We don't know how we missed this! The first Global Symposium on Engaging Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality took place this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, concluding today. One of the things that came out of the conference was a Declaration and Call to Action. Here's a snippet:
We come from eighty countries. We are men and women, young and old, working side by side with respect and shared goals. We are active in community organizations, religious and educational institutions; we are representatives of governments, NGOs and the United Nations. We speak many languages, we look like the diverse peoples of the world and carry their diverse beliefs and religions, cultures, physical abilities, and sexual and gender identities. We are indigenous peoples, immigrants, and ones whose ancestors moved across the planet. We are fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, brothers and sisters, partners and lovers, husbands and wives.What unites us is our strong outrage at the inequality that still plagues the lives of women and girls, and the self-destructive demands we put on boys and men. But even more so, what brings us together here is a powerful sense of hope, expectation, and possibility for we have seen the capacity of men and boys to change, to care, to cherish, to love passionately, and to work for justice for all.
While I've seen so many great local efforts by men working towards gender equality (like on college campuses, in organizational programs, etc.), to see activism on a global level like this is incredible. Check out the rest.
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Heartwarming, encouraging, amazing.
Wow! This is fantastic.
Guys, these kinds of things need to come from us to affect real change on the matter.
You said it! I'm very excited by this declaration.
I read the declaration - on paper, it all sounds really nice.
Poverty is bad, sexism is bad, patriarchy is bad, violence against women is bad ect ect ect.
But how are we going to actually DO ANYTHING about any of that?
Fine sounding words won't solve the problem!
Vanessa,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news,
but there is an anti-feminist blog that is mocking Jessica and her fiance's committment to feminism.
They even make fun of Jessica's photo. They also say that you keeping her maiden name is really just keeping her father's name, so she is still promoting the patriarchy.
But the worst thing is that they have a poll on whether her fiance is a weaker man or some other man is.
I say we go over there and teach this anti-feminist blogger (who calls himself an 'alpha male') a lesson.
GNP,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news,
but I think you are just annoying everyone at this point.
"Yay!" for an NGO that works at teaching men and boys to end violence and sexism.
As for the anti-feminist blogger over on the other site, isn't it clear that the fucker isn't worth our time? Apparently, marrying an intelligent, successful and well-known feminist is going to emasculate men. If that were the case, perhaps the problem is not feminism, but rather, this fucker's insecurities with successful women.
Oh, and to attack Andrew without having seen a damn thing he's written or hearing anything he's said is just fucking classless.
I didn't click on the link because I don't want to give him the attention. Maybe we can do something in feministing in order to show support for jessica and her fiance.
Wow GNP, so I erased the link on one post and you put it on another? Seriously - don't you have anything better to do then feign concern to drive some traffic to a shitty blog?
Quoting from the story:
"What unites us is our strong outrage at the inequality that still plagues the lives of women and girls, and the self-destructive demands we put on boys and men."
Amen. Until men understand how much inequality hurts, er, US MEN, we will never be the allies we should be in the fight for the equality that all humans deserve.
I won't apologize for myself or "man"kind for being like every other human being, and caring for my own well being. When we *all* figure out it is in *all* of our best interests that everyone suceeds, or better put when everyone has an equal chance to suceed, we will all be in a better place.
At any rate, this notion that patriarchy is harder on men than men even understand is an important one. We should all remember, the better the women we count on do, the better we do.
I like how you didn't even acknowledge Jessica Yee, whom you know very well, in this post. She was there and lead the reproductive and sexual health and rights portion of it. Are you saying you didn't get this information from her?
I also like how you don't support or post anything of hers to do with Indigenous Feminism anymore. And trust me, she's putting it out there. It's true what they say about Feministing then - just for white girls. Still.
It is considered to be, that the establishment of gender equality is one of principles of construction of the democratic state. However, in spite of the fact that in Brazil there is all necessary for maintenance of gender equality legislative base, in a reality at the country leaders is not looked through accurately certain position on the given question. And here in Japan very much the other way, there at an employment to fill the column "a sexual sign" - it is not required... All the same by the right of Tokyo it is considered a future city, at it is to that will learn...