Introduction: from early to late summer in 2010, the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute has helped develop a new agenda for working with gender equality in Egypt and the Arab world through the project “Changing Masculinities, Changing Communities”.
 
The project was implemented and funded in collaboration with KVINFO, the Danish Center for Information on Gender, Equality and Ethnicity, and coordinated in Cairo and Copenhagen by Mozn Hassan, and Thomas Burø.
 
The project consisted of one workshop in Cairo and one in Copenhagen, a workshop for young filmmakers in Cairo, an academic roundtable discussion in Cairo about the definition of “masculinity” in the Arabic language, field visits in Cairo and Copenhagen, a participants’ blog, and a series of essays about masculinity.
 
The project brought ten Egyptian and Danish activists, artists, academics and social workers together in Cairo and in Copenhagen. The participants were all professionally engaged in work that involved an awareness of masculinity as a factor in the making of social relations and communities. The project further created a space for looking at men from a gender perspective as an analytical category, and for developing and elaborating approaches to using masculinity as an operational tool for understanding and potentially influencing community dynamics.
 
The project team consisted of Mozn Hassan and Thomas Bur.

The E-Publication "Changing Masculinities, Changing Communities": reflects on the core project insights and activities that brought together 10 Egyptian and Danish activists, artists, academics and social workers together in Cairo and in Copenhagen from early to late summer 2010, in a series of workshops to explore the concept of masculinity as a gendered analytical category in both Egyptian and Danish societies. The project was implemented and funded in collaboration with the Danish Center for Information on Gender, Equality and Ethnicity (KVINFO).

Participants: Ten Egyptian and Danish activists, artists, academics and social workers, all professionally engaged in work that involved an awareness of masculinity as a factor in the making of social relations and communities.

* Source: Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute.