MÄN is a Swedish feminist civil society organisation established in 1993 as a platform for men to take action against men’s violence towards women. We work with a gender-transformative approach to promote gender equality, to reduce violence and to challenge and redefine masculinity norms. The core strategy is to engage men and boys to challenge destructive masculinities, with the purpose of ending men’s violence against women and children.
We believe that men’s violence is both the cause and effect of an unequal society in which men have more power and privileges than women. That is why all our work is rooted in a feminist perspective. We cooperate closely with the women’s movement. Our goal is to complement and strengthen the work for women’s rights and gender justice – never to emphasize issues of men and masculinities at its expense. We wish to contribute to making transformative work with men sustainable, accountable and feminist-informed.
In Sweden, as well as in partnership with civil society actors in other countries, we offer safe spaces for men and boys to learn, to talk to other men about personal issues and to reflect on how norms of masculinity shape their lives on a fundamental level.
To achieve an equal world that is free from violence, we need to work together and continuously build new partnerships. We strive to inspire, educate and support others to make a difference, and work for change in partnership and broad alliances. We believe in interactive meetings and workshops, and exchanges with activists, experts, practitioners and researchers as ways to make each other stronger. We operate locally through individual activists, members and local chapters; nationally through our Swedish office; and internationally with partners across the world.
From our nearly 30 years of work, we have extensive experience from the fields of universal violence prevention as well as gender-equal parenthood and engaging men for gender equality. Read more about our focus areas to achieve our vision – an equal world free from violence.
An organisation of members
MÄN is a non-profit organisation with over 2,000 individual members. As a member-based organisation, we support activism among men on issues of gender equality, violence prevention, equal parenthood and redefinition of masculinity norms. The majority of our members and volunteers are men, but our movement is open to people of all genders.
Across Sweden, local MÄN chapters and volunteers organise activities for an equal world free from violence. This can range from establishing fathers’ groups and conversation groups for men, to reaching out to adolescents in schools and discussing violence and equality in locker rooms at sports clubs. Talking about difficult subjects and self-reflection are important for gaining insight into and changing stereotypical and destructive norms for boys and men. MÄN organises and supports local chapters in the formation of reflective groups, and offers conversation guides for several topics and target groups: #aftermetoo, father groups and a conversation guide about men in the climate crisis.
Organisational structure
MÄN’s congress is the highest decision-making body in our organisation. MÄN’s board, representatives from all local chapters and involved members come together at the Congress. Representatives from the local chapters elect the board and other positions of trust and make decisions on the organisation’s strategic direction. The board is MÄN’s executive body and is tasked with leading the organisation’s work based on the decisions taken by the Congress.
The Director leads the work of the secretariat. About 35 people currently work at MÄN’s office in Stockholm. Together with MÄN’s chairperson, the secretariat runs advocacy and opinion-making work in Sweden and internationally, and provides support to members and local chapters. The secretariat also runs a large number of national and international projects and activities, for example on violence prevention, gender-equal parenthood and mental illness, and manages the methods developed by the organisation.
The nearly 25 local chapters in the national association are organised either as local networks or as local associations. Some of MÄN’s local associations have their own employees. MÄN also has a large network of volunteers who serve, among other things, as fathers’ group leaders, volunteers for our support chat service, educators and in positions of trust.