SD : People : Male Involvement in Reproductive Health: Incorporating Gender Throughout the Life Cycle

Posted November 1998

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) World Health Organization (WHO) International Labour Organization (ILO) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Male Involvement in Reproductive Health: Incorporating Gender Throughout the Life Cycle

UNFPA Technical Support Services System
Occasional Paper Series No. 1
June 1998

This page presents the Preface, Table of contents and Introduction of the paper. The full document is available for downloading via FTP (Word 6.0, zipped, 120K). It is also available in html format: Male Involvement in Reproductive Health: Incorporating Gender Throughout the Life Cycle

Preface

This is the first of a series of Occasional Inter-Agency Technical Support Services System papers. The purpose of the series is to provide timely and relevant inputs to contribute to the process of national capacity building by translating state-of-the-art knowledge and country level experiences into operational strategies, bringing together the multi-disciplinary resources of the TSS System.

The idea to do collaborative work on male involvement in reproductive health originated in a CST Bangkok internal seminar which was attended by two FAO TSS specialists. It was identified and adopted as a system-wide priority issue. A joint TSS-CST drafting committee produced a first draft, which was broadly circulated for comments and inputs throughout the system. After these inputs were incorporated, the document was discussed between CST and TSS staff at the internal seminars of the CSTs of Addis Ababa, Harare and Kathmandu in order to incorporate practical aspects from field experience. Several country programme managers and UNFPA Country Representatives participated in these seminars.

The original drafting committee was composed of Jacques du Guerny (Chief, SDWP/FAO), Janet Edmondson (FAO-CST Bangkok) who worked on the socio-cultural dimensions of male involvement, Malika Ladjali (TSS-WHO), who developed the components related to services, Marilyn Rice (TSS-WHO), who worked on the IEC/Advocacy issues and Marcela Villarreal (TSS-FAO), who worked on the problem statement and on the socio-cultural issues.

Given the nature of the paper, which focuses on hands-on operationalization of the issues, bibliographical references have been omitted. A large number of references consulted can be made available by the TSS specialists involved.

The innovativeness of this approach stems from the fact that from the outset, the discussion involved the different disciplines and agencies present in the system and brought together the conceptual and the empirical aspects of the topic. This document provides one example of the way in which the integration of the different components of the system can have far reaching and practical implications for country programmes and national capacity building. It is hoped that the present paper will contribute to demonstrating the pioneering role of the TSS system in integrating multi-disciplinary and inter-agency approaches to population issues for the benefit of country programmes.

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the active contribution of the all the CSTs to this paper, and in particular the CST Addis Ababa for providing the first opportunity for the TSS specialists to discuss the issue of male involvement in reproductive health programmes with CST Advisers, Country Representatives, other UN agencies, NGOs, programme managers and parliamentarians.

Jacques du Guerny
Chief, Population Programme Service
FAO

Preface

I. Introduction

II. Gender and the Life Cycle Approach to Reproductive Health

III. Services

IV. Advocacy and IEC

V. Male Involvement in UNFPA Country Programmes

Conclusions

Introduction

In the last few years more attention has been focusing on the issue of male involvement1 in reproductive health, and as its importance is acknowledged, more programmes are trying to incorporate it as one of their components. However, existing programmes tend to share potentially problematic aspects: first, male components are usually limited to male methods of family planning, only one element of reproductive health. Second, they tend to address men only, in a similar way as the old programmes addressed women only without taking into account their gender relations. A focus on men only is as inadequate as a focus on women only because it fails to take into account the way in which many decisions are made and the context that influences them. Third, they tend to be grounded on a negative premise, men's irresponsibility, rather than a positive one of promotion of men's rights. Fourth, by viewing men as a route for women's well-being they instrumentalize men and fail to address men's needs.

These problematic aspects emanate from:

A female bias in the gender literature, and the consequent lack of knowledge of the male side of gender. The gender literature tends to be by women on women.
The traditional inability to set up programmes on the understanding of gender relations, disregarding the power relations and the gender roles that influence decision-making related to reproductive health.
The way in which programmes were traditionally institutionalized, through the maternal and child health (MCH) facility of the Ministry of Health, that focused on women (and children, in the traditional dyad) and barred men from access to services and from exercising a number of responsibilities in the area of reproductive health of their wives and health of their children.
Commonly held myths and erroneous assumptions about men's views of family planning, sexuality and health.
The lack of data to understand male perspectives and the extent of their involvement in reproductive health issues. The surveys most relied upon for reproductive health (RH) programmes usually ask questions only of women, assuming that they are the ones who make the decisions regarding reproduction and that the men are either not involved or marginally involved.

While it is commonly agreed that programmes that aim to improve both women's and men's reproductive health should incorporate men, it is important to keep in mind a potential danger for women: when not adequately focused, the result of the programme may be the translation of the locus of control from women to men in reproductive health issues, with the consequent loss of women's autonomy in an area that is seen by many as one of the few in which women can effectively exercise decision-making.

Given that the aim of the programmes is to improve the reproductive health of both women and men, better programmes have to develop concrete strategies to understand and incorporate the male perspective and male needs in the same way as attention is given to women's perspectives and needs. In order to avoid a shift in the locus of control, programmes should aim to incorporate adequate male involvement, not only more involvement. Thus programmes should be based on the understanding of gender dynamics, on how decisions are made and implemented, on the changing needs of both genders and their interaction. Much more needs to be known about the relations between men and women in the particular contexts where programmes will be set up in order to make an effective change. This knowledge will aid in the definition of what is meant by adequate involvement (it can be defined from the point of view of the women, the men or the programme).

Two issues merit consideration regarding the resources needed to cater to men's reproductive health needs: in the first place, the more services are set up based on an understanding of the underlying gender relations, the more they will benefit both women and men. When adequately set up, services for men will not only address their own needs, but will contribute to relieve women of one of their many burdens. Thus, services for men do not compete with the already scanty resources available for women's services. Secondly, as discussed in this paper, services for men are not necessarily expensive.

The focus on men in this paper does not mean that a gender approach is not used. Conversely, the emphasis on women in much of the gender literature has left male perspectives as the missing link to a true gender approach. Far from arguing that the focus should be on men and women separately, we argue for the need to base our strategies, be they oriented to men or to women, on the analysis of gender interactions and needs. This paper is meant to help strengthen a component of a broader and more comprehensive gender approach.

In this paper our aim is to look into the socio-cultural aspects that shape male perspectives, based on the socially-embedded gender relations in the different stages of the life cycle, and to use this knowledge to suggest ways to increase men's involvement in reproductive health issues and to improve services. Within this context, information, education and communication (IEC) and advocacy strategies are also suggested. Finally, some recommendations are given for helping UNFPA Country Programmes better address male involvement in reproductive health.

Download Male involvement in reproductive health (Word 6.0, zipped, 120K)

Male Involvement in Reproductive Health: Incorporating Gender Throughout the Life Cycle

Preface

Table of Contents

Introduction