Abstract
Engaging with men is an essential effort towards preventing violence in our communities. At the same time, violent behaviours are deeply embedded into our societies and construct what it means to be ‘masculine’ in a way that naturalises it. Getting men into a space to challenge their behaviours can therefore be a challenge. In this article, we discuss the findings from a recent study with designers designing to tackle intimate partner violence. We focus on four participants experiences of developing design intervention to engage men in violence prevention. The findings highlight strategies that engage with men in a dialectical space of critical reflection and implementing alternative behaviours. It brings key considerations for designers to think about when counteracting the normalisation of violence (or other behaviours) and community acceptance.
Keywords
design outcome; violence prevention; gender; engaging men
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.359
Citation
Fiadeiro, R., Bichard, J.,and Stevens, J.(2023) Against the norms: designing violence prevention through engaging men, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.359
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
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Against the norms: designing violence prevention through engaging men
Engaging with men is an essential effort towards preventing violence in our communities. At the same time, violent behaviours are deeply embedded into our societies and construct what it means to be ‘masculine’ in a way that naturalises it. Getting men into a space to challenge their behaviours can therefore be a challenge. In this article, we discuss the findings from a recent study with designers designing to tackle intimate partner violence. We focus on four participants experiences of developing design intervention to engage men in violence prevention. The findings highlight strategies that engage with men in a dialectical space of critical reflection and implementing alternative behaviours. It brings key considerations for designers to think about when counteracting the normalisation of violence (or other behaviours) and community acceptance.