Making peace = changing men

It might seem difficult to face the urgent matters of conflict resolution without considering how men and masculinities are and can be. Yet, despite greater mainstream recognition of this question of men and masculinities, especially since the adoption of UNSCR Resolution 2106 in 2013, this is still often not at the centre of work on peacebuilding. Indeed, positive peacebuilding needs to work against structural violence at all levels.
With continuing male domination of political leadership in malestream national and international politics in handling or creating crises, different groupings of men almost always figure prominently in the lead-up to armed conflicts. Militaristic patriarchal (vertical) leadership is accompanied by militaristic fratriarchal (horizontal) power amongst the people, mainly men, making up soldieries. These issues can be understood at the macro-societal levels (such as between nations), meso-levels (such as institutions and communities), and micro-levels (between people and within individuals). Such levels of analysis are interdependent, so disentangling what contributes most to specific violent conflicts – a charismatic leader, inter-governmental policy, or the economy – is not easy