Concerns and Insecurities
Growing up as a man in Keralam
(This was first presented in a National Seminar in Kerala University in 2001 and later in Delhi University.)
I am Santhosh Kumar. I work with student and non-student youth in Thrissur district, Keralam. One of the main subject of my dialogue with youth is women’s issues. I always encountered very high level of resistance to these ideas from young men. Even young women reject their every day reality of oppression which is perpetuated by patriarchal system.
They argue, both men and women, that it is because the women do not want freedom.Or these are feminist ideas which are western and non relevant to our tradition and culture. Or this is a ploy to divide working class struggle. Or the entire problem is only of capitalism and religion.
There are enough explanations about why women do not recognise their subordinate position and how they are socialised into accepting patriarchal hegemoney and disadvantages of it.
Many sensible young and old women told me that to have gender equality, men should be won over and shown the possibilities of a gender equal society. I also thought the same as I felt sad about the negative attitude of many very good young men.
Then I started thinking, what is in store for a gender sensitive man in our society? How is a man socialised /constructed in our society? I started enquiring into my own life. As an activist I have only my life as raw material for search. You all can add to what I found.
First I would like to put infront of you some of the things I experience as a man sensitive to women’s issues.
As a man I use to feel threatened, slighted and guilty, whenever women’s issues were discussed. At times when I argued for a women,s perspective, I felt that I am termed as a yes man to women’s illogical complaints and is under control of my partner who is a feminist. Some times I am afraid when I support my partner or women’s issues that I will be consider by others as henpecked. At times I felt that I am guilty of not defending men.
Being sensitive means losing many privileges of a man. I am really afraid of the house hold work – the endless, repetitive work of cooking, washing utensils and cloths, cleaning house etc.. To escape cooking I found the idea of hotel or community kitchen a progressive gender friendly idea.
Being sensitive means you can no more crack those jokes or narrate those stories which are of our boys club and I enjoy. You can not talk any more in that abandoned way to women or about them. You have to watch all these ; everything has politics. “Personal is political”. One has to unlearn all so far learned and learn anew. And there are those big fights and humiliating defeats you have to suffer at home ( which you cannot talk outside home to another man).
Suddenly you learn that you also have the same gaze at women, that carnivorous one which many other men have and you use to enjoy with. You have always felt angry and threatened when accompanying sister, girl friends and partner by those looks from other men. But you never thought about yourself. Now being sensitive, you have change it. How do you look at women as they are more than their beautiful, pretty bodies? One need to learn.
A beautiful, intelligent young woman always made you insecure. You were jealous of her boy friend. You are angry to her and yourself, how can she not be of yours. You wanted to bring her under your prowess and posses her. If it is not possible at least slander or touch her. Being sensitive to gender issues, you have to learn to see her as an independent, free individual and respect her. Am I taught to take women seriously? I am brought up on proverbs with the meanings like - intelligence of women is backward, men who take the advise of women seriously will be in trouble etc.
You never recognised and accepted the sexuality of women, neither the society around you. But you always believed that you are a Gopikrishnan and can try any women. You were taught by your peers and elders in the boy’s world that women are waiting for your look or touch. It is a strong belief among us that single women are frustrated over sex and they are easy preys. You always have to test the availability. Now believing in gender equality, you have to show respect to the privacy, freedom and choice of all women, including your partner, sister and mother. Do I have the heart?
As you grow to the age of 10 or 11 – as you come to understand the attraction in the relationship of man and woman – you are no more touched even by your mother let alone your sister and other young women in the family. You lose the memory and gift of soft touch which you always crave for but which you can not give to others. In the man’s world you learn to push, shove and hit. The survival technics. And even with your beloved you can only push and shove, cannot be soft and tender. Being sensitive to woman means learning anew to touch and not to hurry and brutal in that act. It takes lot of effort to be patient and keep awake after.
I learn that many woman hate of penetration and they get their sexual fulfillment without it. But I am preoccupied with it. I am taught the importance of it in man’s world and only feel complete with it.
Men taught to be responsible for the protection of honour of their women.It is a thin line between where protection ends and oppression begins. And the other side of the coin is preying on other women. I feel threatened and helpless when I travel with my partner and other women. I am not street smart and a fighter. Where do my protection starts and ends? My physical safty?
Men are taught to be chivalrous. Opening the door or picking up a fallen kerchief etc......etc.....More and more women are becoming allergic to it.But where do chivalry ends and much needed help starts without asking? I still to understand.
It was difficult to accept the female boss with her authority of that position when I joined the new job. As usual I had heard enough stories to dislike her;how much arrogant, bossing....etc she is. And as an all-knowing male I had to show off and impress her.It was hard to accept her as above me; so I had to make her “my girl”. It took few weeks to understand how I was behaving and how stupid and “macho”it was.Talking and living constantly with gender sensitive ideas and politics do not make changes in a male unless he address these specifically to himself.
We talk of democracy and consensual decision making in the place of work and in the society. Where do we learn these from and when? I live in a joint family.There are politics and pulls from different sides on me for favourable positions, as I am the eldest male in the family.Both sides will have emotional strings.In these cases I feel helpless and I can only side with one or shout at all. I do not have a role model for these situations in my father or any other men I see. Mostly they control and command the situation through. If the democracy doesn’t work or is not there in our family, then where I learn from. Trying to be democratic, I feel helpless. I feel as an outsider at many times; may be other men also.
Male is socialised in relation to female andf other male. He is taught to dominate the other. By his physical prowess, qualifications, artistic talents, money and social position. These lessons start after segregating the worlds of girls and boys. Where, when and how did my lessons start?
I came to know about sex during many incidents of sexual abuse by both men and women at very early age.
In the primary school boys and girls were segregated by seating arrangement from class one.It was a shame to talk and be friendly with girls.We formed boys groups even in standard two.The biggest punishment at the time was to make a boy sit among girls.We used to harass girls even at that time. Pushing boys on to girls was a favourite one.
By the age of nine I learned that girls are inferior to me. But they are dangerous sexually. I understood from others that they should always won over and be kept under foot. I heard and learned stories of Maharshies in puranas who have won lure of women. I wanted to be like them. But the hormones won me over. Even when the experiments in masturbation and homosexual sex continued with the aid of fantacies of bodies of women, I took an oath not to fall in love with a girl and not to marry.
Anxiety about sex starts to build up in one as soon as he start to understand about difference in sexes. To test the pleasures of sex, you have to wait till marriage. Meanwhile all the attempts are made to attract a girl into a sexual relationship or to have an experiment with a sex worker. But later one is very risky and most do not have money, opportunity and courage for it. In either case the one who does it considered to be a hero, especially in the first case. And the homosexual experiments increases the urgency to taste the real one.
There were enough fears about masturbation. I used to belive one drop of semen is equal to 10 drops of blood. And masturbation can cause physical weakness. We,friends use to tease each other if one looked tired, about the number of times he was doing masturbation.
Masturbation used to be a quick operation in the tiolet as I didnot have my own room. One could do it in couple of minutes. Now the intercourse is also so quick. The nerves are tuned to excite and discharge quickly. Then you read about the duration of a man can hold his ejaculations, a comparison from different countries. American-30 minutes,Indian-7minutes, like that. Old fears come back.
In our boys school there were enough supply of yellow books which gave us all detailed information about women and sex. The stories in the book told us the difficulty in satisfying women in bed. The need for big size penis and brutal technics they like. These books also shared us a great secret that women never expressed their desire for sex and they like to be forced or raped. And also this all important advise, you should test each and every women for an opportunity. I and my friends always expected invitation for sex from elder women in our neighbourhood as the books, elder boys and our peers said. They said that it is always happened. So it was a dream since you have to wait till marriage for to taste the pleasure of sex which was far away. Also it was associated with responsibilities of bread winning, mother- wife fights, etc..
Kamala Das had said once, “ if the role as bread winner is taken off men, they will become better men and lovers”. Both the tension and power associated with this role act negatively on men. But the insecurity will be great without the bread winner position. Because he is taught right from childhood to be the bread winner and head of the family. He has seen the privileges and powers of that position in the family. He is also told by peers that with out money and its power you would not be respected by women.
My mother always told me that I need to become somebody to support my family as my father was drinking and spent most of money in it. Life was very difficult. But the high expectation of my mother made me very anxious of failure in my bread winner role. My inferiority complex which was developed mostly due to financial inequality among the peer group, cemented the feeling of being a perpetual failure. I knew that I did not have the killer instinct to be winner among my peers. I found myself identifying with the character of “prince, the Idiot ” in the novel “ Idiot ”by Dostovsky. I thought all my failures are my sacrifices for others.
I was more than average in studies and sports. Everybody wanted me to perform better and better during my school and early collge days. Never heard or understood me why I performed less satisfactory to their standards and always blamed me. My father always told me, how much deprived he was and how he is a self made man. These comparisons both from inside and outside family created the perpetual fear of doing wrong or performing less satisfactory in me. Now also I first try to find a reason not to do a job or why it is very bad and unnecessary.
After studying for six years in a boys only school, I went to a Co-ed college. Till then the contact with unrelated girls was in tution class. There were suspicion and mistrust. I never talked to them.
I went to the college with the resolution that I won’t fall in love. But within weeks I fell for a girl who was not beautiful but different. It was a starting point for a series of failed affairs. After each one I analysed why it so happened. And each one taught me volumes about myself,women and society. I concentrated on my negatives and tried to change. But failed. Tried again. And it is continuing. I am thankfull to all those friends who rejected me so that I learned. Otherwise I would have continued to be as macho and unthinking as most people of my age.
In the middle of 80’s the cultural and political activism was very prominent. People like Chullikkad, John Abraham, K.Venu vere caught imagination of a small section of late teenagers. And a middle class section was identifying themselves with Boney.M, Abba and other pop music,holywood film culture. Other available masculine models of those times were Jayan and Silvester Stallone. Struggle to choose between politically interesting and at same time also conforming to the peer group was very big and costly task for me.
It is really hard to be in a group when you are growing up. You are always teased, hurt and not at all accepted by others if you are different. This difference could be anything. It is still same at my this age, even among grown ups - the differences are not respected.
To be accepted in a peer group, you need to be successful and conform to the ways of that group. The symbols of success could be ranks, sports and artistic talents, money, owning vehicles, social positions of parents.....etc. The ways of the group could be smoking, drinking, any other particular tastes. I had to suffer because I had no symbols and not conforming to smocking and drinking. And also for not being from Thrissur town.
One of the success symbol was girl friend. One atleast. If more, you are most respected. Few boys actually had more than one girl friends. One beautiful, pretty one as real romantic love and the other would be generally dark not so pretty from sc community to try out sexual desire. We used talk about the exploits and laugh at the foolishness of these girls.
It is taught in the society and by its institutions that the attention and love of women should be won by the prowess of man. In it all tricks are accepted. “All is well in war and love”. In our society in this age films give lessons in courting which are mostly brutal and violent methods not respecting the individuality and freedom of woman. As men are far away from the world of women they follow the suit – teasing, lucid comments, harassment, recomendations,threats all were used. My friends always chose girls of younger age. It was thought that it is easy to lure girls of younger age.
In some of my friend’s cases girls showed interest in friendship.But most the boys didnot like it and used to run away when the girl approached. We didnot had any respect for them. How can a girl propose? We had many stories to show that these were bad girls. The girls were really hurt of this behavour of boys.
When men are hurt – by rejection, failure, abandonment, punishment, fear etc. – they express it through anger. They cannot be true to their feelings because it is considered as weakness. But when women are hurt they should cry, sulk and be weak. They are expected to.
I was a loner and looser. I was a bad captain of my college cricket team. The members didnot support me as I was not acceptable to them in the peer group. This faliure increased my inferiority complex. I just wrote exams and came out. And stsrted the involvement with envionmental groups. It was a beginning of another journey in another world. It was exciting but the construct of men and power were the same.
I worked with elderly men. It was tough. Altough we were all equals in the group,they were more equal because of their age and experience as in the other world. You felt you could do nothing right. The controls and advises made me cry and hate every moment of it, at times. But those years remoulded me differently as a being. It was the politics and people – enviornmental and feminist and the men and women I met all over India. And the disscussions I had,and experiences.
It was as a survival mechanism, more than as politics, I delved into feminism. You had to be politically correct to impress and survive in the activist community. I learned the vocabulary and the mannerisms. But the ideas has to be practiced when I started live with my partner who is a feminist who never forgives me for any of my lapses. It became a real life and death issue for me to be a sensitive man who practices what I say in my life. It is difficult but I try hard. At times I am lost. But I find many other men also trying hard. It may help us all in our endeavour if we tried to understand what made us what we are now. I look around for solidarity.
