Helen Joseph Memorial Lecture – Men and Gender Equality: Between the Urgency and the Confusion

This report presents Gary Barker’s presentation from the Helen Joseph Memorial Lecture on Men and Gender Equality at the University of Johannesburg. His lecture addressed three main questions:  First, what is happening with men and masculinities in terms of gender equality? What do they think about these changing realities? Second, what do we make of poor and disadvantaged men? As we talk about gender inequality and have a global project of economically empowering women, what do we make of economically disadvantaged men? And finally, Gary spoke about the challenges of programs and policies and why we have been misguided in our dealing with kicking and screaming men and in understanding the troubled state of masculinities.