Building Alliances to Address Sexual and Gender-based Violence

Abstract

It is now widely accepted that effective strategies to end sexual and gender-based violence must engage with men and boys. In practice, however, the relationship between traditional women’s rights movements and organisations working on engaging men and boys is an uneasy one. There is a necessity to understand these tensions between women’s movements and work with men. We must address feminist concerns about the exclusion of women’s rights, moving away from the ‘men as protectors’ approach and take seriously concerns of lack of funding in specific areas. Alongside this, exploring opportunities for learning across movements will be integral to building better alliances in the future.