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Herald Reporter
Men’s organisations, which seek to challenge the status quo in gender relations of power have partnered women and resorted to online campaigns to end the scourge of gender-based violence.
The group of men’s networks including Majita Men’s Network, Chisungo Men’s network and Padare men’s forum have reached out to male champions for gender justice and equality from around the world using online platforms such as Whatsapp groups and Facebook.
A gender equality and social inclusion expert, Mr Nixon Nembaware, said cultural norms are the root causes of violence against women, urging men to abandon the negative ways of treating women in society.
“Sixteen days of activism against gender-based violence was an exciting journey, strong words have been exchanged as men felt that their cultural and religious powerbase was being attacked and some even claimed that God gave them Biblical mandate to beat their wives. Cultural norms are indoctrinated at an early stage (and) they seek to justify cases where GBV is tolerated,” he said.
Dealing with violence against women requires both men and women to stand together and speak out with one voice.
While the majority of women are now far ahead in advocating for the eradication of violence against them, men and boys still lag behind.
Many women suffer violence at the hands of men because their perpetrators perceive the violence as justified.
A considerable number of men have been socialised in patriarchal societies in which they witnessed violence against women and came to believe that it is an acceptable conflict resolution strategy.
In most of our Zimbabwean communities, perceptions around masculinity and femininity and the power dynamics are such that women are perceived and treated as inferior to their male counterparts
Organisations such as Padare/Enkundleni/Men’s Forum on Gender have registered several successes in creating a movement of men and boys working towards transformation to further gender equality and stop violence against women.
Online Reporter