Transforming Gender Roles
Gender roles and gender violence are linked and it takes the power of many structural forces to keep reinforcing them. Without the tenacity and rigidity of patriarchy, traditional masculinity, violence against women and girls, frozen culture, the gendered division of labor, racism, and class and heterosexual privilege; structural inequality would be significantly eroded.
“We are transforming our culture to create violence-free lives and a world of gender justice.”
Asian advocate and community organizer
While the anti-domestic violence movement has been successful at building resources and recourses for battered women, it has not succeeded at stopping men’s violence. The latter cannot only be achieved by sending abusers to batter intervention programs. As a society, we need to make fundamental shifts – divesting our communities of misogyny and sexism, and transforming gender roles.
Resources on Transforming Gender Roles
From Gender Violence to Gender Democracy: What Will It Take? 2011
How do we go from cultures of power and control to cultures of equality?
Engendering Change: Transforming Gender Roles in Asian & Pacific Islander Communities, 2007
This report asks and analyzes some critical questions, forcing us to take a hard look at all the factors that have to come together to effect transformation.
Other Resources
National Resource Center on Sexual Violence: It’s Time…Talk about Gender Norms (2012)
World Health Organization: Promoting Gender Equality to Prevent Violence Against Women (2009)