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Men and Development: Politicizing Masculinities
A wide-ranging volume featuring contributions from some of today's leading thinkers and practitioners in the field of men, masculinities and development.
Together, contributors challenge the neglect of the structural dimensions of patriarchal power relations in current development policy and practice, and the failure to adequately engage with the effects of inequitable sex and gender orders on both men's and women's lives.
The book calls for renewed engagement in efforts to challenge and change stereotypes of men, to dismantle the structural barriers to gender equality, and to mobilize men to build new alliances with women's movements and other movements for social and gender justice.
Together, contributors challenge the neglect of the structural dimensions of patriarchal power relations in current development policy and practice, and the failure to adequately engage with the effects of inequitable sex and gender orders on both men's and women's lives.
The book calls for renewed engagement in efforts to challenge and change stereotypes of men, to dismantle the structural barriers to gender equality, and to mobilize men to build new alliances with women's movements and other movements for social and gender justice.
- GenresNonfiction
264 pages, Hardcover
First published July 7, 2011
25 people want to read
About the author
Andrea Cornwall
32 books8 followersAndrea Cornwall is a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, where she directs a multi-country research programme, Pathways of Women's Empowerment (www.pathways-of-empowerment.org). She has worked in the field of sexual and reproductive health and participatory methodologies for many years, and is co-editor of Realizing Rights: Transforming Approaches to Sexual and Reproductive Wellbeing (with Alice Welbourn, Zed Books, 2002) and Feminisms in Development: Contradictions, Contestations and Challenges (with Elizabeth Harrison and Ann Whitehead, Zed Books, 2006).
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January 5, 2026
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3.5 Stars
Feelings about the book:
- Pretty good book, but it is greatly flawed and the second half of the book is way better than the first half.
Premise/Plot:
- The contributors in this anthology, range from sociologists, to activists, to anthropologists from around the globe. We get chapters about men and masculinity, from Malawi to India, South Africa, Brazil, Uganda, Europe, China. This book covers a lot of territory and cultures.
- This book is divided into 3 parts: (1) embodiments and transgressions, (2) structures, inequities, violence, power and (3) engagements: changing masculinities
Themes:
- Power, patriarchy, sexual health, violence, sexuality and more
Pros:
- For the first several chapters, I wasn’t expecting there to be a crazy focus on sex and HIV and transgender people. It makes sense given the nature of some countries. I did take away a lot from those chapters.
- This book went on a four-chapter run from chapter 8-11. Chapter 8 was What Would Make Men Interested in Gender Equality: Reflections From East Africa by Margrethe Silberschmidt.
- Chapter 9 was also good. Men in/and Gender Equality, A Conversation From South Africa by Robert Morrell and Penny Morrell. They have a good back-and-forth conversation in this chapter.
- Chapter 10 – Militarised, Religious and Neo-Colonial: The Triple Bind Confronting Men in Contemporary Uganda by Chris Dolan.
- Chapter 11 - Local Lives, Global Dialogues: Shifting Discourses of Masculinity in India by Radhika Chopra. In this chapter, there is a section called servitude, sacrifice and support which really opened my eyes. Chopra provides a very vital glimpse into a very important and neglected part actual masculinity. It really made me think about just how vast, and deep masculinity is. Chopra really set out what she stated in her subtitle. Because this way of thinking about masculinity really does change the discourse. I think with a lot of feminist and anti-male people don’t get, is that there is a certain level of respect one has to analyse this from.
Cons:
- This book had a constant current of feminist thought behind it. A lot of the chapters, mention feminism, which is not a surprise. But few too many times, the conversation about men was in relation to its pairing with the ideology. Which felt quite weird at times.
- Some of the contributors in this volume, state numerous times that men are victims of the system, but most of the talk about helping men is to just aid feminism. Not children, or society in general, just feminism and its goals.
- The consistency of the chapters didn’t really get good until we got to halfway through the book, starting with chapter 8 which was part two of the book, which was by far the best and strongest part of the book.
Quotes:
‘Masculinity is composed of elements, identities and behaviours that are not always coherent. They may be competing, contradictory and mutually undermining, and may have multiple and ambiguous meanings according to context, culture and time (Connell, 1995).’
‘For patriarchy does not mean that men have only privileges. Men also have many responsibilities. The key and the irony of the patriarchal system reside precisely in the fact that male authority has a material base while male responsibility is normatively constituted.’
‘According to Kopytoff (1990), some identities are based on what a person is (existential identity), others are based on what a person does (role-based identity). Some of these identities are negotiable. Others are not.’
‘But what of those men who are placed to be able to participate more actively in society? Not those grouped at the top, but rather those at the middle level – like school teachers, people who run businesses and workers/employees in secure jobs.’
‘In South Asia, for example, there is a cultural expectation that sons will support older parents, particularly widowed mothers – an aspect of personal-political practices that ‘men as supportive partners’ agendas need to take on board.’
‘I begin from the view that male support has a culturally rooted existence and is not exclusively ‘created’ by policy or programmatic interventions.’
‘It seems clear to me that autonomy is not uniform, and nor is it to be understood as such. Cultural and historical locations produce their own ‘version’, if you will, of what autonomy looks like from different perspectives and positions.’
‘The predominant principle is that each man must take responsibility for his own process of critical analysis and subsequent transformation, a task that demands honesty and sincerity, and a large amount of courage.’
3.5 Stars
Feelings about the book:
- Pretty good book, but it is greatly flawed and the second half of the book is way better than the first half.
Premise/Plot:
- The contributors in this anthology, range from sociologists, to activists, to anthropologists from around the globe. We get chapters about men and masculinity, from Malawi to India, South Africa, Brazil, Uganda, Europe, China. This book covers a lot of territory and cultures.
- This book is divided into 3 parts: (1) embodiments and transgressions, (2) structures, inequities, violence, power and (3) engagements: changing masculinities
Themes:
- Power, patriarchy, sexual health, violence, sexuality and more
Pros:
- For the first several chapters, I wasn’t expecting there to be a crazy focus on sex and HIV and transgender people. It makes sense given the nature of some countries. I did take away a lot from those chapters.
- This book went on a four-chapter run from chapter 8-11. Chapter 8 was What Would Make Men Interested in Gender Equality: Reflections From East Africa by Margrethe Silberschmidt.
- Chapter 9 was also good. Men in/and Gender Equality, A Conversation From South Africa by Robert Morrell and Penny Morrell. They have a good back-and-forth conversation in this chapter.
- Chapter 10 – Militarised, Religious and Neo-Colonial: The Triple Bind Confronting Men in Contemporary Uganda by Chris Dolan.
- Chapter 11 - Local Lives, Global Dialogues: Shifting Discourses of Masculinity in India by Radhika Chopra. In this chapter, there is a section called servitude, sacrifice and support which really opened my eyes. Chopra provides a very vital glimpse into a very important and neglected part actual masculinity. It really made me think about just how vast, and deep masculinity is. Chopra really set out what she stated in her subtitle. Because this way of thinking about masculinity really does change the discourse. I think with a lot of feminist and anti-male people don’t get, is that there is a certain level of respect one has to analyse this from.
Cons:
- This book had a constant current of feminist thought behind it. A lot of the chapters, mention feminism, which is not a surprise. But few too many times, the conversation about men was in relation to its pairing with the ideology. Which felt quite weird at times.
- Some of the contributors in this volume, state numerous times that men are victims of the system, but most of the talk about helping men is to just aid feminism. Not children, or society in general, just feminism and its goals.
- The consistency of the chapters didn’t really get good until we got to halfway through the book, starting with chapter 8 which was part two of the book, which was by far the best and strongest part of the book.
Quotes:
‘Masculinity is composed of elements, identities and behaviours that are not always coherent. They may be competing, contradictory and mutually undermining, and may have multiple and ambiguous meanings according to context, culture and time (Connell, 1995).’
‘For patriarchy does not mean that men have only privileges. Men also have many responsibilities. The key and the irony of the patriarchal system reside precisely in the fact that male authority has a material base while male responsibility is normatively constituted.’
‘According to Kopytoff (1990), some identities are based on what a person is (existential identity), others are based on what a person does (role-based identity). Some of these identities are negotiable. Others are not.’
‘But what of those men who are placed to be able to participate more actively in society? Not those grouped at the top, but rather those at the middle level – like school teachers, people who run businesses and workers/employees in secure jobs.’
‘In South Asia, for example, there is a cultural expectation that sons will support older parents, particularly widowed mothers – an aspect of personal-political practices that ‘men as supportive partners’ agendas need to take on board.’
‘I begin from the view that male support has a culturally rooted existence and is not exclusively ‘created’ by policy or programmatic interventions.’
‘It seems clear to me that autonomy is not uniform, and nor is it to be understood as such. Cultural and historical locations produce their own ‘version’, if you will, of what autonomy looks like from different perspectives and positions.’
‘The predominant principle is that each man must take responsibility for his own process of critical analysis and subsequent transformation, a task that demands honesty and sincerity, and a large amount of courage.’
Displaying 1 of 1 review