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.
Executive summary
Masculinities are social constructs that relate to perceived notions – shared by both men and women – about how men behave and how they are expected to behave in order to be considered “real” men. They are shaped by and are part of social institutions – formal and informal laws, social norms and practices. Diverse forms of masculinities coexist across cultures, geographical locations and time, and some of these masculinities directly hinder women’s empowerment and gender equality.