Making Masculinities Visible. A gender discourse analysis

Abstract

The United Nations’ fifth Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality states that it is “not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world” (UNSDG5). The goal itself aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by providing them with access to education, health care, decent work, representation in political and economic decision-making processes, as well as by eliminating violence against women and girls (VAWG).

Recognising the impact language (and thus discourse) has on our understanding of and actions towards gender and gender issues, this thesis explores how the issue of gendered violence is discussed specifically in relation to men and masculinities. Reflecting feminist and masculinities scholarship, it explores how a growing concern for men’s relationship to their own gender has altered the discourse, depoliticising the field of gender as a whole. By applying a collective case study approach to two programmes under the remit of the UNSDG5 - the Spotlight Initiative and Partners for Prevention (P4P) - it reveals contrasting approaches to men and masculinities, and overall inconsistencies in the UNSDG discourse. Most of all, it demonstrates how, despite a relative consensus on the need to include men, and make masculinities visible, public discourse still predominantly places the onus on women to dismantle and reconstruct the status quo. Gender, then, is still a ‘women’s issue’.