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The nature of men's involvement in the struggle for gender justice has long fiercely divided gender-equality advocates. After nearly three decades of disagreement this seam of tension doggedly persists, little engaged with and largely unresolved. …

A diverse mix of people came together in Dakar, Senegal from 13-19 October 2007, to debate issues of men, gender and power: unconventional practical academics, open-minded policymakers, reflective practitioners and activists. It was a unique gathering and offered a unique opportunity – to inform and inspire a greater engagement by men in the struggle for gender justice and broader social change. The symposium was borne out of a realization that much of the most innovative work on men and masculinities has worked at the level of the personal, such as seeking to transform men’s sexual behaviour, violence against women and relations of fatherhood. The HIV epidemic has forced an open space for greater acknowledgement of the fluidity and diversity of men’s sexual and social identities. …

Human rights, including women’s rights are dropping off the donor agenda. Recent years have seen a marked shift in official development discourse, with less emphasis on a rights-based approach and more on an efficiency approach to gender equality, exemplified by Nike Foundation’s ‘Girl Effect’ theme of stopping poverty by investing in girls – an initiative that ignores the social, historical and structural factors which contribute to inequality while simultaneously ignoring the voices of the people it seeks to help. Removing the realization of rights, including women’s rights, from the donor agenda is part of a wider tendency to define development in terms of measurable outcomes or instruments – immunizations, bednets, numbers of children going to school, quotas for women in parliament. As a result of the shift to the political right in many OECD governments, these demands for reporting against quantifiable achievements as a measure of impact is having an effect on all the organisations that they are funding. …

What is 'women's empowerment' and how can we measure it? How is the concept being used in policy and practice and what are the problems with existing approaches? This bibliography gathers together a range of resources which discuss women's empowerment from different perspectives in order to provide an accessible introduction to key concepts, approaches and debates. A summary is provided of each resource, along with a link to the full document where available. The bibliography is divided into four sections exploring definitions of 'women's empowerment'; current programmes to advance women's empowerment; approaches to measuring and evaluating women's empowerment; and critiques of existing theory and practice. …

Representations of men as perpetrator and patriarch have profoundly shaped the terms of gender and development’s engagement with masculinities discourse and practice. Many of those working in the field have remained hesitant, tentative, and often hostile to the notion that men might be potential allies in the struggle for gender justice. Even feminists broadly sympathetic to the principle of working with men tend to set out from the notion that all men everywhere are inherently part of the problem. And so efforts have focused on involving men, engaging men, inviting men in – usually on our terms. …

Representations of men as perpetrator and patriarch have profoundly shaped the terms of gender and development’s engagement with masculinities discourse and practice. Many of those working in the field have remained hesitant, tentative, and often hostile to the notion that men might be potential allies in the struggle for gender justice. Even feminists broadly sympathetic to the principle of working with men tend to set out from the notion that all men everywhere are inherently part of the problem. And so efforts have focused on involving men, engaging men, inviting men in – usually on our terms. …