My latest article, co-authored with Sarah Steele, has been published in Theoretical Criminology: “Discursive Constructions of Masculinity in Campaigns Addressing Gender Violence in London.”

In the paper, we take a close look at two high-profile public service campaigns launched by the Mayor of London — Have a Word (2022) and Maaate (2023) — which positioned men as key agents in preventing gender-based violence. Both campaigns were genuinely innovative: digitally savvy, widely shared, and thoughtfully designed to lower the social stakes of calling out sexist behaviour among friends.

But we wanted to ask a harder question: what vision of masculinity do these campaigns actually promote, and what does that vision leave out?

Through critical discourse analysis, we develop the concept of responsibilised masculinity — a hybrid that blends progressive ideals like empathy and peer accountability with a deeply neoliberal logic of individual self-governance. The article is ultimately a call for violence prevention efforts that move beyond responsibilisation: towards systemic, relational, and abolitionist approaches to gender justice. PSAs can shift culture, but only when they’re part of something bigger.

You can read the full article here. And check out some of our previous work on similar, relevant topics here and here.