Engendering healthy masculinities to prevent sexual violence: Rationale for and design of the Manhood 2.0 trial

Abstract

Violence against women and girls is an important global health concern. Numerous health organizations highlight engaging men and boys in preventing violence against women as a potentially impactful public health prevention strategy. Adapted from an international setting for use in the US, "Manhood 2.0" is a "gender transformative" program that involves challenging harmful gender and sexuality norms that foster violence against women while promoting bystander intervention (i.e., giving boys skills to interrupt abusive behaviors they witness among peers) to reduce the perpetration of sexual violence (SV) and adolescent relationship abuse (ARA). Manhood 2.0 is being rigorously evaluated in a community-based cluster-randomized trial in 21 lower resource Pittsburgh neighborhoods with 866 adolescent males ages 13-19. The comparison intervention is a job readiness training program which focuses on the skills needed to prepare youth for entering the workforce, including goal setting, accountability, resume building, and interview preparation. This study will provide urgently needed information about the effectiveness of a gender transformative program, which combines healthy sexuality education, gender norms change, and bystander skills to interrupt peers' disrespectful and harmful behaviors to reduce SV/ARA perpetration among adolescent males. In this manuscript, we outline the rationale for and evaluation design of Manhood 2.0. Clinical Trials #: NCT02427061.

Co-occurrence of Violence-Related Risk and Protective Behaviors and Adult Support Among Male Youth in Urban Neighborhoods

“…Data were collected anonymously from July 27, 2015, to May 18, 2018, and linked by a participant-generated study code to encourage honest responses. 35,36 The present analysis uses baseline and EOP data and was conducted from July 1, 2018, to February 28, 2019. All 866 participants in the program enrolled in the research study component and completed baseline surveys.…”

Masculinities and health scoping review: a report prepared for VicHealth

“…Despite this, there are a few things to note. First, Manhood 2.0 is aimed at lower socio-economic populations and targets young men at risk of marginalisation (Abebe et al, 2018). This speaks to implicit prejudices that presume boys from lower socio-economic backgrounds are somehow more problematic in their constructions and performances of masculinity.…”

“…While its primary aim is to reduce violence against women, it explicitly aspires to engender healthy masculinities. Manhood 2.0 involves challenging harmful gender/sexuality norms, shifting gender norms, reducing homophobic attitudes, improving knowledge around sexuality and sexual consent, and promoting bystander intervention(Abebe et al, 2018). The proposed model also includes discussions about social media use and internet pornography, an exploration of intersectionality using arts-based approaches that cover racism and the marginalisation of African American males in the US along with white and male privilege, female contraception, and bystander intervention skills(Abebe et al, 2018).…”

“…Manhood 2.0 involves challenging harmful gender/sexuality norms, shifting gender norms, reducing homophobic attitudes, improving knowledge around sexuality and sexual consent, and promoting bystander intervention(Abebe et al, 2018). The proposed model also includes discussions about social media use and internet pornography, an exploration of intersectionality using arts-based approaches that cover racism and the marginalisation of African American males in the US along with white and male privilege, female contraception, and bystander intervention skills(Abebe et al, 2018). This is done over an 18-hour curriculum, with six sessions of 3 hours delivered once or twice a week, and is delivered via a range of neighbourhood settings(Abebe et al, 2018).…”

“…The proposed model also includes discussions about social media use and internet pornography, an exploration of intersectionality using arts-based approaches that cover racism and the marginalisation of African American males in the US along with white and male privilege, female contraception, and bystander intervention skills(Abebe et al, 2018). This is done over an 18-hour curriculum, with six sessions of 3 hours delivered once or twice a week, and is delivered via a range of neighbourhood settings(Abebe et al, 2018). To do so, it includes an integrated curriculum and community outreach model as presented inFigure 1. above.…”