Masculinities and the struggle for Women’s Rights

“Engaging men and boys is a must” for “advancing women’s rights and equality.” Said Ms. Phumzile Miambo Ngcuka, Executive Director, UN Women at the opening ceremony of 2nd MenEngage Global Symposium http://www.menengagedilli2014.net/  held in New Delhi 10-13 Nov, 2014. Increasing attention is being paid today to the role of men as allies in fighting gender biased violence. Many international organizations have also launched campaigns underscoring working with men as an effective way to promote gender equality.

In a conversation with Anand Pawar, executive director of SAMYAK http://www.samyakindia.org/ , an NGO based in Pune, India and a gender trainer, he pointed to the need of working on masculinities when working with men. Even though we often see both these terms (men and masculinity) being used interchangeably, they are conceptually quite different.

So what is ‘masculinity’?  Kamla Bhasin explains masculinity as a social definition given to boys and men by societies; like gender it is a social construct http://www.womenutc.com/kamla.htm.  Thus, masculinity, like gender, is not static-it is constantly reconstructed, it may keep changing in response to changes in economic patterns, natural or man-made disasters, war or migration.

Masculinity and Feminity have more to do with power than biology, according to Anand. The constructs of gender de-construct ideas around men and women; boys are trained to become men and girls to become women. This is the sociological construction of sexes as against the biological construct. In addition, we also see at play the cultural construct of masculinity such as North Indian men being different from South Indian. Ideally men should be seen as human beings- as emotional beings; men are not biologically violent. Unfortunately this does not happen and while working on masculinities we are continuously struggling with the stereotypical notions of ‘normal’ and ‘real’ men.

 So, why is it important to work on masculinities?

Hegemonic masculinity is the cause of many of the problems facing the world today; men control and direct more resources and decision-making processes. The global women’s movement has demanded equality, development and peace but without challenging masculinity these goals will remain unachievable. Women will be able to take up positions and responsibility in the public sphere only if there is a re-division of labour. Research on reproduction, HIV/AIDS, sexuality etc. has shown that women have limited choices in the matter and are more vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, mainly because of unequal gender relations.

Work with men should be based on a nuanced understanding on masculinities and gender, without such an understanding we run a danger of reinforcing patriarchal ideas of men as saviors of women. An example of this would be a recent speech made by Emma Watson ambassador of UN Women “HeforShe” campaign- “I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters, and mothers can be free from prejudice” Says Ms. Watson https://asap-asia.org/blog/why-ema-watson-isnt-really-changing-the-game/  ; Such a statement underlines the idea that women deserve respect only due to their relation to men, this implicit suggestion thus distorts the issue of women as autonomous individuals deserving of respect, and renders regard for the rights of women contingent on their status in the private sphere, which further reinforces the public/private dichotomy.

In the next post we will talk about the challenges of working with men and masculinities !