What is the Men’s Story Project?
It is a replicable, testimonial-based community dialogue initiative that works to address this gap by bringing critical exploration of masculinities into public forums – through men’s less-often-heard voices and stories. The Men’s Story Project aim to strengthen attitudes, behaviors and ultimately social norms that support healthy masculinities – through public story-sharing events films and other media based on these live events and related educational tools and community engagement effort. In each live Men’s Story Project production, diverse men share life stories with an audience with unusual candor- that explore social ideas about masculinity. Topics include family relationships, violence, sexuality, gender identity, HIV and AIDs, personal transformations and intersections with factors including race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and religion. The stories collectively celebrate men’s humanity and note costs of dominant notions of manhood. Diverse mediums are employed. Presenters have included celebrities and other opinion leaders, artist, activists, and men who have never spoken publicly. Two of these productions have been filmed to create educational films.
