Men’s Movements Overcoming Gender Violence

• In Event: Preventive Socialization Against Violence Against Women in Schools

Abstract

1. Objectives
This paper describes the educational interventions developed by an egalitarian men’s association called Homes en Diàleg (Men in Dialogue). Their interventions have been studied in a Spanish R+D research which has analyzed the impact of communicative acts in the construction of new masculinities (Soler, 2010-2012) in diverse contexts, among others in schools.

2. Theoretical framework
Masculinity is a topic deeply analyzed in the last thirty years (Connell 2005; Kimmel, 2000; Kaufman, 2001). However, there is a lack of research about how communicative acts, interactions and social context (Searle & Soler, 2004; Flecha & Soler, 2010) influence the construction of new masculinities that are opposed to hegemonic ones. Through discourse analysis, previous research has highlighted the communicative aspects that reproduce hegemonic masculinity (Stobbe, 2005); but such research has not explored the ways in which non-hegemonic masculinities are being reinforced through verbal and non-verbal communication and depending on the context of interaction. In this regard, recent analyses show the power of egalitarian men’s movements to promote a language of desire towards egalitarian men (Flecha, Puigvert & Rios, 2013) and thus toward values that promote relationships free of violence, and as an influential space from where to develop actions in schools that reach children and teenagers.

3. Methods and data sources
The methods used to analyse successful cases like “Men in Dialogue”, which follow the communicative orientation (Gómez, Flecha & Puigvert, 2011), are: 20 daily life histories and 14 focus groups addressed to youth and adult people, and 12 observations in people’s socialization spaces like schools or men’s movements.

4. Results
The results of the study indicated elements linked to communicative acts that foster new masculinities overcoming values related to gender violence. The association “Men in Dialogue” was identified as a successful case because it is contributing to create a preventive context of gender violence. In particular, the association implements an intervention, mainly addressed to schools, that research has indicated that makes steps to prevent violence against women from a communicative perspective. This intervention is based on public debates about which model of attractive masculinity have been more influential traditionally and why, focusing on the social nature of this attraction. One of the elements that contribute to the effectiveness of the preventive educational practices is that the given communicative acts connect attraction and desire to egalitarian masculinities.

5. Significance
In Spain, research on masculinity has been focused in the analysis of how the hegemonic masculinity is reproduced in the communication that promotes desire for models of violent men. However, the results from the project on communicative acts described in this paper have studied successful cases of men movements which are breaking this dynamics. "Men in Dialogue" is one of these cases. Its educational actions are contributing to prevent and overcome gender violence, first because of the egalitarian dialogue with children and adolescents, and second in the communicative acts that are produced over the activity uniting desire with egalitarian men.

Authors

• Joan Cabre Olive, Rovira i Virgili University.CIF: Q-9350003-A

• Javier Diez-Palomar, Universitat de Barcelona

• Òscar Prieto-Flores, University of Girona