By MEENA MENON | 17th Feb, 2008

Men are as much a victim of patriarchy as women and need to be co-opted to make society a gender-just one, claim the editors of a book on men and their identities.

A different role: Taking men along in the women’s cause.

Breaking the Moulds is about breaking stereotypes. Men express their innermost feelings in essays like “A dialogue with oneself”, “A journey like this”, “My decision to remain single” or “Growing up with my daughter”, which address patriarchy and masculinity. The other dominant theme is men vis-À-vis the women’s movements. The editors of the book, while acknowledging the role of women’s movements, say that there has been a major lacuna — men, the beneficiaries and also in a way the victims of patriarchy, have mostly been left out, isolated and insulated from the process of transformation. The women’s movement has no agenda to address men as a group, they say.

While identifying the real enemy as patriarchy and not men, the introduction explains that masculinity is not a single homogenous concept. It also reiterates that social transformation cannot take place without the meaningful participation of an important and powerful segment of society, i.e. men. Harish Sadani, one of the founders of Men against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), and one of the four editors of this book, says the articles are drawn from the Deepavali issues of Purush Spandana, a magazine jointly brought out since 1996 by MAVA and Purush Uvach. The translations from the original in Marathi retain the flavour of the language and “rawness” as Sadani puts it. “Men don’t have the vocabulary to express themselves like women but they have said whatever they feel,” he says.

An agenda or exclusion?

Along with masculinity, there is a concern in the book that there is no agenda to involve men in women’s movements. Sadani feels that if a critical analysis is done, had women and men worked together, things would have been different. Why does he think it’s necessary? “Because it is affecting the quality of life. In Uttar Pradesh, a voluntary organisation has started “gaali bandh” (stop verbal abuse) classes in Gorakhpur. This is mainly aimed at stopping violence against women. It was prompted by one of the activists who spotted young school dropouts mouthing bad words on the road. He made them write all the bad words they knew and most of them were picked up from their family members. By the time the boy grows up what is his outlook on women? What about his own sexuality?” asks Sadani.

He also points out that the women’s movement can’t exclude men when the ultimate goal is the same — a gender-just society. Men’s groups have to be taken notice of, he says. It is not only this concern but also the professed inability of men to express themselves that is worrying R.P. Ravindra, an activist and researcher and one of the editors of the book. “Women find it easier to share feelings even with complete strangers,” remarks Ravindra. “Men, on the other hand, have a problem in accepting their shortcomings or their problems as they have internalised the concept that they are achievers. When MAVA conducts programmes with adolescent boys or men of marriageable age, there is a Catch 22 situation. Men have inflated egos about being male but at the same time they know that it is hollow. Women on the other hand have changed — they are raising their voices and they are articulate and ambitious and the men find it difficult to accept this,” he points out.

In a middle class set up, the men are afraid of these independent women and they can’t make sense of their expectations, Ravindra says. “Their image of women is different. Men also don’t realise the need to question their own roles. And they don’t have the space like women do or the vocabulary. When men question their own stereotypes their vocabulary seems limited,” he adds. When he attended a workshop on fertility 20 years ago in Shahdol, he found the women from villages speaking with ease about their various experiences. “The men were clean bowled, we could not say anything and we asked for a separate space to try and speak up,” he said.

Articulating men’s issues

MAVA and Purush Uvach are among the men’s groups that have come up in the last decade. They take up various issues including violence against women and gender equality and question traditional attitudes. They do work with women’s groups from time to time. Feminists have been critical of the book and the issue that Ravindra and Sadani raise about men being part of the women’s movement gets divided answers from members of the autonomous women’s movement. Nandita Gandhi of the Forum Against Oppression of Women and founder of Akshara, a feminist resource centre, says right from the beginning, the women’s movement has had the support of men. However, the women’s movement is supposed to empower women and its first mandate is to work with women. “I would agree with the need to have the cooperation of men or work with them on a strategic basis but they cannot be part of the internal working of the women’s movement,” she says.

“Involving men is not our mandate but there are men who are sympathetic to us and we take them along. Akshara also works on a programme in colleges with boys on gender justice and equality. The women’s movement has never denied that men should be involved if they are sympathetic to the women’s cause. There is no membership and no question of keeping anyone in or out,” she says.

Geeta Seshu, an independent feminist, points out that the book is a valuable effort and though a lot of feminists are critical of it, it was important to read and debate on it. “To look at the issue in terms of men versus women is very narrow but the good thing is that the book goes beyond that. A lot of the essays are personal accounts which is very similar to what the women’s movement did initially. It moved from the personal to the political. After reading the book, I feel there is an intention to go beyond that personal aspect but it’s not clear yet. As far as men go, the political articulation of a movement is still missing and as a movement it is still in its infancy,” she says. Breaking male stereotypes is a key factor in men’s liberation and this book is a step in that direction. How that can be used to build a strong movement is something to look forward to.