Foreword

Since 2009, the OECD Development Centre has used the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) to shed light on the often invisible barriers to women’s and girls’ empowerment in developing and developed countries. One of the SIGI’s unique aspects is its focus on measuring and analysing the social norms that promote discriminatory practices. This publication enriches this work in its focus on masculinities – social constructions of what it means to “be a ‘real’ man’’ – which can either hinder or promote women’s empowerment and gender equality. Despite a growing recognition that masculine norms need to be addressed, efforts to do so are hindered by a lack of comparable data.

Man Enough? Measuring Masculine Norms to Promote Women’s Empowerment identifies and describes the ten norms of restrictive masculinities that are most obstructive to women’s empowerment and gender equality in the economic, political and private spheres. It provides a roadmap for future efforts to measure changing masculinities by suggesting indicators – both “ideal” indicators and available proxies – for all ten norms of restrictive masculinities defined in this report. It makes the case that addressing restrictive masculinities is a key part of promoting women’s empowerment and that collecting the right data to measure norms of masculinities is not only possible but indispensable to achieve the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.