Abstract
Recent research on the topic of "men and masculinities" is contributing to a fuller understanding of gender, not as a property of individuals but as an integral component of social orders. Inequalities between women and men thus need to be seen in the broader context of social justice failures that determine the socio-economic situations in which gender is enacted. The second instalment of this Perspective reviews these and other important insights, including critiques of the legal concept of equality, which suggest a need for a new policy framework for promoting equality in the lives that women and men really lead.