ABSTRACT
As men have become more prominent as allies in violence against women prevention work in recent years, the issue of men’s relationship with women against violence services has become a subject of ongoing concern for many feminist anti-violence activists and scholars. This chapter explores the nature of those concerns and the various ways in which activist men and the organizations they work within have responded to them. A key issue in these discussions is how men involved in violence prevention work can be accountable to women against violence services and what organizational forms that should take. The chapter explores personal, interpersonal and organizational forms of accountability and outlines different models of accountability and strategies for their implementation. It also addresses the political dilemmas associated with men’s allyship. How do we avoid men relinquishing their moral responsibilities and putting responsibility on to women for their practice? Which organizations, women or feminists should men be accountable? How can accountability address intersectionality and the class and race divisions between men? To address these issues, men will need to unsettle their assumptions about allyship and accountability and be open to greater humility than dominant forms of masculinity allow.
