by Ama Biney, Pambazuka News, South Africa - International Women’s Day is a time to reflect not only on the achievements and celebrations of women but to focus attention on the remaining challenges facing women and progressive men around the world for a more humane, just, free and equal world between women and men. It is a time to reflect on gender, however, these days most people associate ‘gender’ with ‘women’s issues’ as a sphere that somehow does not affect men but only women. Yet, do men not have mothers, sisters, wives, partners, aunties and grandmothers? A great deal of attention in the use of the term ‘gender’ is focused on women or girls. Yet, there is now a need to consciously rethink how we can refocus this discourse to seriously examine how we socialise and condition our male children specifically and young men generally into notions of becoming an ‘adult male’ and more fundamentally challenging negative notions of ‘masculinity’ in our society. Somehow the present focus on ‘gender’ fails to adequately address these issues.