AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

176 MELANIE NEWELL
tered around gender equity is the best way to provide transformative and
sustainable SRH interventions. However, achieving gender equity implies
social transformation, which can only occur when men recognize that
women and men live interdependent lives and empowering women will
also benefit them (UNFPA 2005: ch. 6). The ICPD program of action
states that,
Changes in both men’s and women’s knowledge, attitudes and behavior
are necessary conditions for achieving the harmonious partnership of men
and women. Men play a key role in bringing about gender equality since, in
most societies, men exercise preponderant power in nearly every sphere of
life ranging from personal decisions regarding the size of families to the
policy and program decisions taken at all levels of Government (ICPD
1994: 4.24).
The shift in the SRH thinking paradigm allowed for new types of
creative interventions to be introduced and financed with the consensus
that such targeted interventions were now essential to not only SRH issues,
but issues of poverty, violence, and inequalities impairing development
and the general well-being of individuals and families.
CHALLENGES PRESENTED IN MALE-INVOLVEMENT CENTERED
PROGRAMMING
Interventions that see risky sexual behavior among men as biological,
normal, and unchanging miss the opportunity to work with men and
women to change gender stereotypes paving the way to tackling gender
inequality (Greene 2000: 54). However, a holistic male-inclusive approach
to achieving SRH rights is not easily developed; there are many
layers of transformation that need to occur within society in order that
male behavior is changed. Perhaps most essential and pivotal to changing
gender inequalities and enabling men to be involved in family planning
and SRH is the transformation of constructions of masculinity. Differing
from one culture to another, the idea of what it means to be a ‘real man’
has a huge impact on male involvement in the reproductive sphere
(Connell 2007). For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, cultural
attitudes encourage “machismo” male-dominant behavior to persist,
inhibiting gender equality conducive to promoting healthy sexual
and reproductive lives for men and women (AGI 2004: 2). Specifically,
in Jamaica, the dancehall music culture serves to reinforce dominant