Changing men for gender equity
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COMMENTS 
Praajak, a Kolkata-based NGO which has been working with boys and men for more than a decade now, considers challenging the social construction of patriarchal masculinity a crucial route to achieving the goal of gender equity
The spaces of gender intervention, be they in social work practice or in academia, have largely been inhabited by women. Since women are most disadvantaged by an unequal gender order, it is frequently assumed that their empowerment will proceed most profitably by focusing on women alone. And yet, women’s lives are not separate from the lives of men. In various spheres of life -- home, work, education -- men’s and women’s lives continually intersect. Can gender development then be pursued without involving men?
Praajak, a Kolkata-based NGO which has been working with boys and men for more than a decade now, considers challenging the social construction of patriarchal masculinity a crucial route to achieving the goal of gender equity. What will probably surprise many is that Praajak is an initiative run primarily by men.
When Deep Purkayastha started Praajak in 1997, he raised more than just a few eyebrows. “I think the discomfort was all the more acute because we chose to work with boys and men, particularly those who are seen as ‘deviant’,” Deep recalls. Since its inception, Praajak’s larger objective has been to encourage men to accept women’s rights and work towards gender equity. They decided to work primarily with boys and young men because they are less entrenched into dominant patterns of masculinity than are older men.
When the Praajak team began operations, their intention of working in government homes found many critics. The received wisdom back then was that it would be impossible to penetrate institutional spaces. “We weren’t convinced,” says Deep. “So, we went ahead and started work with government homes for runaway boys. With the programme ‘Vitaan’, Praajak became the first NGO in West Bengal to start sustainable intervention in government institutions along gender lines.” Here, Praajak workers have been conducting psycho-social counselling sessions through art and theatre with the idea of unifying these children with their families.
In many cases, this reunification is not possible because of the abusive environment that persists in their homes. In such situations, Praajak has sought to enhance life skills amongst the children through vocational training in fabric painting, batik and paper craft. Praajak has also been organising performing arts festivals every season with the boys in these homes. Its workers consider it a major achievement that they have been able to evoke in boys an avid interest in activities such as theatre, singing and dancing, which are often considered ‘feminine’.
After some research, the Praajak team found that many boys from marginalised sections of society, who face neglect and abuse within their families, move away from their homes to find ways of subsisting on their own terms. A great number among them choose to live and work in transport terminals, particularly railway stations. Here, they are not only susceptible to sexual and substance abuse but are also often forced into situations of conflict with law-enforcers, when in fact they are in dire need of protection. Praajak’s intervention in this situation has been to collaborate with the Railway Protection Force (RPF), and start a programme called ‘Muktangan’.
This programme regularly conducts sensitisation workshops with RPF cadres to encourage them to assume nurturing roles towards children who live on railway platforms. Night shelters have been established near railway stations through the RPF. Some RPF personnel have even been convinced to school these children after work.
The major change that is visible after Praajak’s intervention is a steady decline in instances of children being beaten up by RPF personnel, government railway police, and coolies and hawkers at railway terminals. Arijit Adhikary, who has been working on the programme for five years, explains: “A driving principle in these interventions has been to get ‘tough’ RPF cadres, who are often abusive in their interactions with these children, to become sensitive caregivers.” Presently, the programme is being implemented in Asansol, Malda, Kharagpur, New Jalpaiguri and New Coochbehar.
In the period between 2006 and 2007 alone, Praajak worked with 250 adolescent boys in South 24 Parganas in West Bengal who are considered to be behaviourally ‘effeminate’. Many of them are forced to drop out of school because of the constant taunts they are subjected to by peers and teachers alike. Soumi Banerjee, who is also part of the Praajak team, says: “We saw that not only were these boys being physically and sexually abused, many were also being forced to join the hijra community.” Praajak’s work in this area has been with the families of these boys and local schools. Through workshops and theatrical productions, the Praajak team has tried to raise consciousness about how strict gender roles are not embedded in the genetic makeup of people, but largely constructed by a patriarchal society. This has succeeded in bringing this kind of gender discrimination up for public discussion in towns and suburbs in West Bengal.
Organising men to work for gender justice, however, has not been easy. As Deep points out: “In our case, we can’t mobilise men through the attractive language of ‘rights’. Here, it is not a matter of demanding rights but convincing men about their moral responsibility to give up the privileges that they enjoy at the cost of others.” There have been other obstacles as well. And, surprisingly, a great many of these have come from quarters that one would assume to be allies in the fight against patriarchal structures. Deep recounts: “Often at meetings with other NGOs, I have to field hostile questions from women’s groups. I have had women’s groups alleging that our agenda is only to deflect already scarce resources from women’s issues.”
Praajak’s experiences in these forums underscore the fact that men continue to be implicated rather than addressed in gender development programmes. There is an urgent need for development institutions to move away from the men-as-perpetrators formula and engage them as potential agents for change. Organisations like Praajak, which work with boys and men, urge them to understand how their gender identities impact their everyday interactions with other men and women. Resistance to the integration of men in gender mainstreaming, far from guaranteeing women’s rights are actually obstacles in the goal of removing gender inequalities at all levels.
Contact
Praajak Development Society
468 A, Block K
New Alipore
Kolkata 700 053
Tel: 033 24000455
Email:
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(Romit Chowdhury has recently received his MA in Media and Cultural Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai)
Infochange News & Features, June 2010