join us.” They've done direct action stuff. They do a lot of marches and... they built on the history of social justice movements and activism in (country). What they've done is familiar because it's been done around other issues. And, you know, they've given men a space to articulate a positive role. (P 106)

Another example of community-specific strategies comes from a program informant in Africa who described an extensive process of deeply coming to know a village community, partnering with community members and embedding engagement strategies in naturally occurring and culturally-compelling forms of discourse:

We realized they really open up to music and dance. So we started organizing community groups into singing, into packaging information around HIV/AIDS around gender based violence, around the rights of women in songs. And then would we would invite the elders to an evening where we would buy them a bit of soft drinks and they would listen to the songs without us making any representations. And it became our routine practice for the elders. So every evening, they would invite our boys to sing, to play for them nice music. But within the music, there were one or two paragraphs or sentences about rights of women, and how masculinity is affecting men. Slowly they opened up. (P. 30)

Hopeful about Men and Boys

In addition to organizing their work around community centered approaches, nine interviewees (31%) from all regions except South America reported that their organizations’ staff attitudes and behavior must be authentically grounded in the overall principle of being hopeful about men and boys. Interviewees used words like “honor”, “respectful”, and “nonjudgmental” to articulate this hopeful stance. This hopefulness about men and boys ranged from their general “goodness”, to their ability to change, to being inspired and mobilized for change in larger systems, such as their work places, communities, and society-wide, in the face of the gender-based violence that men perpetrate. Engaging boys and men with a hopeful or positive approach translated into a different way of working for some organizations:

So we're simply engaging with those better parts of all men and boys. Just to give you an example, our approach is quite different from what it might have been 20, 15 years ago where we would do all kinds of things like leaflet on the street in front of a pornography shop or something like that, and have couples walk by and the women were really keen about what we were doing and the men were really disengaged...We're now interested in respectful engagement that actually engages”. (P 25, North America)

Five of nine organizations used this hopeful lens to see violence prevention not as a women's issue, but a community issue, that required men's participation in solving.

Beyond Workshops

Linked to the theme of community-based action, eight interviewees (28%) from Africa, Australia, Asia and North America spoke of how their organizations recognized that if social norms about gender inequality and gender-based violence were going to change, then their work needed to take place on multiple levels of intervention, not only conducting educational workshops, as evident in this interviewee's response:

I think there continues to be a narrow focus on workshops. I think there's this kind of mistaken notion that if you want to do work with men and boys what you need to do is workshops. But that's not going to bring around social transformation. Now, we all, I think, know deep down that's not what brings about large-scale social change. (P 38, Africa)

For many of the interviewees, their thinking about this need for multi-level work led to incorporating or exclusively using a community organizing or mobilizing model. Other expressions of this sub-theme of “beyond workshops” were found in the public artwork and theatre that organizations initiated to help spread the message of changing gender and violence social norms, as well as training of communities in community organizing. In addition, some organizations identified taking social and political action, such as using the media to draw attention to a case involving violence against women. One organizational representative described taking the “workshop” to a more organizational and community level, by engaging men not only as individuals, but as potential change agents who could affect policy and practice in their communities and places of work. Located in North America, this participant noted,

[We] begin to have conversations with them about what we can do to change this environment, both personally and... looking at where are our spheres of influence? Where might we use our influence in our workplaces and then looking at where the spectrum of prevention and get them to begin thinking and strategizing about what they could do and the places where they can focus their energy (P 96).

Relationships and Power First

Finally, 16 interviewees (55%) identified that their organizations steered away from accusatory, blaming language about male violence when working to engage men and boys. Instead these organizations used an approach that connected men by discussing their experiences in relationships (i.e. fatherhood) and power, as seen in the following quotes from interviewees.

So that's why we're trying to get people to engage more through conversation, having topics and discussing more common things that people can discuss; relationships with people and all those other things that are not so heavy and you may not be so defensive. (P 97, North America)

Another stated:

No matter who you are, men, women, whoever. Every one of us has experienced a lack of power in our life, whether it's in our relationship, whether it's with our parents, whether that's with our boss, whoever. Everyone has experienced a lack of power and us talking about power has really opened up this new way of actually turning men and women on. (P 47, Africa)

Some reported they did not start the conversation to address male violence or human rights but instead used what one interviewee described as a “soft peddle” approach (P 27, South Asia), beginning with other topics such as the “negativities of masculinity” (P 30, Africa). In a different approach, one interviewee used the entry point of connecting preventing violence with men's interests, as illustrated by this statement from another organizational representative in Africa:

So, I think we are able to say to men ‘it's in your best interest to help shift notions of manhood and masculinity’...men are less like to use violence, and it is in your indirect interest as much as it affects women who you care deeply about. (P 38)

Interviewees who defined power and relationships as their starting point in the strategy to deepen engagement with men (and women) did not stop there. These interviewees, from Africa, Asia, Australia and North and South America, used this as a starting point to then go deeper, exploring social norms, male violence and accountability as seen in the final theme.

Critique of Gendering Violence Prevention Work

While interviewees were asked questions specifically about how they engage boys and men in violence prevention, six (20%) from Africa, Australia, Asia and Europe addressed the reality that their work is community work, and they engage men and women as co-participants in addressing gender-based violence, as well as creating change in their communities. One interviewee reported adopting a social marketing slogan, “This is everyone's business”, incorporating the belief that this issue is a community problem (P 10, Australia). Rather than men or women, one interviewee from Africa expressed that the work of social change to end gender-based violence must be a model of men and women working together:

But I do feel, and this is a really big concern that we have (that there is a) push around working with men, engaging men and the language around it is so tricky because it's about engaging men that actually, our perspective has always been that we HAVE to work with both women and men if we're about to create social change. How else can we do it? If we're in a community where men and women, together, make up the values of that community, how can we be working with just one group? (P 47)

DISCUSSION

The strategies outlined by those interviewed focused on how to initially engage men and then to deepen the engagement of individual men and boys and of the communities in which they live. Interviewees reported creative efforts to overcome men's initial reluctance and to continue to engage them and their broader communities, starting in places like local markets and using local leadership to make connections. A common theme across these strategies is the deeply contextualized and tailored invitations, the identity of ambassadors and the specific engagement approach to the perceived concerns and daily lives of target men in the organizations’ communities. These organizations’ experiences suggest that men are most effectively drawn into this work when they are invited by people they know, in contexts that are familiar to them, and through topics or discussions that facilitate a personal connection with the issue of gender-based violence. Although organizational representatives across regions of the world endorsed these general principles of engagement, appropriately, the specific manifestation of recruitment tactics used by each organization was grounded in their local context and culture. However, from this study it is not clear if the strategies and principles adopted by particular organizations reflect larger regional or cross-national differences. These general engagement principles are also consistent with extant research documenting the use of individually tailored approaches and concrete, strengths-based invitations identified by some men's engagement efforts in the U.S. (e.g. Casey, 2010). Interestingly, most recruitment and engagement themes were endorsed by at least one organization in every part of the world, with gaps (often from Europe or South America), being more likely due to under-representation of these regions in the sample than to the absence of a particular strategy. However, further study is needed to confirm these organizations’ perceptions. For example, additional research is needed that more fully examines the relationship between how organizations perceive men's reasons for engagement, how that informs their practices, and whether these result in messages and approaches that are indeed compelling to men and effective in sparking their long-term participation.

There are numerous points of overlap between themes emerging from interviewees and themes in extant conceptual and empirical literature on engaging men. For example, in seeing a proactive, strengths-based role for men in solving the problem of violence against women and girls, many organizations reflect a consistency with a pro-feminist approach (Flood, 2011). Additionally, many reported working toward changing social norms (such as through role models or recruiting ambassadors to share prevention messaging in their communities; Berkowitz, 2004a). Some organizations reported using largely individual-level strategies to elicit men's initial participation and then begin to engage them in conversations about violence, gender and normative expectations. However, several organizations around the world had moved beyond workshops, to multi-level interventions as described in the Prevention Spectrum originally outlined by Cohen and Swift (1999). Specifically, organizational representatives reported attempting to move beyond one-time educational events to work toward deeper and more on-going community mobilization and social change. The attention to community mobilization and social change echoes the larger discourse on the role of men's engagement in gender equality work (Khumalo, 2005). A gender equality framework applied to violence prevention argues that because gender inequality operates in the public sector as well as individual relationships, work with men must also actively challenge and change larger unequal systems within society, rather than limiting the focus to workshops and community education. Peacock, Khumalo, & McNab (2006) suggest future work with men to promote gender equality must involve this “activist” multi-level approach. In addition, research from neighboring fields such as HIV prevention suggests that comprehensive, multi-strategy programming is a key component of efficacy (e.g. Nation et al., 2003). As violence prevention and men's engagement efforts move towards multi-level change strategies, evaluation is needed to carefully assess the components of these approaches that are most associated both with the sustained and effective involvement of men, and with the reduction of gender-based violence.

Simultaneously, some complexities and points of departure from the conceptual literature emerged, most often centering around the role of gender. Gender played an interesting role in these organizations’ conceptualization of prevention and implementation of specific recruitment and engagement strategies. Acknowledging the gendered nature of interpersonal violence was fairly universal among these respondents. How organizations then conceptualized their outreach strategies to address the inevitable tension involved in inviting men to talk about gender-based violence varied across respondents. Some relied on beginning conversations with topics that were perceived to better resonate with men, such as fatherhood or the nature of relationships, while others recruited messengers which male audiences would respect and relate to. While likely strategic and increasing the degree to which participation is palatable for men, it is unclear whether these recruitment approaches then universally served as an entrée to the deeper “gender transformative” work set as a threshold for effectiveness by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2007). Other programs more explicitly and immediately embedded conversations about masculinity in their programming, their recruitment conversations initiated by their ambassadors, or in the media or culturally relevant songs and art used as vehicles for engagement messages. Overall, the relative effectiveness of different approaches to the timing and intensity of an explicit focus on masculinity or gender transformative content within men's violence prevention programming remains an open and debated question (e.g. Katz, Heisterkamp & Fleming, 2011), and one that urgently calls for more research.

Further, a handful of organizational representatives reported struggling with the issue of whether engaging men, as a goal unto itself, is an appropriate or viable pursuit in the context of gender-based violence prevention. Some of these organizations focus on gender-based violence as a community-wide issue and engage men not in isolation but as part of broader community mobilizing initiatives. The struggle inherent here is developing engagement strategies that appeal to both men and women within the goal of preventing gender-based violence, a tension that some programs approached through intensely community-driven and controlled program planning and implementation.

Still, these interviews provide tangible description of the day-to-day work that is required to take these conceptual ideas and apply them to practice on the ground. This study is an early effort to understand an emerging global movement to engage men and boys in preventing violence against women and girls. It contributes concrete information about strategies being used globally to accomplish such engagement and complements the conceptual work of others. At the same time, the strategies described here surface complexities and tensions related to the effectiveness and implications of programs’ approaches which are beyond the scope of this paper to fully delineate. An analysis of tensions and challenges inherent in men's engagement is therefore the central focus of another, complementary paper from this project (see, blinded for review, under review). This study was also limited in other ways, including pre-requisite English language proficiency and interviewee self-selection by providing their contact information in an earlier online study. Due to the global scope of this study, interviews were conducted via phone interviews and Skype (audio only), inhibiting the use of non-verbal cues, which may have impacted the nuances present in that form of communication. Finally, from the limited response of the original sample from organizations in areas such as Europe, Northern Asia and Eastern Asia, and Central America, this study's data is limited in its full and equal global representation, and prevents any solid cross-regional or cross-national comparison related to similarities and differences in engagement techniques.

Deeper and more systematic collection of information from a broader set of organizations is sorely needed as is specific testing of the strategies outlined in the findings presented here. In addition, examination of organizations’ application of multi-level prevention frameworks, such as the Spectrum of Prevention, is central to creating the large-scale social change necessary for worldwide gender equality. Developing an evidence base for engaging men and boys in violence prevention will help provide direction to the growing numbers of activists and organizations worldwide becoming interested in this work and provide a pathway to greater success in preventing violence against women and girls.