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How climate change impacts have challenged men's masculinity



Engaging Men and Boys in addressing Climate Change Adaptation
 
The discussions of climate change impacts have focused more on women and girls as the most affected, and indeed I agree with the narrative. It has also gone ahead to tag them as vulnerable, which is also true, but more often we forget their capacities in addressing climate impacts, given the right resources, spaces and opportunities. A lot has been said on that, today I want to focus on men.
 
In the Gender Equality narratives, men have been tagged the aggressors, the abusers, the irresponsible, etc -- I also agree, but add that we also forget to engage men in the discussions to understand their behaviours and motivations.
 
In my gender assessments, I always facilitate separate groups of women and men and then bring them back together to generate consensus after each has shared their perspectives. In some Climate Risk Assessments I was engaged with in North Eastern and mid-western Uganda, Men shared their experiences which got to me and I thought that maybe we need to do more with men as well. Hear this;
 
''Climate change has made us less of the men we used to be. We have lost out cows due to drought, but this is worsened by the Government decisions to disarm us and we cannot even raid our neighbour’s kraals to get more cattle. In our culture, a man's wealth of defined by the number of cows one owns. So we cannot even feed our families, not take care of our wives and children. So instead of staying home, we walk away in shame and stay out. However in returning, the women abuse us and call us useless as if we don't know it already. In anger we strike back and beat them to make them keep quiet''. A man from North Eastern Uganda
 
''The landslides destroyed all our crops for the season, meaning we cannot get food or income. The men crossed over to Congo to look for jobs. However, they never return until they get news that the next season was good. We are left to take care of the children single handed'' - A woman from South Western Uganda (and my colleague made a joke that that men bounce away during extreme events and bounce back when seasons become better!!)
 
So how do we engage men better so the repercussions of their bitterness and failure do not worsen the situation for women and children? From the above scenarios, there is Gender based violence, climate induced migration, increasing stress and care roles for women, which also affects children's nutrition needs, education, health etc. The women cannot do it alone and we also need to realise that gender inequality issues have been in existence for centuries, climate just exacerbates the situation.
 
Recently, engaging with the Ministry of Agriculture in Tanzania, we got a good experience where they are promoting technology that is compatible with traditional ‘’male’’ interests/roles as incentives to engage them in agriculture. For example they were promoting motorable weeding equipment and because of the technology all the men had now taken up weeding (to them it’s driving somethingJ) which role was initially left to the women.
 
So the question is, how do we engage men and boys better, as partners of women and part of the discussion of addressing climate impacts on households? Be part of the discussion.


Tracy C.K – playing the devil’s advocate in this
 
One of my reports on climate, gender and natural resources can be accessed on this link;
 

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