Rising suicides among young men; educational underachievement among boys; male detachment from the labour market - in the UK statistics such as these are regularily used to support the argument that men are 'in crisis'. But overall trends still show that women are the majority of those living in poverty (as thery are internationally). While talk of a crisis mae be overdone, there are real concerns regarding te position of those groups of men in the UK at the sharp end of economic and social change. In this context, to overlook what is happening to men could undermine attempts to improve gender relations. How men's lives ca and must be transformed so that they can work with women against poverty and for gender equality is the starting point of this book. Men, Masculinities, and Poverty in the UK was commissioned by Oxfam's UK Poverty Prgramme to explore how changing economic, social and political circumstances are affecting gender relations. Sandy Ruxton draws upon a review of the relevant literature and the experience of a wide range of community-based groups across the UK, in particular those working in the fields of employment training, men's health, gender-based violence, and fatherhood. He highlights the importance of using a coherent gender analysis to assess the nature, scope, and effectiveness of work with men, and concludes with recommendations for developing work with men in the UK in order to address poverty and gender inequality.


AUTHOR BIOG

Sandy Ruxton is an Oxfam GB Policy Advisor on UK and EU poverty issues, with responsibility for asylum and migration policy. He has written widely on men and masculinities and is co-author of 'Beyond Civil Rights: Developing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the United Kingdom,' published in Oxfam in 2001.

CONTENTS

• Forward
  
  
• Acknowledgements
  
  
• 1.Introduction
  • Oxfam's approach to gender
  
  
• 2.Men and masculinities: a poverty perspective
  • A crisis of masculinity?
    
  • Picturing gender and poverty in the UK
    
  • Social Focus on Men: key findings
    
  • Theoretical debates about men and masculinities
    
  • Analysing gender relations
    
  • The 'Social Relations' approach
  
  
• 3. Methodology
  
  
• 4.Masculinities in the UK: the policy context
  • The gender impact of government policies to tackle poverty and social exclusion
    
  • Institutional mechanisms for promoting gender equality
  
  
• 5. Employment and training: making masculinities visible
  • The impact of the changing labour market
    
  • Employment training: the gender-blind approach
    
  • Meeting the needs of younger men
    
  • 'Older men don't make fuss
    
  • ' Towards gender-awareness in employment training?
  
  
• 6. Men and health inequalities
  • The context of men's health
    
  • Young men's mental health
    
  • Sexual health and young men
    
  • Improving the health of men in other age groups
    
  • Developing health policy
  
  
• 7. The roots of men's violence
  • Gender and crime: the evidence
    
  • Challenging men's violence
    
  • Masculinity and offending: addressing the wider links
    
  • Men as victims
  
  
• 8. Increasing the focus on fathers
  • The context of fatherhood
    
  • Towards a new policy agenda
    
  • Supporting fathers: the challenge for services
    
  • Practical initiatives to support fathers
    
  • Developing models of support for low-income fathers
  
  
• 9. Conclusions and recommendations
  • Improving gender analysis
    
  • Mainstreaming masculinity and gender
    
  • Targeting male poverty
    
  • Making masculinities visible
    
  • Promoting good practice in working with men
    
  • Increasing funding for work on masculinity issues
    
  • Taking forward the research agenda
  
  
• Notes
  
  
• Appendix: Projects and organisations contacted
  
  
• Index.