Working with Men to Prevent Violence Against Women: An Overview (Part One)

This paper provides a brief overview of what is known about effective strategies for involving men in violence prevention efforts from the perspective of men who are recipients of anti-violence programs as well as from the men who provide them. It defines the term “prevention” for men’s violence against women, reviews best practices for involving men and for tailoring programs (for men in general and for particular groups of men) and, in Part Two, offers examples of prevention program formats and pedagogy. These examples are provided to illustrate best practices rather than to describe specific programs, as this review is not intended to be exhaustive or comprehensive of all violence preven- tion efforts involving men. Finally, in order to be useful to practitioners and educators the paper provides references to websites containing informa- tion about men’s anti-violence organizations and programs. Whiletheconclusionsandtrendsnoted here are applicable to the prevention of all forms of men’s violence against women, the preponderance of literature cited is from the rape prevention field where there has been more research conducted on this subject.