Challenging Patriarchy: Unsettling Men and Masculinities

This virtual IDS Bulletin on Challenging Patriarchy is presented in time for the Second Global Symposium on ‘Engaging Men and Boys for Gender Justice’, in Delhi November 2014, in order to contribute to ongoing political conversations, by highlighting significant articles from IDS Bulletins since the turn of the millennium. Much has happened since 2000, when Cornwall and White presented a first IDS Bulletin on Men, Masculinities and Development (2000), exploring how masculinities had been finding its way onto the lexicon and agendas of Gender and Development (GAD). The queering of gender and its unsettling implications for our understandings of sexualities, pleasure and also masculinities in GAD, was forcefully presented in Cornwall and Jolly’s IDS Bulletin arguing that Sexuality Matters (2006). More recently, a bulletin presented by Edström, Das and Dolan aimed at Undressing Patriarchy (2014) and connected perspectives from feminist, sexual rights and masculinities fields to explore the topic in a direction of intersectionality and deeper structures of constraint to gender equality. 

This virtual edition on Challenging Patriarchy presents contributions to the evolution of thinking on the topic of men, boys and masculinities in GAD. The first part presents reflections, arguments and caveats from eminent feminists, from 2000, around the dilemma of bringing men into GAD. The second part gets straight to the heart of issues of sex, sexuality, power and patriarchy, by drawing together relevant articles from 2006 and 2014. The third and final part, groups a series of articles reflecting on challenges for understanding and responding to evolving patriarchies in our increasingly unequal early 21st Century, drawn mostly from 2014, whilst ending with an early and inspirational contribution on ‘the spectacle of men fighting’ from 2000. 

This bulletin is dedicated to our late friend and colleague from Sida, Dr Paul Dover, who tragically passed away in September this year.  Paul has tirelessly engaged with this work and contributed his own article to the 2014 Bulletin, which we also include in this issue.

IDS Virtual Bulletin Challenging Patriarchy: Unsettling Men and Masculinities