Last Saturday and Sunday, we were in Brighton to host our 3rd Men Challenging Sexism conference, organised in solidarity with FiLiA. Despite being relatively small the event was a massive success.
More men than ever joined us to discuss important topics, including:
- men taking up more childcare responsibilities and housework (Chris Green of MACS)
- learning better ways to cope with and express strong emotions/feelings
- the impact of gender ideology on women in Brazil, including through legislation on ‘homo-transphobia’ (Clarice Saadi from MATRIA)
- having constructive dialogues with boys & (young) men about their actions & responsibilities (Men at Work / Michael Conroy)
- fairness in sport (Professor Jon Pike)
- AI as a tool to commit sexual offences against women and girls and sexually exploit them (Caitlin Roper of Collective Shout)
- TikTok grooming young women into the (online) sex trade, e.g. OnlyFans (Melinda Tankard-Reist, also Collective Shout)
- priorities for gay men and the impact of gender ideology on gay men (James Roberts from HumanGayMale)
- men’s public sexual violence in India and parallels to men’s sexual violence in other countries (Vaishnavi Sundar)
- how to tackle pornography and the impact it is having on children and young people (Jo Bartosch & Robert Jessel)
Meeting together in person as men is so important as it not only helps us to connect to each other but also connects us to the work that is happening in the feminist movement.
MACS 2025 on demand
The majority of the talks from the conference will be made available to watch online in the next few weeks, so please keep an eye on our YouTube channel.
Thanks to all our speakers and attendees
As always we are extremely indebted to our amazing speakers, who travelled across the country and from abroad so we could learn, develop, network and build new connections and collaborations towards our joint goals.
We’d also like to thank the men and women who attended for their thoughtful and at times moving contributions as it helps us so much to refine the work that we are trying to do.
Volunteers needed
MACS has been growing year on year and we are currently looking for men who are able to volunteer 2 or 3 hours a week, to support us in extending our work and reach. You can be based anywhere in the world. If you are interested in joining us, please email allies@menchallengingsexism.org.uk.
MACS 2026
We are already making plans for next year’s Men Challenging Sexism conference. Following this year we will make some changes to the event. MACS 2026 will be a 1-day conference followed by a men’s social in a local venue.
