In early February, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade released its new International Gender Equality Strategy. The strategy is designed to target Australia’s development assistance toward improving the conditions for women and girls – with an understanding that societies faring better in the treatment of women tend to also have lower levels of poverty, autocracy, corruption, instability, and civil unrest.
Yet there is a caveat. For international development policies aimed at improving the conditions of women and girls to produce long-term positive results, there is a need to recognize that the agency and advancement of women and girls doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The lasting success of these initiatives often relies on nullifying or minimizing men’s resentment toward women’s agency and advancement – or ideally gaining men’s support.
This is not to say that women and girls need the permission of men to advance – or need to develop policy that placates men’s negative impulses – but it’s necessary to recognize that the male backlash to female empowerment is a locally and globally destabilizing force. Women’s gains don’t come at the expense of men, yet many men think or feel they do – and this is a major social and political problem.
As I’ve noted previously, there is evidence from Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, India, and Rwanda that women’s agency and advancement increases the risk of men’s violence against them. This, of course, is not confined to the developing world, as the same phenomenon is present in Australia itself, as well as other wealthy, developed, countries.
Australia’s international development policies therefore need to take this dynamic into consideration. The new Gender Equality Strategy fails to seriously address this phenomenon, with no references to masculinity at all. Although there are some initiatives aimed at countering gender-based violence and harmful stereotypes, this is distinct from having a deeper understanding of men’s psychology and how to advance agency and opportunity for women and girls without inflaming men’s resentment.
So how can Australia invest in the advancement of women and girls through its international development policies while simultaneously bringing men along with this advancement?
Key to this is understanding some key instincts within masculinity. Men’s need for status is persistent, but malleable. Therefore, policy should recognize that there is an opportunity for men to gain pride and purpose from the advancement of women and girls – to be champions of this themselves. While women invest their capabilities and resources back into their communities in ways that men usually don’t, given the right psychological incentives men could also do so – but it requires working with men’s tendencies and impulses.
Men have a need for purpose and a sense of social recognition for their achievements. Alongside this, masculinity maintains tribal instincts toward community protection and group advancement. When excluded – as many men feel today – these inclinations can instead turn chaotic and hostile. As a result, men seek their emotional and prideful rewards through interpersonal violence, misogyny, and aggressive political movements.
To recognize this is to also recognize an opportunity for the Australian government to think about how development policies that empower women and girls can also provide men with a sense of community pride and advancement. Men’s instincts regarding purpose and protection can be directed toward doing the job of neutralizing the negative impulses within masculinity. Give men the responsibility to build the positive capabilities of their own menfolk – and their required sense of social achievement that would flow from this.
Australia’s new International Gender Equality Strategy repeatedly states that “gender equality benefits everyone.” This is true, but it has to move beyond being a slogan. Slogans often have a counter-effect when used in lieu of real-world outcomes. They can rankle people and lead to a backlash against the ideas being advanced. This is the persistent problem of modern progressive politics, and one that can filter up from activism into state policy.
For gender equality to benefit everyone men need to recognize this within practical, everyday outcomes. They need to see these benefits as aligning with their own sense of purpose and pride and feel that they are also advancing alongside women and girls.
The lesson of recent decades is that when women and girls gain freedom and opportunity, they tend to thrive. Women have character and resilience in abundance, and have been storing it up for millennia to utilize within the modern world. However, men struggle without social reinforcement. It may be that Australia’s future international gender equality strategies may not need to be focused on the agency and opportunity for women and girls at all, but instead be focused on enhancing men’s emotional maturity, and encouraging men to develop the same character and resilience as women.