‘Care is not only the goal, it’s the way’: working with men and boys for climate and gender justice
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Over the past two decades, the MenEngage Alliance, active in 92 countries, has played a key role in advancing gender-transformative work with men and boys. The Alliance has mobilised diverse individuals across sectors and regions to build a community of practice dedicated to engaging men and boys for gender justice across intersecting issues, including climate change. This is the focus of the MenEngage Climate Justice Working Group, amidst growing recognition that environmental crises are gendered – not only in their disproportionate impacts on women and other marginalised groups, but in men’s contributions and responses to them. This paper is founded upon reflections from the Working Group, who conducted 15 interviews with MenEngage members working for environmental and gender justice worldwide. These interviews provided insights into how practitioners became involved in this field, engage boys and men in change, hold men in positions of power to account, and face challenges in their work, including patriarchal backlash and gaps between policy and practice. The paper highlights the tensions of male allyship for gender and climate justice, arguing that men need to simultaneously recognise their roles and responsibilities as allies, beneficiaries, and agents of change, who work towards systemic as well as personal transformations.
Source: NORMA
Authors: Stephen R. Burrell, Sari Kamiyama, Laxman Belbase, Muhammad Khurram, MenEngage Alliance Climate Justice Working Group
Institutions: The University of Melbourne, Durham University, Waseda University
Language: English
Topic: Gender and Feminist Studies
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Leverhulme Trust
Award: G5758726317
OpenAlex ID: W4415331963