Recently, I came across a study by MITRA (Men’s Initiatives for Transforming Relationships Through Action) that explained an intensive field intervention in three districts of Jharkhand followed by extensive work with several organisations in 13 more districts and nine districts in West Bengal.
What was interesting was the topic — the work was around influencing changes in attitudes and behaviours among young fathers, adolescent boys and other men on child rights and gender equality. The name of the intervention says it all — “Enabling Men as Responsible Partners and Caring Fathers.”
This intervention happened primarily in villages and the demography of people involved is very different from most readers of this column. The challenges of conducting such an intervention in a village are more difficult any day considering a joint family set-up and the lack of privacy in a village especially around who does what in a household.
Hence, this was done at a community level creating an overall impact thereby helping the male members in the community to have peer groups and to support and encourage each other.
The outcome of this intervention itself is a big list — a notable difference in violence including sexual violence, decisions around supporting the education of girl children vs marrying them off young, participation of men in household chores and women sensing freedom even in basic activities of moving outside the house or being able to seek help during a medical situation. Suffice to say, they were all positive outcomes.
Some of the women talk about how their spouses have changed to the extent of caring in terms of washing her clothes and of the infant, about not getting drunk, about being able to decide on using contraceptives, allowing her to keep the jewellery given by her parents, allowing her to visit her parents when she wants to, transferring money to her bank account and not asking for accounting and encouraging her to get back to work when their child is older.
And here is something I couldn’t believe — she talked about being able to get up after him, along with her child and him going to work without disturbing her.
Let us move to the urban context. How many women would be able to state the same about their spouses? And why is that? I would like to believe this has got no co-relation with being educated, nor does it relate to the economic status or exposure one has got.
What does being a responsible parent and caring father mean in the urban context? What does being a responsible husband mean? Who will teach the men and the adolescent boys in our families? Are we waiting for it to naturally happen over generations? We do see changes, here and there, small changes in attitude, in actions. When would this become mainstream?
Maybe, just like in these villages, we need interventions. Maybe we need more active engagements, sessions, training, right from the school level onwards. If digital literacy campaigns can reach every school in the country, can we not have gender literacy campaigns? Until that happens, it is up to us women to raise our boys well and to constantly engage on these matters with the men in our life. Are we ready?
(The author is the host of a podcast that examines challenges faced by today’s Indian woman and proposes actionable strategies set in the Indian context.)