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Gender is central to social life. Yet, throughout human history, the social order has been characterised by gender inequality. The first active steps towards creating an equitable society can be traced to around 1792 when Mary Wollstonecraft's "A vindication of the rights of women" was published. An integral part of her advocacy for all human rights was her rejection of slavery and she often drew an analogy between the positions of women and those of slaves. From the outset, endeavours at achieving gender justice were either supported or loathed by men. In the mid 20th century, the responses to the effects of feminism and those of women's struggles for equality culminated in a so-called "men's movement". A distinction is generally drawn between two types of men's movement that lie at the opposite extremes of a continuum, namely, at the one end, conservative or anti-feminist (the men's rights movement) and, at the other, liberal/progressive or profeminist (the new men's movement). Men's rights groups reject women's liberation, claiming that women cover up the reality that men are most oppressed and that they (women) actually possess the power. South African examples of anti-feminist movements include Promise Keepers South Africa and the Mighty Men Conference Movement. Women, in their turn, either welcomed men's involvement or regarded it with suspicion. Even if, during the 1960s, the women's movement welcomed male activists, some feminists were sceptical of this development and, by the mid 1970s, radical feminism surfaced. It largely rejected men's support ofthe women's movement, its premise being that all men benefitedfrom gender oppression. During the 1990s, discontent among feminists became apparent. Criticism against what was regarded as hegemonic feminism was expressed by women of colour. These women rejected the idea of a universal sisterhood. Although black women in South Africa had actively participated in the liberation struggle since the 1950s, a distinctly feminist consciousness was totally lacking. The first steps towards establishing organisations geared exclusively towards women's liberation only followed late in the 1980s. African feminists, because they are not only concerned about women's issues but about social issues, generally accept men as allies. While several justifications for engaging with men have been advanced, some concern has however been raised as regards the involvement of men or the so-called "men-streaming" approach advocated by international organisations. Several provisos have consequently been advanced in this regard, the most fundamental of these being that such inclusion/involvement should be seen to advance the overarching feminist aim of gender equality. The male activists in Britain and America who supported women's suffrage at the beginning of the 20th century are viewed both as the initiators of the men's liberation movement and the pioneers of the profeminist movement that gained prominence during the 1960s. In South Africa, Sol Plaatje and Steve Biko are regarded as having been profeminist. Although profeminist groups are found globally, they are more common in countries with relatively longer traditions of gender-equity endeavours. South Africa, because of its relatively short democratic history, does not feature among such countries. Although profeminism developed in the American and European contexts, it eventually - like feminism - migrated to Africa. Several reasons have been advanced as to why profeminism has lately gained momentum in South Africa, the main being that the country is confronted by two major public health issues, namely gender-based violence and HIV/Aids - both being issues inextricably related to gender inequalities. It would moreover seem that, in the little more than two decades of the new democratic dispensation, very little has actually been accomplished in terms of achieving gender justice. South African women remain the poorest of the poor and are subjected to some of the highest levels of gender-based violence in the world. Against this background, there is an increasing insistence that men and boys be involved to achieve accelerated change. Current debates no longer revolve around whether men should be involved but around the precise nature of their involvement. Apart from the involvement of both women and men, there is a growing awareness that civil society should be actively involved. Activism ofthis kind at grass-roots level by non-governmental organisations - termed NGO-isation - has increased. Sonke Gender Justice, a local profeminist non-governmental organisation, attempts to counter the anti-feminism of a new youth movement (influenced by Julius Malema) and traditionalists like Jacob Zuma. In light of the apparent anti-feminism and also the fact that gender justice has as yet not nearly been achieved, the struggle for gender justice is now more compelling than ever. Though profeminist men who support the cause are indispensable partners in the struggle, their numbers are still relatively small. Ideally, all South African men (and women) should accept the gravity of the situation. If this conviction is accompanied by a commitment to the central values of the Ubuntuphilosophy and the Constitution, both women and men will embrace the feminist model for social reconstruction and react positively to the fundamental aim of feminism, namely the elimination of all injustices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the Anti-feminist Attacks research, conducted in partnership with the R des centres de femmes du Québec, this article documents antifeminist actions and analyses their effects on the Quebec feminist movement. Inspired by the hypothesis of the R, according to which feminist reactions to anti-feminist violence are the same as women's reactions in a conjugal or post-conjugal violence context, the writer questions whether there is an "antifeminist violence cycle". Using the theory of the cycle of conjugal violence and feminist studies on male violence against women, she examines the similarities between the effects of conjugal violence and the effects of antifeminist violence, but also the limits this analogies considering the inherently collective dimensions of the anti-feminist attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ni Putes Ni Soumises movement and the Collectif féministe du Mouvement des indigènes de la République have cristalized oppositions between supporting and fighting the law that makes wearing the hijab in schools illegal. Beyond their differences, the positions of these organizations highlight modalities of conciliating fights against sexism in the battle against racism. In this article, we examine the ideological stakes that suppose, in both organizations, taking the situation of racialized men into account which articulates anti-sexism and anti-racism. Our hypothesis is that the discursive productions of the two movements contribute to the development of a central feminist question caught up in the notion of intersectionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his contemporary speech, the Holy See tackles feminism as it deems dangerous and threatening. He developed a phallocentric discourse new and suitable for its time, which reuses the feminist concepts reversing their meaning. The strategy of camouflage of his own phallocentrism works in part: it managed to avoid the opposition of an audience, both Catholic and citizen, for whom the theory of social subordination of women to men is inaudible and unacceptable. In this sense, the discourse of the Holy See corresponds to an anti-feminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This papers offers an analysis of the anti-feminism expressed by central actors of the field of population policies, which became a "pro-feminist" field refocused on "health and the reproductive rights" in the 1990s. This "revolution", accomplished during the Cairo conference on population in 1994, saw the victory of a group of feminist agents within major philanthropic foundations and other organizations and the relative banishment of former experts in "population". This appropriation of power loosened the expression of an anti-feminism, often veiled with politically correct discourse, which structures the representations of the social space of reproductive health institutions and operates a dichotomy between correct scientific expertise and ideological and illegitimate activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that five women successively reigned in Madagascar in the XIXth century is usually used to deny that fighting for gender equality is relevant at all in the country. However, that would be ignoring how non-noble male politicians rose to power in that period, and also how Western influences were imposed during colonization (1896-1960). Those factors had such deep impact on mentalities that it is now considered normal - and part of traditions - that men should monopolize both the actuality and appearance of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to explain the persistent resistance to French women's political rights have used various interpretive strategies. The approach in this essay centers on the anti-feminist reaction, in rhetoric and practice, to the mobilization of the French feminist and suffrage movements, on the eve of the Great War. It analyzes the nature of the "anti" positions in relation to other reactionary ideologies across the political spectrum. The diffuse, often unarticulated, nature of French anti-feminism, its embeddedness in cultural and political institutions made it hard for feminists to contest. The essay explores the renewal of older forms of patriarchy and its more contemporary pseudoscientific rationale influenced by Social Darwinism. Resistance to democratic change of any kind, expressed as dissatisfaction with the existing electoral system, played a divisive role in recreating "la guerre des sexes." Sources are drawn from the extensive anti-feminist literature of the period and a survey of elite male opinion published in the Parisian press in 1910. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the "crisis of masculinity" discourse is a "cliché". But this alleged crisis occurs while men still hold more power and privileges than women. It is therefore important to critically investigate the rhetoric about the "crisis of masculinity" and assess its political meaning. In order to do so, we begin by looking at Western history and show that men have been claiming to be in crisis for the last five centuries. After discussing more specifically three historical periods (England in the seventeenth century, France during the 1789 Revolution, and the West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century), we pay special attention to contemporary discourse. The analysis confirms that the rhetoric about "crisis of masculinity" carries a critique of feminism and a rejection of gender equality. This discourse also justifies the (re)affirmation of conventional masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]