Redefining Masculinity: A Revised Definition Must Undo the Ideology of Male Supremacy

At an early NOMAS Men and Masculinity Conference, one workshop was titled “What is Positive, in traditional Masculinity?” It discussed some “traditionally-masculine” qualities, such as intelligence, courage, determination, logic, self-confidence, etc. It is not difficult to point to some ways in which “traditional masculinity” includes a number of positive traits. One can then envision a […]

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Reproductive and Sexual Coercion: State Sanctioned and Intimate Partner Violence

Reproductive and Sexual Coercion: State Sanctioned and Intimate Partner Violence Reproductive coercion is defined as threats or acts of violence against a partner’s reproductive health or reproductive decision-making and is a collection of behaviors intended to pressure or coerce a partner into becoming a parent or ending a pregnancy. Reproductive coercion is a form of […]

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Reproductive Coercion Toolkit

The National Organization Against Sexism (NOMAS) and the Feminist Women’s Health Center of Atlanta, in collaboration with The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), have developed and created a training and information toolkit for anti-violence, women’s health centers, and collaborative agencies on the impact of reproductive and sexual coercion and intimate partner violence. The vision […]

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NOMAS Position Statement on “Objectification of Women”

• Pictures Never Lie!? Think about the hundreds or thousands images of Women that we see, every month and year, in magazines, on TV, in the movies, on the internet, in advertising, in social media…, How do these images compare with what we see when we look at the real women around us, every day? […]

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Against Patriarchy: Tools for Men to Further Feminist Revolution*

By Chris Crass For all of us who are men who believe in social justice, who want healthy and beautiful lives for our loved ones, and who are working for positive change in the world, let us commit or re-commit to making feminism central in our lives, values, and actions.  Black feminist scholar bell hooks […]

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On Fatherhood and Feminism, Writing for the Web

7/29/16: 41st Annual NOMAS CONFERENCE I have been asked to speak about fatherhood and feminism today, a topic I think about often. For example, here are some random questions: 1) Why do some people think I am not fulfilled as a father because I have daughters and no sons; 2) Why am I the one […]

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Songs of the Pro-Feminist Men’s Movement

Songs of NOMAS: For over 40 years NOMAS has supported cultural workers, through arts and media, as voices of the activist movement that NOMAS represents.  Music and song have been an integral part of the NOMAS Men and Masculinity conference tradition.  Below is a representative compilation of these songs and their attribution.  Thank you to Peter Alsop […]

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Male Privilege Checklist

In 1990, Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. McIntosh observes that whites in the U.S. are “taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.” To illustrate these invisible systems, McIntosh wrote a list of 26 […]

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Mansplaining, explained: ‘Just ask an expert. Who is not a lady’

Author Rebecca Solnit admits that even penning a book titled ‘Men Explain Things to Me’ doesn’t stop some men Jessica Valenti theguardian.com, Friday 6 June 2014 Rebecca Solnit is a prolific author (she’s working now on her sixteenth and seventeenth books), historian, activist and a contributing editor to Harper’s. Her most recent book, Men Explain […]

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Gender Role Expectation as a Source of Men’s Health and Mental Health Disparaties

Men are more likely to die than women for all 15 leading causes of death; the average life expectancy for a male, at birth, is 74.6 years, while for women it’s 79.6 years. This is because, Men do not seek out medical or mental health information and take less responsibility for their health issues than women. As a […]

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