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Found­ed in San Fran­cis­co, Cal­i­for­nia in 2008, the Men’s Sto­ry Project (MSP) is a scal­able sto­ry­telling and com­mu­ni­ty dia­logue project that brings crit­i­cal explo­ration of social ideas about mas­culin­i­ty into pub­lic forums – via men’s own voic­es and stories.

Our mis­sion is to strength­en social norms around the world that sup­port healthy mas­culin­i­ties, vio­lence pre­ven­tion, and gen­der justice.

We work toward this mis­sion by help­ing local groups cre­ate pow­er­ful live sto­ry-shar­ing events; social media and films based on these live events; accom­pa­ny­ing edu­ca­tion­al tools; and ongo­ing gen­der jus­tice col­lec­tives. The MSP is root­ed in a fem­i­nist, anti-racist, inter­sec­tion­al framework.

Sto­ry­telling: For pre­serv­ing and pass­ing on tra­di­tions, chal­leng­ing and break­ing tra­di­tions, and cre­at­ing new traditions.

In each Men’s Sto­ry Project pro­duc­tion, diverse men, boys, and folks who iden­ti­fy in any way with mas­culin­i­ty share can­did, per­son­al sto­ries with a live audi­ence (includ­ing online events), on top­ics such as sex­u­al­i­ty; gen­der iden­ti­ty; friend­ship; roman­tic and fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships; gen­der-based vio­lence (sur­vivor­ship, for­mer per­pe­tra­tion, inter­ven­ing, etc.); HIV/AIDS; men’s men­tal and phys­i­cal health; gen­der equal­i­ty; jour­neys of per­son­al change; and inter­sec­tions with race and oth­er aspects of iden­ti­ty. The sto­ries col­lec­tive­ly cel­e­brate men’s human­i­ty and note costs of harm­ful notions of mas­culin­i­ty for the pre­sen­ters and peo­ple of all gen­ders around them.

Pre­sen­ters share their sto­ries in diverse medi­ums (e.g., poet­ry, prose, music, dance). The sto­ries are fol­lowed by a facil­i­tat­ed audi­ence-pre­sen­ter dia­logue. These live (and online) events can be record­ed to cre­ate social media, doc­u­men­taries, and accom­pa­ny­ing dis­cus­sion guides or cur­ricu­lum. MSP pre­sen­ters have includ­ed stu­dents, artists, activists, ath­letes, vet­er­ans, celebri­ties and oth­ers, of many walks of life.

Our 32 MSP pro­duc­tions thus far in the U.S., Cana­da, Chile, Gaza and the West Bank have been over­whelm­ing­ly well-received, and we are proud to col­lab­o­rate with many groups over time includ­ing UN Women, Men­Heal­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Alaba­ma, St. Louis Uni­ver­si­ty, and Amnesty International.

To cre­ate the pro­duc­tions, MSP pre­sen­ters par­tic­i­pate in a week­ly series of edu­ca­tion­al and cre­ative work­shops – where they learn togeth­er, chal­lenge each oth­er, build com­mu­ni­ty, and hone their stories.

MSP pro­duc­tions can be reg­u­lar­ly-occur­ring (e.g., year­ly cam­pus pro­duc­tions, tour­ing groups) and inte­grat­ed with broad­er edu­ca­tion pro­grams (e.g., as pub­lic cul­mi­na­tions of mul­ti-ses­sion pro­grams with men). MSP Col­lec­tives or oth­er ongo­ing gen­der jus­tice groups are encour­aged to form around this work, if such groups don’t already exist local­ly. Stu­dents can seek course cred­it for their par­tic­i­pa­tion, and we also encour­age folks to eval­u­ate their pro­duc­tions (which makes for a great paper or thesis).

We invite groups far and wide to get involved in cre­at­ing MSP ini­tia­tives and join our grow­ing net­work of folks of all gen­ders tak­ing action for gen­der jus­tice! We pro­vide train­ing and coach­ing for groups cre­at­ing MSP pro­duc­tions, and will sup­port you along the way. Con­tact us and we look for­ward to work­ing with you!