Man Enough? Measuring Masculine Norms to Promote Women’s Empowerment
Masculinities can either support or hinder women’s empowerment and greater gender equality. However, a lack of consistent and comparable data hinders efforts to understand and assess harmful, restrictive masculinities. This report identifies and describes ten norms of restrictive masculinities to be urgently addressed within the political, economic and private spheres. Alongside these norms the report highlights gender-equitable alternatives, which support women’s empowerment in practice. By mapping available and ideal indicators, the report provides a roadmap for efforts to measure changing norms of masculinities. In doing so, this report aims to support policies to transform masculinities by facilitating the creation of more and better data on masculine norms.
Masculinities and women’s empowerment in the private sphere
This chapter presents five norms of restrictive masculinities that directly affect women’s and girls’ empowerment and well-being in the private sphere. These norms dictate that a “real” man should: i) not do unpaid care and domestic work, ii) have the final say in household decisions, iii) control household assets, iv) protect and exercise guardianship of women in the household, and v) dominate sexual and reproductive choices. Each of these norms reinforces the discriminatory social institutions that govern the private sphere, revealing one of the reasons why change in this area has been so slow. Nevertheless, gender-equitable masculinities are also emerging in the private sphere, evidence of which is highlighted in this chapter.