Training & Education

Healthy Masculinities Collaborative

In NMW.O’s 2017 research, a key recommendation from communities was the need for healthier masculinity and gender roles. In our current gender paradigm, women still disproportionately bear the burden of childcare and household management, as well as the emotional labor of childrearing and maintaining familial relationships. Violence perpetrated by men remains common: one in three women will experience some form of intimate partner violence. Due to heteronormative and patriarchal gender beliefs, data shows that nearly half of transgender people reported experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime, with the numbers even higher for transgender people of color. Gendered social norms result in men being conditioned to repress their emotions with men nearly four times more likely to die of suicide than women. In NM, which had the highest national suicide rate in 2018, three quarters of those who committed suicide were male, with rates increasing in the Native American community. Men and boys do not simply uphold and reproduce patriarchy, they are also deeply harmed and constrained by it themselves. We are in a crisis of masculinity and gender, with profound impacts upon our communities. Healthy masculinity and reimagining our gender frameworks is essential to gender justice.

For these reasons, in 2018, NewMexicoWomen.Org co-organized a Healthy Masculinities Collaborative, in partnership with Together for Brothers (T4B), Tewa Women United (TWU), the NM Health Equity Partnership (HEP), and later the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico (TGRC) to explore opportunities to work together around healthy masculinity in NM. In 2019, youth from T4B created an inventory of programs in NM working on healthy masculinity and a list of national resources focused on masculinity. In 2019, the Collaborative convened a retreat, with additional participation from La Plazita Institute, the Native American Community Academy, and Enlace Comunitario to gain a better understanding of the landscape of healthy masculinity work and resources in NM. In 2020 and 2021, T4B, TWU, TGRC, NMW.O and HEP have continued to meet as part of the Healthy Masculinities Collaborative. Members of the collaborative have attended numerous national and local trainings focused on healthy masculinity and trans and non-binary gender identities. Using our shared knowledge, we are currently working to collectively develop a Healthy Masculinities Toolkit that will be free and available for community use in 2022.

For a free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week service that provides suicidal persons or those around them with support, call the New Mexico Crisis Line at 1-855-NMCRISIS (662-7474) or the national Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or the Trans Lifeline at (877) 565-8860.

Training and Education

Gender Equity and Anti-Racism Education

As a statewide women’s fund, a key part of our mission is to educate and learn with funders as well as other key decision-makers on the social and structural determinants of health and economic equity, including how patriarchy and structural racism produce the inequities and injustices communities face today. This was a key finding in our recent community-based research, where partners suggested that NMW.O participate in educating funders, foundations, and their boards about present-day patriarchy, structural racism, colonization, and classism. Community members also described how these types of trainings are critical for community partners and their staff to, “Learn how to advocate for ourselves in a system not built by and for us.”

In response, we have worked with skilled facilitators to provide and convene anti-racism, implicit bias, and gender equity trainings for funders, boards, and other community organizations. A deeper strategy of this education is to ensure that more funds are directed towards gender justice issues with an intersectional feminist lens. It is also to ensure that gender and social justice values remain central to long term work for social change in New Mexico.

Fundraising Training with a Gender and Social Justice Lens

Many of our community partners do critical work in rural, low-income communities, and communities of color with organizational budgets under $100,000. As a funder, we are committed to investing in and supporting the ecosystem of financial resiliency for organizations to remain stable and sustainable beyond our funding. Examples of previous training and education in this area include the following.

• In October 2018, NewMexicoWomen.Org, NM Health Equity Partnership, and Chainbreaker Collective collaborated with the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT) to offer a subsidized fundraising training to 150 community partners from across New Mexico. The GIFT training, held at Northern New Mexico College in Española, provided an in-depth fundraising training curriculum, materials, facilitated discussions, and embodied activities.
• In the past, NMW.O has also sponsored organizations to attend fundraising trainings that approach resource development with a social justice lens, bringing an invaluable analysis, tools, and skill set to our partner organizations and communities across New Mexico.