Masculinity for boys: a guide for peer educators

This resource guide is the outcome of a series of consultations with the youth in India. The publication has been brought out jointly by UNESCO New Delhi and YAAR (a New Delhi based NGO working with youth), which deals with the issues of gender and sexual health of youth of India. It addresses the adolescence issue of masculinity and hopes to reduce the ‘fake’ masculinity pressures on boys with the information contained in the book.

Excerpts from the introduction:

“Given our current confusion over the meaning of ‘manliness’, we have nothing to lose by re-opening the issue” - Waller R. Newell

When a girl is born, she remains a female all her life. But a boy has to ‘earn’ his manhood. Meaning, when he grows up, he has to ‘prove’ that he is a man. This is not about biological proof. It is a complex set of expectations that he must fulfil. If he fails to do this, he becomes a ‘lesser’ man. A ‘lesser’ man will have no status
in society, no respect, and he will live an undignified life as a disempowered person. In India, we abuse such a person by calling him a namard. Naturally, no one would want to be a namard..."

This book discusses various issues of men and boys that have so far not been acknowledged by a society which is single mindedly focussed on the issues of the girl adolescents. It highlights for the first time, the immense pressures that boys live under, their social persecution which has not been acknowledged so far by the society and the various mechanisms through which the society puts pressures on men and boys.

It talks about how the Westernisation of India is harming the men's spaces here by heterosexualising them, putting further pressures on men and boys and making their lives more miserable. It gives several case studies to highlight this and several other important issues that it raises.

It lists peer-pressure as one of the most important weapons through which the society imposes its gender and sexual roles upon boys and young men. it talks about the negative role the media plays in the lives of men and boys. It also talks about the various rewards and punishments that are used to put pressures on boys.

It also talks about how Westernisation is breaking men from other men. The heterosexualisation of the society is also forcing the gay identity upon India, which has traditionally been divided not on the lines of the Western notion of "sexual orientation" but on the lines of "Gender", into: Men, women and the Third Gender. Those imposing heterosexualisation upon Indians are claiming that only gays (which is seen as the third gender) have sexual need for other men. In other words male-male sexual interest is being propagated as "gay", "feminine" or "queer", a notion which was not prevalent earlier, and what the west calls 'straight' men, participated near universally into sexual relations with other men, although without talking about it, in the security provided to them by the powerful men's spaces.

It describes the process of heterosexualisation of boys, and how it affects them.

Then it goes on to understand natural masculinity as opposed to the social masculinity defined by the society. While natural masculinity is within us as boys and men, social masculinity is defined by the society and is often manipulated and politicised to control men's lives. The book analyses various traits of men that the society considers masculine and feminine and then seeks to clarify what is naturally masculine or naturally feminine.

The book advises and empowers boys to stop running after social masculinity and concentrate in building up their inner natural masculinity instead. It also innumerates the steps to attain and celebrate one's natural masculinity.

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