United Nations Radio

The UN Secretary-General's UNiTE to End Violence against Women Campaign encourages men to become part of the solution, by confronting negative stereotypes that perpetuate this kind of violence. During the recent meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women, Bissera Kostova spoke to Klas Hyllander, Secretary-General of Men for Gender Equality in Sweden, who told her that he left his job as an engineer to work on gender equality, after a friend of his sensitized him to its importance for both women and men.

 Hyllander: She made me aware of how I and other men, in different situations could subordinate women, but she also, for instance I remember she asked me quite early why I was afraid so often and as a man I kind of was used to saying I'm never afraid, so I don't know what you mean, but through our discussion I started to understand she was right. I was afraid in many social contexts where I felt I had to act in certain ways. And it just made me aware that I had a lot of, you know, feelings about how to act and behave and how to set up a façade at certain times and not showing weakness. So the problems she made me aware of were both, you know, things related to the relationships between women and men, but also problems that men run across, vulnerabilities around men and things that make men feel bad many times, but we're not really aware of it, because we're the norm.

Kostova: Speaking of men's vulnerabilities, they say that now with the financial crisis and men's unemployment, that domestic violence is rising. How do you explain that?

Hyllander: Men are socialized, boys are socialized to believe that our self-esteem is built into being breadwinners and identifying with our work, and what can happen when we see a lot of men lose work is that they feel ashamed, they feel shamed by not being able to fulfill the role that they have been socialized to have and that situation seems to trigger violence more often than in the case when men are, so to speak, able to live the type of life that they think they should have. And it's interesting to see that unemployment doesn't create the same behavior with women, and that has to do with how we have been socialized in different ways according to the gendered society. So you would have to go on and look at other you know, beliefs also that men have the right to use violence and men have the right to control women, and act out violence, so it's a more complex equation.

Kostova: So what specific programmes do you have in your organization?

Hyllander: In Sweden, we've just opened a forum on the Internet, where volunteers, grown-up volunteers interact with boys, ages 10 to 15, so this site on the Internet is marketed to the target group as a place, where young boys can ask questions and have conversations with people that know something of what it means to be a boy in a gender unequal society. So the boys actually chat with our volunteers, they can come back again and again and we can keep track of the conversation with one and the same individual, so we can see what happens and how it develops. And for instance, just the other week we had our first conversation with a boy anonymously talking about the violence he is perpetrating himself. And this is one of the things we want to do, we want to get in touch with these boys and run them through a programme through the chat, but also refer them to the public sector, where there is more professional help.

Kostova: But isn't there a privacy issue there - you said he's reporting it anonymously?

Hyllander: Yes, so we're offering individuals that bring up certain problems, you know, they can be both victims, or perpetrators that come to this type of service, and the best we can do is to give them information on where they can seek professional help, so the decision is with them, but also supporting them and motivating them to seek the help, so that's why we need the process also to talk to them over a period of time. I'd like to add that I think it's really hopeful what we're seeing now - change is possible.

Kostova: When you say change - do you mean men like you getting involved, or is there actual change in the level of violence after men get involved?

Hyllander: At the programming level, we can see that if we do the interventions that are well designed, are based on good knowledge about power relationships and gender we can decrease the prevalence of violence, as reported by women and men. You know, that's the hopeful thing - it's possible.

PRES: Klas Hyllander heads the Swedish organization Men for Gender Equality, and the European region of the umbrella organization MenEngage.

Producer:  Bissera Kostova
Duration: 4'14"