An Everyone a Changemaker Perspective on the Practice of Care - Men's Crucial Role

Could you help us understand the consequences of a patriarchal and sexist society? What are the negative consequences for men? 

Although patriarchy has historically granted a mindset and positions of power and privilege to men, this sociocultural framework has also generated negative consequences for them. It especially affects men who do not conform to the traditional expectations imposed by hegemonic masculinity. The restrictive gender norms imposed by the patriarchal system negatively impact them by limiting their ability to connect/express emotions, establish deep bonds, seek help, father and care for others holistically, and explore a wide range of interests and roles in society. 

One of the main consequences of entrenched gender mandates in the still predominant machismo is the damage it causes to men's physical and emotional health. Whether it involves neglecting ourselves, ignoring self-care, demanding too much from oneself, assuming unhealthy behaviors, not avoiding preventable diseases, or ignoring serious discomforts due to "what will others say" (because we have been told that showing vulnerability is not manly or is only for weak men), all these neglects lead to illnesses, mental health issues, and even to unnecessary risks that can affect our freedom or life itself. 

This also limits our empathetic capacities, involving social conducts that seek to understand others and exercise more care and solidarity towards others and within the social contexts we operate in. 

What are the structures of the current macho, sexist, and misogynistic system that hinder men from taking responsibility for caring for themselves and others? 

Patriarchy perpetuates gender stereotypes by imposing biases, roles, and expectations based on sex. Men are expected to be strong, brave, and dominant, which limits our ability to explore interests and abilities considered "feminine," such as empathy, compassion, and caring for others. These stereotypes also restrict men's opportunities in jobs and activities considered mainly for women, such as nursing, teaching, and caregiving. Men are taught to demand services from women in their vicinity in almost all aspects of daily life. We are taught not to take on responsibilities beyond providing financially. Early on, we learn to receive care from others, but never to care for oneself or others. We have a long way to go to achieve effective self-sufficiency in aspects of daily life. We are far from fully assuming commitments of everything involving household work (organization, cleanliness, personal and special hygiene, caring for children and others, etc.). 

How would you define a community centered on care? What principles, mentalities, or practices would define it? 

At its core, a care-centered community places the principle of life sustainability and recognizes the interdependence between people, everyone’s vulnerability, environmental impact of one’s actions, and seeking further social and economic development for all. It includes guaranteeing the rights of people who require care and the rights of those who care for others. It recognizes and promotes self-care and co-responsibility between men and women, but also between the state, families, communities, and the market. Hence, it is important to promote public policies that ensure a prioritization of comprehensive care for the members of each family nucleus (regardless of its configuration). These policies need to come from all the different spaces where we organize social dynamics in democratic contexts and they need to come through complementary, simultaneous and enduring strategies, accompanied with sufficient public resources.  

How can communities centered on human care contribute to the well-being of men? And how can they help combat toxic masculinity? 

By placing care at the center of life and communities, it is important to consider the benefits of co-responsibility as a key strategy to favor change. Fundamental changes include: 

• Promoting autonomy and self-sufficiency: learning to care for oneself without depending on an external person (usually female). 

• Increasing personal (self-esteem) and social (healthier and richer affective relationships) wellbeing. This implies paradigm shifts in terms of how to value individual, community, and social wellbeing/happiness. 

• Learning new skills and competencies for life. 

• Improving family and intimate relationships: it reduces stress and assigns a participatory role to each person. Men, let's learn to listen, and to keep our word. 

• Enabling men to enjoy and enrich their lives by accompanying their loved ones in crucial moments of life: raising children, illnesses, births, trips, exams, end-of-life moments, etc. 

• Being released from the pressure of acting as the (sole) family provider. 

• Improving health: if men learn to take care of themselves and others, their healthy habits improve, their quality-of-life increases, and they live longer. 

What is the importance of men's co-leadership in these communities? What would be the first steps you would suggest for men to take responsibility for caring for others and for themselves? 

Rather than just thinking or verbalizing change, we must act on it. Therefore, active participation of each man as a changemaker, daring to break patriarchal paradigms that are reproduced and transmitted generationally, becomes extremely important. 

This kind of male participation around care implies co-responsibility: we must carry out transformational work to break away from traditional hegemonic masculinity (transfigured as machismo) and build and promote new models of masculinity in which care and emotions have a privileged space. 

The first steps involve reflecting on our way of being men, our ways of relating, the costs of continuing to reproduce roles that distance us from promoting everyone’s wellbeing. This process will lead us to action, and to begin to change everything that harms us and others. We can’t wait for big external calls to action, it’s enough for each individual to activate their own will. Almost every man has the creative potential to take positive steps by summoning those sensible, sensitive, empathetic, supportive, tender, respectful, and loving dimensions from which he can share spaces in alternative ways to those imposed by patriarchal codes. 

Success depends on each man's personal and active responsibility. This way, others would gradually replicate alternative socialization models and become aware of the consequences when they aren’t involved in change, as well as of the benefits that co-responsibility provides, not only for others but also for oneself. It’s important to articulate high-impact strategies like awareness campaigns, modifying the legal frameworks to engage men in true equality measures, build new paradigms in workplaces, develop new public educational approaches devoid of stereotypes for the next generations, find ways to prevent risky behaviors, and promote self-care for the different segments of the male population.  

What strategies can be applied for men to challenge traditional gender roles and embrace caregiving as a strength rather than a weakness? 

It is necessary to sensitize, prevent, address, inform, educate, and train, individually and collectively. It’s also important to chastise or castigate, when necessary, behaviors that produce negligence, omission, abandonment, or violence. I would reinforce the importance of accompanying these efforts with public policies aimed at generating the conditions required for men's effective involvement in the culture of self-care and caregiving. 

The work generated with these strategies must be documented, measured, evaluated, and adjusted, for which sufficient time and resources are required. This effort should make the benefits evident to all and support in incentivizing active participation and full responsibility of all men. Lastly, it is important to also consider crucial factors like intersectionality and territoriality for the best accuracy possible in the design, implementation and analysis.  

Note: Minor edits have been applied for clarity.