Gender equality policies, masculinity, care and violence: analysis of public policies aimed at men in Spain

This paper presents the preliminary results of the research project "MASPOL: Gender equality policies, masculinity, care and violence: analysis of public policies aimed at men in Spain", which focuses on the analysis of gender equality policies and the actions that are framed within them, whose target audience are men to promote the construction of co-responsible, non-violent and, in short, more egalitarian masculinities. The project is framed in two parallel processes: on the one hand, the institutionalisation of gender equality policies and the gradual consideration that men, as gendered subjects, must be included. That is, gender equality policies in Spain are moving away from a view that focuses exclusively on women and favours their change, to work with men from a gender perspective in order to promote structural change. And, on the other hand, the rise of feminist mobilisations in recent years, which have contributed to the inclusion of gender issues in the media and political agendas. It is here that some sectors of feminism that had already been advocating reflection on masculinity (Tena Guerrero, 2014) are more forcefully questioning masculinity because in order to guarantee women's effective rights, efforts must be made to challenge the norms of hegemonic masculinity. Thus, this paper presents the theoretical framework of the project that justifies the need to address the issue of masculinities in order to promote structural change and, moreover, the preliminary results of the mapping of gender equality policies aimed at men in Spain as well as the analysis of the discourses of stakeholders involved in their implementation in order to assess factors that favour their implementation but also resistance.