Please don't forget about us: Propelling men as allies in women's empowerment to promote gender inclusive pathways

This study reviewed 57 scholarly articles to demonstrate trends, benefits, enablers, inhibitors, and gender-inclusive strategies that can foster men's allyship in women's empowerment actions and cultivate holistic gender inclusive pathways. Findings reveal that while men's involvement in women's empowerment initiatives has increased globally, participation often remains uneven and sometimes siloed on a few empowerment dimensions or domains. Key enablers include gender-sensitive education, inclusive policy frameworks, mentorship, and community dialogues, which foster genuine allyship and collaborative transformation. Benefits of engagement include more sustainable empowerment outcomes, shared decision-making, and reduced resistance to women's leadership. However, inhibitors such as patriarchal norms, cultural resistance, and institutional gaps continue to limit meaningful male participation and allyship in women's empowerment processes. From these insights, a holistic Gender-Inclusive Pathway (GIP) with seven steps for holistic gender empowerment is developed, emphasizing relational, structural, and intersectional approaches to empowerment. The GIP advances empowerment theory by reframing empowerment as a collaborative restructuring of power relations, positioning men not as gatekeepers but as co-creators of gender justice and equity. We argue that by framing empowerment through a fair engagement and allyship processes, evidence-based perspectives for cementing men's agency in WE could be strengthened.