Gender-Based Violence: Men Must Challenge Patriarchy — Centre LSD

Gender-based violence must be confronted by men through active efforts to challenge patriarchy, harmful practices and other men who promote or tolerate violence against women, the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) has said.

While pushing pushing against gender-based violence,the Centre said men must take accountable action to challenge patriarchy, confront harmful practices and support women’s leadership without taking over the voice, space or leadership of women in the women’s rights movement.

The project director, Male Feminists Network (MFN) and Founding executive director of Centre LSD, Dr. Otive Igbuzor, made the call on gender-based violence at a two-day capacity-strengthening programme for Women’s Rights Organisations (WROs) in Abuja on Thursday.

The programme, themed: “From Principles to Practice: Institutionalising Accountable Male Allyship in Women’s Rights Programming,” focused on the role of men in preventing gender-based violence, challenging patriarchy and advancing women’s rights.

Igbuzor said efforts to end gender-based violence required men to do more than publicly condemn violence, urging them to examine their privileges, confront harmful behaviour among other men and support reforms that promote gender equality.

He warned that male participation in efforts against gender-based violence must strengthen rather than overshadow women’s leadership, voice and agency.

“Men should become more visible in challenging patriarchy, but they should not become more powerful within the women’s rights movement,” he said.

According to Igbuzor, men seeking to address gender-based violence must use their voices, influence, resources and social positions to challenge patriarchy while remaining accountable to women, girls, feminist principles and women-led organisations.

He said accountable male allyship in the fight against gender-based violence required men to listen before leading, support rather than substitute women’s leadership, challenge other men, interrogate their privileges and accept correction.

“Accountability cannot be self-defined by the ally,” Igbuzor said, stressing that meaningful action against gender-based violence must be measured by changes in behaviour and power relations.

The Centre LSD executive director said the fight against gender-based violence must also extend to institutions, which he urged to embed gender-equitable values in their policies, budgets, leadership structures and accountability systems.

He identified traditional and religious institutions as important spaces for preventing gender-based violence, saying occasional statements condemning violence were insufficient without reforms capable of changing harmful practices.

Igbuzor said traditional rulers could help prevent gender-based violence by adopting community charters against harmful practices, while religious leaders could strengthen prevention efforts by incorporating gender justice into sermons, premarital counselling, safeguarding systems and institutional responses to violence.

He also cautioned Women’s Rights Organisations against creating a parallel men’s movement that competes with women-led organisations for influence, legitimacy or resources in the fight against gender-based violence.

Igbuzor said WROs should determine who qualifies as an ally in preventing gender-based violence, the values male allies must uphold, their roles and the consequences for violating agreed feminist principles.

He disclosed that the Male Feminists Network had trained more than 12,000 male feminists across Nigeria, but stressed that the number of men trained was not evidence of progress in tackling gender-based violence.

Rather, he said success should be measured through behavioural changes, institutional reforms, gender-responsive workplace policies, redistribution of unpaid care responsibilities and feedback from women and WROs on whether male participation was helping to prevent gender-based violence.

He added that Centre LSD was using post-training action plans, mentoring and feedback mechanisms to determine whether participants were translating their training into practical action against gender-based violence.

Igbuzor identified seven principles of accountable male allyship in addressing gender-based violence: keeping women’s leadership central; addressing power rather than attitudes alone; accepting accountability; combining personal and institutional transformation; challenging other men; measuring outcomes; and ensuring male engagement does no harm to feminist movements.

“The ultimate test of accountable male allyship will not be how many men call themselves feminists. It will be whether women and girls experience greater voice, greater agency, greater safety, greater equality and greater power over the decisions that shape their lives,” he said, in reference to the broader fight against gender-based violence.

Also speaking, the project lead, Male Feminist Project and director of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning at Centre LSD, Mrs Victoria Oseyande Udoh, said the organisation deliberately brought men into the campaign against gender-based violence because advocacy driven largely by women had not sufficiently engaged those who perpetrate violence.

Udoh said the project was established to mobilise men to prevent gender-based violence before it occurs.

“We don’t want it to start. We don’t want to start talking about survival. We want it not to start at all,” she said.

She said men could play an important role in preventing gender-based violence by challenging harmful behaviour within male-dominated spaces and encouraging other men to reject violence against women.

Udoh identified traditional rulers as important partners in preventing gender-based violence because of their influence as custodians of customs and traditions, saying Centre LSD was working with them to identify and address harmful practices in their communities.

She also called for stronger government support to tackle gender-based violence, stressing that preventing violence against women was a collective responsibility.

Meanwhile, one of the participants, Ejiro Sharon Okotie of Hope Inspired Foundation for Women and Youth with Disabilities (HIFWYD), urged Women’s Rights Organisations working on gender-based violence to ensure that women with disabilities and other marginalised groups were actively involved in decisions affecting them.

Okotie said inclusion in the fight against gender-based violence should go beyond representation to meaningful participation and leadership.

“For me, inclusion, not only as a woman but as a woman with disability, is a society where my voice is heard and I am able to meaningfully participate and make my contributions,” she said.

She urged rights organisations addressing gender-based violence not to speak for excluded communities without involving them in designing and leading interventions.

“We do not exclude them. We do not speak for them. We ensure that they are at the centre of every transformation that is being done,” she said, citing the disability rights principle, “Nothing about us without us.”