When men become feminists

Thu, May 15 01:15 AM

We all know Delhi is unsafe for women. But that's not the least of it.

According to the Sensex, there are 927 girls for 1,000 boys and according to the reports, two thirds of all women are victims of domestic violence. In an effort to end the nightmare plaguing the women of India, there is a movement underway to involve men in the battle for women.

The logic is simple: men are more likely to listen to men say that it's uncool to hit your wife. Earlier last month, NGO International Centre for Research on Women decided to include gender equality as part of the school curricula.

The idea is to sensitise boys from a small age towards women's issues. Men against men Several women's groups in India have begun working with men during workshops in rural or industrial areas.

But that's not all. Dedicated organisations, run by men, have also sprung up in the country, with men taking up arms against their fellow-folk mistreating their ladies.

Men's Action for Stopping Violence Against Women (MASVAW) is one such group. An offshoot of NGO Sahayog, this group has conducted workshops, debates and film-screening in over 30 districts and several universities across India.

"There is a growing awareness in universities that violence of any kind against women is a social issue that must be addressed by men and women," says Satish K Singh, who formerly worked with MASVAW. Gender sensitisation The Centre for Health and Social Justice (CHSJ) has a similar programme underway. "Men feel that gender sensitisation is somehow anti-men.

But when information comes from fellow men, they are more receptive to it," says Singh, now the deputy director, CHSJ, explaining why men have become more actively involved in the fight. Male machismo Singh along with filmmaker Rahul Roy is currently in Delhi organising the Forum to Engage Men for Gender Equality and Stopping Gender Based Violence.

Roy is also the founder of a wesbite called southasianmasculnities.org.

The website is a forum for papers and research exploring "what it means to be a man". "Only if we understand why violence is so integral to the notion of machismo can we fight the phenomena," said Roy.

When asked about why men have become active in recently, Roy said, "Men have always been involved, only now they're not just patrons, they are equal participants and address the issues at hand. It's not just women after all, men too are in danger of being killed by notions of masculinity that perpetrate large scale violence.

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