Then, United Nations Office at Vienna and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNOV/UNODC) utilized design thinking methodology to understand how men view their role in advancing gender equality and to actively engage men in gender equality efforts. We interviewed Ms. Vanessa Holtze who was part of the award-winning initiative.
Gender Team: Can you please explain about the project?
Ms. Vanessa Holtze: To actively engage men in Gender Equality, the initiative adopted the design thinking methodology, which helped to gain a deeper understanding of the way men see gender equality and the empowerment of women and how they see their own role in it. The innovative methodology aims to first listen and empathise with the target group, in this case male personnel at UNOV/UNODC, to fully understand the difficulties they face, which hinder them from proactively participating in our efforts to advance gender equality. For this purpose 13 experience interviews were conducted with voluntary male colleagues. After having analyzed and consolidated the findings, two ideation workshops with male personnel from both Field Offices and Headquarters were held to design creative solutions in order to overcome the challenges that the men expressed during the interviewing phase. Through exercises, designed to enhance creativity, the participants developed several insightful and hands-on solutions. These entailed peer-to-peer activities to flip the common understanding of masculinity or informal meetings designed to foster a culture of understanding and support for parenting personnel and to eradicate the assumptions that see mothers as primary caregivers and, thus, the only ones justified to take parental leave.
Gender Team: What impact has the project had?
Ms. Vanessa Holtze: All ideas that emerged during the workshops were sorted by the Gender Team and HRMS, and the ones that were most feasible and impactful were used to inform existing initiatives and develop new ones. Coherently with the rationale underneath the whole initiative, the contribution of male colleagues will continue to represent a constituent element, as they will be included throughout the implementation in different forms, from providing continuous feedback to championing their own initiatives.
Gender Team: What were the challenges?
Ms. Vanessa Holtze: Our initiative was voluntary, which always makes it challenging to keep people involved. We were very happy to see how many men were interested to participate, nonetheless. However, the interested participants were many men who are already very interested and involved in Gender Equality. Although we did hear some critical voices and frustrations, I assume that we did not reach the majority of men who are not supportive of the organization’s activities in the area of gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. We still think it’s very useful to start this conversations and get the input of those men who are supportive because we need them to win over those who are sceptical as well.
Gender Team: Can you please share one tip to keep in mind for someone that would like to do something similar?
Ms. Vanessa Holtze: It was so informative to listen to our male colleagues and their needs. Even though often times we think we already know the problems that exist, I can recommend such an approach in which you listen with curiosity and openness and empathize with others before defining the problems you are trying to solve.
