Bringing men into the conversation

People scoffed. Why on earth would men give up their privilege? What was in it for them?

Plenty, as it turns out. Das has spent the intervening years — he now heads the Centre for Health and Social Justice — expanding not only on how toxic ideas of masculinity demean men, but also how supportive relationships between husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, enrich their own lives.

“Gender equality cannot be seen as a continuing contest but as a collaboration that leads to relationships of mutual autonomy and interdependence,” says Das.

The struggle for gender equality has, understandably, focused on women — their health, their empowerment, their education. But, says Nishtha Satyam who heads United Nations Women in India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, “We missed the most critical pillar of change — men.”

You cannot expect sustainable change without involving men. “If the primary barrier for women is men, then one of the most important allies also has to be men. Who are we converting if we are talking only to ourselves?” Satyam asks.

Fortunately, India has male role models who are ready to support daughters in defiance of social norms; men like Mahavir Singh Phogat, the father of sisters Geeta and Babita, and men like Badrinath Singh, then an airport loader who sold his land so that he could finance the education of his daughter — the 23-year-old who was tragically gang-raped and killed in 2012.

We are not there yet. But women are slowly dismantling barriers to their progress. The Supreme Court ruling granting parity in the armed forces to assume permanent commissions is one such instance.

If men and women are to work as equal partners, then we need new rules of engagement, ones that understand the centrality of mutual respect and consent. We need male allies to acknowledge the potential of girls and women. And we need men who recognise that housework is equally a man’s job.

Perhaps this International Women’s Day, it would not be out of place to celebrate not just the women who break barriers but also the men who help them clear the hurdles.

Published in Hindustan Times on March 6, 2020

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