On November 19, Men’s Day was celebrated across the world and promotional videos by consumer companies tried to remind us of the men we could always count on in our lives.Coincidentally, in the season finale of Satyamev Jayate, various participants debated the meaning of a ‘good man’ and how misunderstood the idea of masculinity was in our culture. One of the most articulate voices belonged to Kamla Bhasin, feminist-activist, author, gender trainer and social scientist, who simplified the whole debate with one line, “Taaqat ko pyar mat samjho…pyar ki taaqat ko samjho.” (Unlearn the love of power and learn the power of love).
Bhasin has been working with issues related to development, education, gender, media and more since 1970. She has worked with the UN and is currently attached to Sangat, a South Asian feminist network, and Jagori’s Women’s Resource and Training Centre and its Rural Charitable
Trust, as well South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR).
In an interview, she explains how feminism is not about women alone. In her words:
Celebrate the good men
I think it is a good idea to celebrate good men. Not all women are goddesses. Not all men are villains. For me, the struggle for equality has never been a fight between men and women. It has been between mindsets and ideologies. Between those who endorse patriarchy and those who endorse equality and say it is good not just for the genders, but the family unit and a nation.
There have been thousands of men across the ages who have challenged patriarchy and brought us to this point. Men who were poets, revolutionaries like Che, prophets like Buddha, artists, reformers like Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule. Periyar was more radical in his thinking than we are today.
I am happy to celebrate such men, but not to celebrate a Macho Men’s Day. I am as opposed to a woman who is patriarchal as I would be to a patriarchal man.
Rapists are made
Women’s rights are human rights, integrated with the right to peace, the rights of the poor and the dalits, environmental rights, and minority rights. Patriarchy controls everything. It begins with the idea of caste purity where women must not marry outside the caste. It begins in families. When fingers are pointed at the government after a gender crime, we must point at the families too. We make boys domineering. We allow them to urinate anywhere they want, give them toy guns to play with, don’t ask them why they are late, where they are coming from or going. Rapists are not born. They are made. Ever wonder why only male students open fire in schools and colleges in America?
Women the last colony
I once heard a German feminist say, ‘Women are the last colony.’ So our minds are captured, our bodies too. The beauty business enslaves us. We do housework worth trillions of dollars for free. Our sexuality is captured next and our reproductive power. When men wear Western clothes, it is normal. When we wear trousers, suddenly it is against our culture. We are told, ‘You are the keepers of our honour.’ Why put your honour in our vaginas? A man’s body is never considered impure even if he rapes but women must guard their virginity and when they are raped, they are the ones who lose their honour, not the rapist as it should be. Rape is just another kind of violence. To say a rape survivor is a zinda laash (live corpse) is to dishonour her spirit.
Early influences
I was born in Pakistan but grew up in Rajasthan. My father was a rural doctor. I was a tomboy and one of my brothers was feminine and grew up to be a fine Kathak dancer and craftsman… Even today if you see a man knitting at an airport, you can be sure it is my brother. But we did see our mother being hit by our father, and in his will, my father divided his property only between his sons. My brothers changed the will subsequently but that was my first brush with patriarchy.
My first instinct was to work with the poor, the tribals and the dalits as a social worker but then I realised that among the poor, women were the poorest, among the dalits, the women were the most
downtrodden. And my instinctive feminism became a conscious feminism when I worked with Seva Mandir, Udaipur. I became a rural journalist in 1975 and realised that patriarchy and class hegemonies are possible only if women are colonised.
Go beyond gender
A man once asked an indigenous community leader what the three most important things in life were. She looked thoughtful and then said, “The first most important thing in life is people. The second most
important thing in life? People. The third most important thing in life? People.”
I have been working for over 40 years with people and addressing them dialogically through all the workshops I conduct. I work with Sangat which is dedicated to capacity-building among women and men. I have worked with parliamentarians in South Asian countries, senior police officers, leaders of NGOs on issues concerning gender, masculinity as a communicator and a trainer. Over the years, these conversations became books.
Nakedness vs nudity
We were born naked and I have no issues with nakedness. But I have issues with nudity which turns bodies into a commodity on sale, for the purpose of titillation. Freedom of expression is fine but a woman
being pawed by 10 men in a song turns her into a thing of consumption. After the shoot, the heroine will go home in the limousine safely while some of those who watched her in a theatre will find a lone
woman in a bus, in Shakti Mills or on the streets, to vent their fantasies. Sex is beautiful. Pornography is not because it is about violence.
In a recent TV debate, I heard Pooja Bedi say that there was nothing wrong in being sexy. The point is that in a patriarchal society, men never have to dress sexy to feel accepted. They are not on sale. We
are. We are the products, a cheez, a maal, the tandoori murghis to be gulped down with whisky, like a song says. Today you say one politically incorrect word about the Tamils or Marathas and a film is in trouble but the world goes on regardless of what is said or done to women in cinema.
Wars are patriarchy
Recently, we had 40 women from 10 countries during a Sangat course, and the first realisation is, ‘She is just like me.’ And when Pakistan takes the face of a friend, it is hard to think of it as an enemy country. We spend billions on defence in India and Pakistan and it serves the West because war to them is good business. India and Pakistan are two of the biggest buyers of arms and there is so much corruption that everyone makes money. And ironically, these arms are then used not so much in war against others as against our own people. If Europe could form a union after its long history of war, so can we in South Asia. Wars too are another form of patriarchy.
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