After #metoo there’s a strong feeling that men want to help fight gender inequality, but many don’t know where to start. One way has been that men have shared their own roles as perpetrators of sexual harassment or sexual assault using a variety of hashtags. Men have begun to question themselves, asking themselves how they have been a part of the suffering that #metoo highlights?
Maybe you’ve started reflecting over your own actions and remembered occasions where you’ve said something or done something that you regretted afterward?
Or the times where you didn’t intervene and in retrospect felt that you should have done something? Feelings of guilt and shame might pop up. You may also feel angry over the situation and want to do something—to once and for all put an end to the suffering that so many women go through, suffering that #metoo has now brought to light and made public. Now when the time has come to do something, you may be afraid of not knowing what to do and not knowing how to do it. You want to speak out but hold back because you don’t want to say the wrong thing.
We’ve organized reflective groups for many years, both in Sweden and internationally. By creating safe spaces where we can talk about our own experiences, feelings, emotions, and will to improve ourselves and the society we live in, we hope that we can create a platform that enables change. We believe that these reflective groups are a way to make this change happen.
MÄN is a nonprofit, feminist organization founded in 1993 as a platform for men to act against men’s violence toward women. We work to change destructive masculinity norms and reduce male violence. Our vision is an equal world free from violence. We can see that men’s violent behavior originates from and reproduces a world that is not gender equal and where men have more power and privileges. Therefore, all our work is grounded in a feminist perspective and with close links to the women’s movement. Our goal is not to stand in the way of the women’s movement and make the question of men and masculinity the only objective. We must work to be a part of the movement and make sure that we can strengthen it. In doing so and following the feminist perspective, we believe that men also will benefit. This all comes down to the equal world that we want to create and that we all will benefit from.