Reclaiming Parenthood and Care: Masculinities, Mental Health, and the Struggle to End Family Violence

In the women’s rights, gender justice, and human rights space, conversations around mental health and violence prevention have become increasingly urgent. To address this urgency, from a men and masculinities lens, we invite you to a MenEngage CoLab session co-hosted by Prevention Collaborative and MenEngage Alliance. 

Join us on 24 November as we explore the critical, and often overlooked, connections between parental mental health, intimate partner violence (IPV), and violence against children (VAC).

Amidst heightened stress, anxiety, and depression linked to care burdens and economic insecurity, patriarchal norms continue to shape parenting and family life in profound ways. These norms often render men’s mental health invisible, skew health-seeking behaviors, and perpetuate violence. This reality is further influenced by a growing conservative backlash that reasserts ​“traditional family values,” deeply impacting how boys and men see their roles as fathers and partners.

Moving beyond individual blame, we will investigate mental health as a symptom of structural pressures. Our dialogue will focus on how parenting can either uphold harmful norms or become a space for transformation, analyze the rise of backlash narratives that exploit men’s insecurities, and what holistic, culturally rooted pathways to healing can look like in practice.

This session aims to move beyond pathologizing individuals and instead interrogate these issues through an intersectional and decolonial feminist lens.

Key Objectives:

• Deepen the shared understanding of how parental mental health connects with gender norms, power dynamics, and violence.
• Reflect on how patriarchal backlash influences parenting roles and men’s identities.
• Identify key recommendations for integrating mental health, violence prevention, and gender-transformative approaches.

Event Details:

• When: November 24^th 2025
• Time: 3:00 – 4:30pm CET/9:00 – 10:30am ET
• Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes
• Register: https://​bit​.ly/​2​4​N​o​v​CoLab 
• Language: English with Zoom AI captions

Speakers:

• Erin Stern, Senior Associate at Prevention Collaborative
• Francisco Aguayo, Director of Masculinidades y Equidad de Género (MenEngage Latin America)
• Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, co-founder of Men Against Violence, Malta (MenEngage Europe) 

This MenEngage CoLab session is designed for practitioners, advocates, researchers, and anyone working at the intersections of gender justice, mental health, and violence prevention.