Through our Gender Violence Prevention and Education Services, the CWGE is committed to expanding and coordinating its efforts in mobilizing and engaging male-identified students, faculty, staff, and community partners to work as allies with all genders to create a culture of consent and respect free from power-based violence.

The Masculinities Engagement Network is an initiative that promotes meaningful dialogue and action around gender equity, masculinity, and violence prevention at Bowling Green State University. The project seeks to make a positive impact through intentional programming and partnerships on campus and in the greater community that are focused on challenging normative forms of gender identity at multiple levels of engagement with theory and practice. By providing space for education, reflection, community, and leadership, M.E.N. aims to support students in critically examining issues of masculinity, gender roles, and how it has shaped systems and structures in our community.

The Masculinities Engagement Network is open to students, faculty, staff, or community partners who are champions of our mission, regardless of age, gender, race, or ethnicity.

• Understand that male bodies and biology do not dictate any particular kind of behavior
• Participate and actively engage in campus, community, state, and national programs, events, and trainings
• Listen and respond empathically
• Integrate self-defined masculinities supportive of healthy behaviors into personal and academic lives
• Explore how precollege experiences lead to the development of masculine identities and subsequent behaviors
• Develop the ability for men to embrace and express a full range of emotions not normally expressed
• Talk to others about issues of male socialization and how to have healthier relationships
• Engage in bystander intervention behaviors to prevent sexual violence and homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression on campus and in the community
• Recognize that power, control, or violence have no place in healthy gender expression
• Intervene when we hear language that denigrates people based on gender or gender expression. Understand the impact of language in marginalizing others
• Develop an interest in emotional experiences outside of sexual conquest
• Hold each other and ourselves accountable in creating a better community
• Model a healthy, respectful manhood to others
• Value everyone’s life, treating all people equally and promoting the betterment of humanity
• Listen to others and validate their experiences

• Foster critical conversations about masculinities across campus. Provide programming on healthy masculinities for a variety of audiences. Promote events and programming across campus and on social media.
• Recognize and describe how gender roles, power, and privilege play a role in the way we define what it means to be masculine;
• Be empowered to be an active bystander and be able to identify the various ways to assist someone in a challenging situation.

If you are interested in becoming part of the Masculinities Engagement Network or working with M.E.N. on events, initiatives, or programming, please contact Bryan Bove-Wimberley at bbove@bgsu.edu.