Men and masculinities: What have they got to do with gender equality and women’s empowerment?

When people mention the words, “gender” and “gender equality”, the conversation often soon turns to women and girls. There are both good and bad reasons why this is so. On one hand, women and women’s voices have long been, and continue to be, marginalized and subordinated, especially across various public realms; on the other hand, to limit work, policy development and politics on gender and for gender equality and women’s empowerment as a task only women need to be concerned with may easily let men off the hook, and even suggest that it is women who have to change rather than men. The UN Social Development Goal 5 is the SDG that specifically addresses gender equality, ending all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere, and eliminating all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation. At the same time, gender equality and women’s empowerment are central to the fulfilment of all SDGs. This point is still often forgotten, as if gender equality can be
siloed off to a separate arena of policy and politics.