JUSTIFICATION

The congress that we present in its second edition, the “II INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MASCULINITIES AND EQUALITY: EDUCATION FOR EQUALITY AND CO(EDUCATION) (CIMASCIGUAL II), focuses on a topic that is essential for achieving real and effective equality between women and men.

This event will feature some of the most-renowned Spanish and international experts on studies of gender, feminism, masculinities, and coeducation: faculty members, researchers, educational professionals who are addressing this issue (theoretically, empirically, and practically) today.

We want to debate and delve into, with a gender perspective and an intersectional approach, the role that education plays in the socialization of men in relation to aspects such as: differential socialization, the maintenance or elimination of gender inequalities, the work towards healthy relationships; the promotion of pro-feminist men and “new” egalitarian masculinities; the involvement of parents in educating children on egalitarian values and the promotion of new co-responsible, egalitarian, and caring fatherhood; how sexism harms men, how to disseminate and teach how to become a non-sexist man. Other congress topics include: the risks coming from new forms of sexism, men and gender-based violence, men and sexuality (prostitution, trafficking, rape, pornography, etc.), male chauvinistic reactions to the advances of feminism, masculinities and sexual diversity, youth facing the crisis of masculine identity, etc.

We seek to train and raise awareness in the male population on gender equality. Then, men can learn other possible ways to express masculinities (multiple and diverse) in ways that are not sexist, androcentric, or patriarchal, prompting their own deconstruction, looking at themselves in the mirror with a gender perspective (of unequal power relations between men and women) and committing themselves to feministic causes. In turn, the knowledge of the cultural construction of masculinity will enable women to better understand the logic of patriarchy and masculine socialization in a chauvinistic society that still persists. Such knowledge will provide women with tools to dismantle the hegemonic ideological representations of gender, sexist behaviors, and the micro-chauvinism that perpetuates inequalities between women and men.

Nobody ever said achieving gender equality would be quick and easy, and there is little doubt that without men this goal will be impossible. To go beyond legal and regulatory gender equality and actually attain real and effective equality in all social spheres and in everyday life, we must continue working with and for women, while at the same time men must join this feminist social revolution/transformation. Furthermore, for this to occur, EDUCATION ON EQUALITY AND COEDUCATION focused on children, adolescents, youth, and adults (men) is paramount for accelerating changes and reducing the gaps earlier on.