Men and women: allies against patriarchal barriers | Michael Camilleri

Earlier this week, we joined the global community in celebrating International Women’s Day — a day celebrating the progress made by women around the world, while looking ahead to the issues and areas requiring further action.

For years, we have associated gender equality with women’s issues, mainly because women have been the driving force behind gender equality strategies, and of course, because women bear the brunt of most inequalities in our society.

Putting the fight for equality squarely on women’s shoulders alone, however, can only take us so far.

We fight for gender equality not just for women, but because everyone stands to gain from an equal society – men included. The patriarchal norms keeping women from reaching their full potential also hinder and harm men, from the way masculinity is perceived to the impossible expectations laid at their feet.

These attitudes and behaviours not only harm men themselves, but play a key role in maintaining the status quo, and keeping gender inequalities alive.

This year’s Women’s Day celebrations invited us to challenge: challenge the notions of masculinity, and traditional perceptions of manhood.

We challenge these social norms, behaviours and gender stereotypes that perpetuate discrimination and inequality. We challenge the status quo that abandons men when it comes to mental health, and pressures them to adopt machoistic attitudes.

We challenge expectations that limit girls and boys when it comes to career and family choices, relegating women to undervalued roles in society, and limiting men’s choices.

Men have a vital role to play in building a world of gender equality – and many already are doing so.

By using and sharing their power and privilege, by opening their eyes to the social norms dictating for them what men and boys should do and be, they have the ability to shift these outdated norms and ideas about gender and masculinity, and challenge the patriarchal beliefs, practices, institutions and structures that drive inequality between men and women.

Women and men should be allies in our struggle towards equality. Instead of simple bystanders, men can use their power and voice to speak up, and intervene whenever they witness sexist behaviour and attitudes by others. We need men and boys to stand with women against gender-based violence and domestic violence, and all other forms of harassment.

Ending violence in our communities is a responsibility of the whole community and it is significant that men and boys are active participants and promoters of change.

The reconciliation of work, private and family life is a key gender equality principle, which can be attained when women and men share caring responsibilities and duties equally.

Our society still experiences unequal involvement in household chores by women and men. Juggling work and family is already a challenge in itself, but when men and women equally share in the caring for their children and other family members, balancing the two responsibilities becomes easier. The need to change boys’ and men’s attitudes towards caregiving and other unpaid work and ensuring that men are not stigmatised when they take on care responsibilities is a keystone of gender equality.

Join us in challenging, and eradicating, the ideas which to this day keep us all back from achieving fulfilling, fair, lives.

Michael Camilleri is director of the Human Rights Directorate