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Unveiling the key findings of the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES MENA) - Lebanon, & Al Mafroud Documentary

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UN Women with Promundo and Connecting Research to Development (CRD) launched The International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) country report for Lebanon. The launch was held at Movenpick Hotel-Beirut on Thursday December 14, 2017.

Gender relations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have become a subject of heated debate caught between traditions and modern influences, which was launched, is the attempt to understand gendered life experiences of both men and women aged 18 to 59 and to offer an opportunity to correlate gender dynamics within the country.

IMAGES Lebanon is the first study of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa to take a wide-angle, comparative lens to the lives of men in public and private life - to better understand how they see their positions as men, and their attitudes and actions toward gender equality. The study includes a total of 1050 men and 1136 women residing in Lebanese communities.

The issues surveyed include: gender norms and women's empowerment; gender-based violence; household decision-making; fatherhood, domestic chores, and caregiving; health and well-being; and more. Equally important, IMAGES MENA provides women's perspectives on these same issues.

The study reveals thatthere is a relatively positive attitude towards gender equality, with women consistently showing more equitable attitudes than men. When participants were asked about their attitudes towards women's participation in leadership positions, men were most likely to express support for womenas heads of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and least likely to express support forwomen as religious leaders, heads of political parties, heads of states, and military officers.

The study in Lebanon highlights that more than half of women reported having experienced sexual harassment in public spaces atsome point in their lives, and one-third of men reported having ever carried out this harassment. Men with inequitable gender attitudes and childhood experiences of violence were significantly more likely to have perpetrated sexual harassment.

"The study also showed that there are positive attitudes towards gender equality, our role is to cultivate these positive attitudes.This studygives UN Women and partners in Lebanon a strong basis for shaping community outreach activities and advocacy campaigns to address deep-rooted social norms that also emerged from the study," says Mohammad Naciri, UN Women Regional Director for Arab States.

Indeed, the IMAGES MENA survey paints a varied picture of gender dynamics in Lebanon. Thebehaviors and attitudes uncovered in the survey reflect the complexity of gender normsshaped by traditions, changing gender identities and peculiar life situations. On the onehand, some men are broadly supportive of some forms of gender equality. Younger men display somewhat more equitable views than older men. At the same time, however, results show that women of all ages display more equitable attitudes than men.

The findings also point to the need for legal and policy reform to be coupled with attitudinal change among the general population in an effort to address gender-based discrimination.On the positive side, .

In the same event, "Al Mafroud" (a play on words meaning both "the imposed" and "what should be"), a documentary produced by ABAAD with the support of the European Unionwas launched. The 30-minute film highlights the effects of the war in Syria on conventional gender role transformation through focusing on first-hand narratives of four families/individuals from Syria. Each of the different stories takes us on a journey of displacement, lessons learnt, empowerment, and powerful change.

"This documentary film is an eye-opening expose into the reality of women's power even in the most dire of situations. Narrated by the women and men who escaped the war, these stories of survival are a testimony to the transformation of conventional gender roles," says GhidaAnani, Abaad Founder and Director.