Promoting nonviolent, caring families and equitable distribution of care work.
Our latest research shows that care policies are a nonpartisan issue – men want paid leave, subsidized child care, and living wages as much as women do.
Father’s Day week of action: Back at it with the US Congressional Dads Caucus
2024 marked our second collaboration with the US Congressional Dads Caucus around Father’s Day. During this Father’s Day Week of Action, we advocated for paid leave for all parents, and to amplify stories that highlight positive, involved, and equitable fatherhood. We were joined by fathers and fatherhood champions including Congressman Jimmy Gomez, Chair of the Dads Caucus; Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi; Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff; Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, founding member of both the Dads Caucus and Mamas Caucus; Chasten Buttigieg, author, activist, and husband to Secretary Pete Buttigieg; and Laura Modi, co-founder and CEO of the baby formula company Bobbie, and more.
Together, we launched a new study, The Care Burden Affects Us All: Assessing Men’s Stake as Caregivers in the United States, and building on the momentum and commitments from the Father’s Day Week of Action, we created our #VoteLikeADad campaign. The research affirmed that across political divides the vast majority of male and female caregivers want national paid leave policies, subsidized child care, and living wages.
#VoteLikeADad: Getting men to exercise their care muscles in new ways
Born out of our research findings, #VoteLikeADad aims to encourage fathers to vote for political candidates based on their support for the care policies that men say they want. This launch of the campaign called in key partners in the US, including Moms First, Fathering Together, Fatherhood Incorporated, Chamber of Mothers, The National At-Home Dad Network, and City Dads Groups, among many others.
At the heart of the campaign are the core values of paid leave for all, accessible childcare, and a living wage. These priorities were championed in key spaces, like IWPR’s Power+ Summit and the National Fatherhood Conference in Atlanta, where we engaged with the largest network of practitioners in the US. The campaign has also elicited interest from other countries, where potential partners are exploring its contextualization, translation, and implementation. In total, the campaign has had more than 600,000 views and was adapted to Spanish under #VotaComoPapá for Latino men.
Scaling up fatherhood interventions in the Rwandan public health system, Colombia, Niger, Paraguay, and more
Equimundo’s father and parent training is one of the key approaches we support globally. Our Program P approaches have been adapted in more than 30 settings, with a focus on building the approach into the public sector of scale up. In Rwanda the approach is being scaled up and integrated into the country’s health system, leveraging the community health workforce to expand its reach. In 2024, expansion continued toward the goal of reaching 80,000 parents by 2028.
In Colombia, we are building partnerships with civil society and the national government to scale Paternar, a fully digital adaptation of Program P. Across other countries, our fatherhood work focuses on testing innovative pedagogies and identifying diverse entry points within public sector systems to achieve the scale and impact we aim for.
The Global Boyhood Initiative: Building for scale in the UK
Equimundo and Lifting Limits developed a new e-learning ecosystem and curriculum – “Beyond Gender Stereotypes” – to take to scale training that empowers educators, school administrators, and parents of all children from 40 schools in the United Kingdom. This learning experience allows boys and girls to break free from gender stereotypes and will be offered as an open-sourced tool for schools to use as an alternative to the PSHE (Personal, Health, Social, and Economic Education) curriculum.
The e-learning ecosystem was built using backward design methodology, which prioritizes the planned learning outcomes instead of starting from the topics to be covered. It combines gamified resources and formative evaluation to keep the engagement of its participants.
NEW RESEARCH ON BOYS AND ONLINE PORN USE ARGUES FOR COMPREHENSIVE SEXUAL EDUCATION TO BECOME THE NORM IN SCHOOLS
In partnership with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Equimundo interviewed key experts in the space of boys and online porn around the world and concluded that despite porn being a historically contentious topic, there can be a common framework to promote boys’ healthy relationship development in the digital age – moving forward in a shared agenda for action using what the state of the evidence says. With comprehensive sexuality education still being the exception rather than the norm in schools globally, young people and children look to digital spaces to find information and greater understanding about the world around them – including about sex and sexuality, specifically through the consumption of online pornography.
The report and recommendations have been and will be disseminated amongst policymakers and community-serving institutions to facilitate the safe use of the Internet among boys. Further, the results of this review outline evidence gaps as well as promising best practices to educate funders and their future investments in this area.
Global Alliance on the Protection of Boys from Sexual Violence (GAPB): First coalition of organizations aimed at changing narratives and highlighting the lived experiences of boys around sexual violence
2024 marked the year of the birth of the Global Alliance on the Protection of Boys from Sexual Violence (GAPB). This is a coalition that brings together for the first time organizations united in advocating for the effective protection of boys from sexual violence while transforming gender norms and ideas of masculinity. The GAPB is a space where organizations can share, learn, and amplify their voices with a unified message.
The international founding members of the Alliance include the All Survivors Project, ECPAT International, Equimundo, Family for Every Child, Physicians for Human Rights, Save the Children, and the Women’s Refugee Commission.
This partnership has also opened up connections between Equimundo and important stakeholders in the world of online gaming for the construction of safer online spaces for boys, girls, and all children.
Working to foster healthy, social interactions and cultivate inclusive allies in the spaces we share.
The Manosphere, Rewired: Listening to young men in online spaces
In June 2024, Equimundo released the report “The Manosphere, Rewired”, based on findings from a six-month deep dive into the lives of young men online, primarily focused on the platforms and online spaces used by young men in the United States. Our research team analyzed hours of Twitch streams, more than 1.5 million lines of chat logs, and spent hours scrolling through online spaces. In addition, we interviewed dozens of online moderators and influencers. The results confirm both hope and threat co-exist in young men’s online lives.
When two-thirds of young men feel that “no one really knows” them, as State of American Men 2023 showed, this research sought to understand factors in young men’s digital lives that were both sources of isolation, leading to the fragility of their connections and relationships. This massive review of young men’s online lives finds that about 70% of what men seek in online lives is positive – how to build relationships, how to take care of their bodies, and how to succeed in work. The challenge is when profit-driven influencers take advantage of young men’s sense of confusion, social isolation, and economic precarity to present misogynistic and anti-democratic views.
Innovation Lab: Our answer to young men’s crisis of connection
Based on our manosphere research, Equimundo and Futures Without Violence established the Innovation Lab for Healthy Online Masculinities, a multi-year initiative to support positive online connections and invite young men offline.
In October 2024, we partnered with Diverting Hate to test and evaluate placing ads in key male-dominated spaces to promote young men’s engagement with key national policy topics related to the U.S. presidential election. Through targeted advertising outreach on X, we reached 2,778,413 impressions, and implemented regular performance reviews. Our improved understanding of specific messaging for target audiences is providing learning for national scaling up of efforts for healthier online connections, and to invite young men offline.
Man-i-fest: Global Research on Men’s experiences and lives both offline and online
Equimundo’s International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) has been implemented in over 45 countries around the world for 15 years and has been the largest multi-country survey on men’s attitudes about gender and manhood. Building on this, in 2024 Equimundo announced the creation of Man-i-Fest as our next-generation, online global research initiative aiming to understand men’s experiences, perceptions, and lives – both offline, and within online communities – related to gender, manhood, political views, support for gender equality, mental health and online lives. Working in partnership with key global researchers in the gender and masculinity space, the questionnaire was pilot-tested in 2024, and will be implemented in the coming months in the US, UK, Brazil, Indonesia, Morocco, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Jordan, Lebanon, and more. It will also inform a series of global, public-facing events, in partnership with the WOW Foundation, involving storytelling, cultural and political decision-makers, and the general public.
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The Caring Masculinity Fund
In May 2024, Melinda French Gates named Gary Baker, Equimundo President and CEO, as one of 12 global leaders who will each distribute a $20 million fund to charitable organizations doing urgent, impactful, and innovative work to improve women’s health and well-being in the United States and around the world. Gary’s fund, the Caring Masculinity Fund, comes at a crucial moment and will reach hundreds of millions of men and boys in the US and globally.
Learn more about what we do
At Equimundo, our mission is to promote care by and for men and boys, reduce violence and inequity, and in doing so achieve well-being for all.
We see the next decade as critical for continued impact. We invite you to join us in building a safe, caring, just world for all.
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