DOWN SOUTH
Let the men speak
Over the weekend, we launched a book that told the story of a community-based male participation project for gender and development. This is the first program in the Philippines that engages men and boys on the cross-cutting issues of domestic violence, reproductive health, sexually transmitted infections and risky lifestyle.
For decades now, efforts for gender equity have focused on empowering women. Following the social justice dictum for those who have less in life to have more in law, gender equity is sought through legislations to bring women higher social participation, better access to services, and protection from abuse. The emphasis on justice assumes that all women are wronged by the system and by their men. By taking this track, gender and development efforts had somewhat relegated to the background the importance of work on prevention of abuse and rehabilitation of doers of violence.
Feminists often talk about men needing to deconstruct their notions of gender. That’s easy enough to do. We just need to erase their memory and rebuild from scratch.
They also say that men who are trapped in the cycle of violence could only go from bad to worse. The assumption is that men can’t change: If he hits you once, better pack your bags because next time he’ll hit you harder.
Frankly, I’m quite at a loss following this train of thought: Men are supposed to be taught to deconstruct, but men have no hope of changing how they are. You can argue till you’re blue, but that’s a no win situation you’re taking on, sister.
Logic tells us that time moves in a linear fashion. What has been done can’t be undone. Then, too, violence and abuse aren’t so much about the victim as they are about the doer. We can’t retract the hand that hit, but we can make that hand choose not to hit ever again. In the case of those who have yet to hit, we can teach that it takes strength to choose to be gentle.
So can he or can he not change?
Fortunately, we don’t have to argue over contending hypotheses anymore. Working on their assumptions, feminists have done much to improve the lived experiences of women in my generation. Equally of value today is the pioneering work of MR GAD (Men’s Responsibilities in Gender and Development), a pilot program in six Davao City barangays that works on the assumption that cognitive schemata could be restructured, instead of deconstructed, to cause behavior modification even among doers of violence. The end result is the same: Women are happier and protected, if not cherished.
If there is a publication project that gratified me so much in the last few years, this book is it. Documenting the MR GAD experience gave me a lot of aha moments. It held me in awe of the courage and commitment demonstrated by Dr. Jun Naraval and his team in forging ahead on an uncharted course, innovating as they went along. They asked: If men are the major actors in gender-based violence, why aren’t there interventions that specifically focus on men? What do men need in order for them to choose to take responsibility for gender equity? For the answers, Jun and his team went to the source: They asked the men. They listened and tried to really hear what was being said.
It is very rare for advocacy not to be fueled by its own pet theories and prescriptions on the nature of social pathology and how to make it right. This, I think, was the key to MR GAD’s success – they examined and treated the symptoms. They did not assume that they were dealing with a pathology of epidemic proportions.
As a groundbreaking work, MR GAD courts controversy by doing what has never been done. It has been long assumed that gender equity work is about improving conditions for women – ergo, a male participation program for gender and development should do just that: improve measures for utilization of family planning methods, enhance access to prenatal and postnatal services, raise maternal survival rates, etc.
Numbers. And thoughts of a barangay health worker showing some discomfited men how to fix the condom on her index finger. Oh, sorry – that’s a 20-year-old memory. They must do it a tad more factually these days, but I’d bet the clients’ discomfiture hasn’t totally gone away.
Now, take a man to show another how it’s done. Yeah, okay, so it gets rowdy and the jokes the learning session elicits wouldn’t exactly be fit for a lady’s ears. So, get the ladies away so boys can be boys. Just because we say let’s talk about sex doesn’t mean men and boys won’t find it uncomfortable discussing that in mixed company. Let them work out that discomfort among themselves if that is the way to get them to know why and how to protect themselves and their partners.
By using men-talking-to-men strategies, MR GAD unlocks the Filipino male psychology of sexual expressions, gender relations and masculine prescriptions. By dignifying these disclosures, the MR GAD team came to realize that men and boys have in and by themselves gender needs that require addressing. Beyond engaging male and boys for the purpose of improving the development indicators for women, MR GAD proves its commitment to provide quality care by designing interventions that respond to these articulated needs.
MR GAD improved community literacy on women laws. It helped men in local government positions and service agencies come to terms with the difficulties they experienced in implementing these laws. In collaboration with them, procedures and protocols were worked out, allowing for more appropriate conduct, monitoring, and evaluation of service provision. It explained to doers of violence why the laws were crafted that way and what options are available for them not to run afoul of these laws again the next time they need to work out personal differences with their partners.
While putting in place the mechanisms for the smooth dispensation of justice on matters of domestic violence in the community, MR GAD also courts controversy in its recognition of the victim’s right to choose to opt instead for community support in rehabilitating her offending partner. Thus, community structures are also capacitated to allow her this option.
The MR GAD program framework is founded on elements that prove to be flexible enough to adjust to the peculiar needs of each pilot barangay. Narrative discourse analysis brings out scripts and erroneous beliefs about male behavior. For cognitive restructuring and anger management, it teaches the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. It regulates its effectiveness through data-driven ways, allowing the program to adjust interventions based on documented information. It provides an early socialization package to encourage boys to adopt gender-sensitive and gender-fair ways of thinking, feeling, acting and interacting.
Perhaps the most important contribution of MR GAD is in getting the various stakeholders of the community to work together. True to its non-violent prescriptions, space was created for everybody to contribute to the effort to address the gender needs of men, women and youth. Far from antagonizing women’s groups by catering to and privileging men’s needs, MR GAD had done much to push the advocacy to make men understand why women ought to be protected and supported.
Ms. Lyda Canson of the Development of Peoples Foundation, in her response during the MR GAD’s partner conference, graciously thanked MR GAD for “proving her wrong”. She told the audience about men she knew to have reformed, proving her wrong in her long-held assumption that men who are caught in the cycle of violence cannot change.
Coming from someone who is among the forerunners in championing women’s rights, this is indeed high praise. For so long, women’s organizations have been seemingly battling it out on their own. Ms. Canson must be most happy to see that the task of securing women in their homes is now being shared by the bigger community.
In the publication that the Dr. Naraval’s Health Management and Research Group Foundation, Inc. (HMRG) launched last Saturday, we detailed the programmatic elements to MR GAD in order to inform, inspire, and encourage policy-makers, government officials, NGOs, and other entities that work untiringly for gender and development. We also sought to capture how the MR GAD program was customized by its end-users through case studies of each pilot barangay.
I wrote the primer and the case studies for Sasa and Panacan, making up about half of this book. The other case studies were written by health researcher Andy Villa (Daliao and Toril), UP Mindanao instructor Arve Banez (Calinan), and ADDU law student JL Esparcia (Riverside). Jun Naraval and MR GAD Executive Director Erick Mascardo provided a brief on the rationale, implementation, and accomplishments of MR GAD.
I thank the HMRG for the opportunity to lead on this publication. I also thank POPCOM XI Director Maduh Damsani for insisting that I take on this project. Sir Mads has been reading me all these years so much so that sometimes he just knows what’s good for me better than I do myself. Thank you, sir. It was a priceless learning experience.
The book is available for order through MR GAD’s office at HMRG, Diokno Bldg., Gempesaw Street. That’s in Davao City – where the pioneering spirit lives on and people work out answers to thorny issues that hit the national consciousness ten years later. Call (082) 3051202.