ABSTRACT

Despite decades of effort on-the-ground and in academic scholarship to incorporate men and masculinities into work related to Gender and Development, for a range of reasons gender is still associated by practitioners and various publics overwhelmingly with women. This is true in development work on issues ranging from microfinancing to family welfare, in government programs related to educational equity, as well as in academic settings, where gender studies are usually synonymous with women’s studies. An additional problem is that men are seldom clamouring for inclusion in gender-based programs. A central goal of the powerful feminist movements that emerged throughout the world in the 1960s and 1970s was that societies, governments, households, and communities needed to pay attention to basic issues of gender inequalities and directly and immediately take steps to address these concerns. That men are far more often than women in dominant positions socially, politically, and within families and neighbourhoods means that men are often loath to give up their privileges and tackle gender imbalances. This poses additional obstacles to involving men in development efforts.