About | Team

MenSpeakUp was conceived in 2008 when recent Harvard graduate Hugo Van Vuuren approached Gordon Braxton with the idea of using the internet to challenge the dominant conceptualization of men as apathetic to the problems of gendered inequality and violence.  Over the following year, the project would pick up additional collaborators ranging from very talented filmmakers to programmers, sponsors and many men and women in the community interested in the project’s mission. The culmination of this collaboration is menspeakup.org.

We hope that MenSpeakUp fulfills its promise of providing an internet home to men who are very much concerned about the levels of gendered inequality and violence in the world, whom we believe represent the majority of men despite what the media, tradition, or casual male demeanor might suggest.  Of course, there is nothing new about men lending their voices to such causes.  Men’s efforts such as this have come and gone throughout the past decades and we know that the site’s eventual success can only come about through the continued support of large segments of the Harvard community.  We have avoided the temptation to create something that only includes male input and have instead opted for the more appropriate inclusion of women, many of who have been working on gender equality issues for decades, in designing this site’s content.

Where this site might offer something different from many past men’s efforts is that it dares to feel at home on the Internet, an arena that is arguably hostile to the site’s mission.  Most casual internet users know that they are always but a few mouse clicks away from material that is misogynistic or treats violence against women casually and, many times, can find such content without even trying to do so.  However, contrary viewpoints require much more deliberate usage so we have created this site in the hopes of making them a little easier to find.  In this sense, we are applying new media to one of the world’s oldest problems.

Should this site succeed within the Harvard community, it is our intention to pursue more global support and collaborate with other schools, community organizations, and hopefully male leaders from around the globe.