Abstracts
Women’s/Gender Issues
Panel: Gendered Violence and Positive Masculinities in South Asia
 Narrating the supportive practices of men
Radhika Chopra*
This paper narrates the stories of some men who have chosen to make gender issues and violence against women a focus of their working lives. Different regions of India have been chosen to be able to narrate the stories of men who have tried to make a difference in the lives of women. Not all these stories are of well known to people. Often, the men involved are locally well known but have a muted presence in wider public forums, like the media and seminar forums. While special attention has been paid to ordinary men who are working to address issues of gender equality and violence against women, we do not ignore those men who have become well known because of their work. Critical to the research is the idea of variation in order to capture the differences between the nature and gendering of support extended, the different challenges posed to existing cultural stereotypes of gender relations, as well as the experience of extending support or overturning stereotypes.
* Radhika Chopra is a Reader at Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi. She is an author, development consultant and gender activist, and has worked with various UN and international organizations on gender issues.
Why is the Male World so Violent? ‘Positive Masculinities’ Pushing Against Networks of Violence that Constitute State and Nation in South Asia
Rita Manchanda
In the discourse on Gendered Violence the paper seeks to locate the growing emphasis on empowering men to define and live masculinity in ways that challenge socially prescriptive male norms of power and control-in the context of the tension between addressing patriarchy as an intractable system predicating gender oppression and focusing on agency and altering socially learnt sex-based norms and roles. Evidently, there is value in searching out variations in ideologies of masculinity and male norms that are not based on male entitlements to power and prestige but imbued with a human rights ethos. However, it is important to recognize that to undermine violent masculinities in men and their social relations, it is not sufficient to promote ‘positive’ masculinities. Historically, institutionalized processes need to be dismantled for social structures such as family, kinships and traditional local bodies draw their identity from the same violent constructs.
The paper will examine the challenge of violent ‘predatory’ masculinities promoted by gendered conceptions of self and community/nation that inhere in militant identity assertions, e.g. Hindutva politics, caste, communal and ethnic conflicts. Not only is there a strident assertion of aggressive masculinity, there is a convergence of state and community dictated patriarchal norms in an overarching cultural ethos of ‘militarism’ and practices of militarization. It is a corollary of conflicts and contradictions released by processes of democratization and globalization with women configured as the site for contesting adequate and transgressing modernity. The paper will explore variations in men’s constructions of ‘masculinities’ the possibilities of decoupling ‘being a man’ with violence. In the empirical search for men becoming ‘supportive partners’, the paper will focus on women’s entry into the male domain of politics, i.e. local bodies and the work of organizations like ‘SAKHI’ to gender sensitize male and elected representatives in panchayats in southern India.
The paper will also interrogate international human security frameworks that are gender-blind to the paradox of impressive gender empowerment social indicators as in the case of Sri Lanka alongside social structures and negative social attitudes that ‘violently’ push back women from participating in public life and socially normalize increasing levels of domestic violence.
Balancing Masculinity: Healing the South Asian Split with the Anima
Kamran Ahmad*
The paper outlines the historical struggle in South Asia to repress what is referred to as the Anima or the feminine in the individual and collective male psyche. Paradoxically, this energy was and still remains strong in the region; various indicators of which are briefly outlined. However, the stronger the repression of the Anima by patriarchal religions and traditions, the more violent and unhealthy its expression, evident in both individual and collective examples. There are trends in the recent past though, of the repression continuing to grow stronger. Under the circumstances it becomes important to explore ways in which these trends have, and can be countered, both directly and indirectly, on both conscious and unconscious levels of the collective psyche. The author uses personal experiences with social interventions to assess their impact, exploring reasons why some are more effective than others in restoring balance to the masculine.
* Dr. Kamran Ahmad works with the United Nations as a staff counselor for Asia. He is also a trainer for psychosocial activism, focusing mostly on the youth through Mehergarh, a center for Learning in Islamabad. |
