To attack gender violence, it is necessary to promote a new masculinity: expert

Carolina Gomez Mena

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, October 9, 2022, p. 6

To prevent and combat violence against women, it is also necessary to study the perpetrators and promote new masculinities, addressing the issue from the school, explained Dr. Claudia García Moreno, head of the unit of populations in situations of vulnerability of the World Organization Of the health.

You have to investigate who are they, why do they do it, what are the factors and better delve into the answersexplained the also scientific coordinator of the SVRI Forum 2022, held in Mexico a few weeks ago.

He specified in an interview that women they don’t necessarily want to leave them or put them in jail, but they want to change. We have to work with men in a way that does not perpetuate gender inequality and makes them understand the dynamics and change.

The expert specified that according to studies, there are different types of perpetrators: those who violate women because they consider it their right or the way to impose authority, and those who attack when they drink too much. The alcohol problem is important: we know that it does not necessarily cause violence, but it is associated with greater severity and greater frequency of violence.

He also insisted that emphasis should be placed on promote a more egalitarian masculinity and for this we must work in schools with boys and girls in order to generate more egalitarian relationships and mutual respect. Our culture, like many others, continues to be sexist, with very strong gender inequality and where violence is exercised as a form of control over women. You have to transform that.

He commented that there are experiences in some countries where the issue of new masculinities is integral part of the primary and secondary curricula and in others it is integrated as additional topic or new matter.

He recalled that the WHO published a study in 2021 in which he participated, which collected data on the prevalence of violence from 2000 to 2018 in more than 160 countries, and made regional and country estimates. In Mexico, he highlighted the methodological quality of the National Survey on the Dynamics of Relationships in Households, and stressed that although it is important to measure gender violence, these data must be translated into actions.

What matters is how we use this information to make policies that respond to the needs of women. We must move from data to actionhe asserted.