"Boys will be boys". This is a phrase I have grown up with, every single day of my life.
'You shouldn't show skin, because boys will be boys.'
'He cheated on her. He is a boy after all!'
'He said things about her that he shouldn't have. Boys..'
Fed on this mindset, day in and day out, we now talk of men to the likes of sharks- that bite at the faintest scent of blood, who have no control over what they do and have significantly gone back in evolution.
By normalising bad behavior, these sad excuses for human beings took the center stage, putting an entire chromosomal type to blame. Soon people who had done nothing wrong began apologising for the ones who had. They too were tricked into believing that there was something inherently wrong with the entire gender. The need to punish and shame the wrong doers is paramount for this very reason - because not all men!
Google the words "Men will be men" to look at the context that they mean it in. Not one picture puts them in a good light. You will even see a picture of a baby boy reaching out to a woman (with her cleavage exposed) , with these words written beneath. The ones who propogate this aren't even ashamed of sexualizing a child's innocent behavior. How can they ever be right? They have set a standard so low for people to achieve that they need to lose touch with humanity to reach there. 'Man enough' is always associated with aggression and sexism. Vulnerability and kindness is said to be feminine. Humanity however, is a healthy mixture of the two.
If feminism is about equality , this is something that needs to be talked about too.
From the stranger who waited by my side at 3am on a deserted highway until my father came to pick me up because the bus had dropped me at a point where it usually doesn't, to my friends with whom I can have actual conversations with, more human to human than girl to boy , irrespective of the time; the ones I respect aren't the prototype men that they try to sell as brands - these good human beings are all around me. I don't need to search through history books for them. They are here.
When girls are taught that they forever will be the damzel in distress en-route to suddenly mutating into 'sarva-gunn-sampann', boys are taught that they have to be strong, sacrificial and quiet about what they feel because 'mard ko dard nahi hota'.
Yes, there are people who believe that intentions have the power to change with the position of the sun-that a setting sun can mean a significant drop in moral standards. Like a girl texting at night could mean so much more than just that. This narrow minded thought process isn't reserved for men alone. There are women who think this way too. Small minds are not gender specific.
The fact is that if men are like the ones the advertisements and media project them as, the fight would have been between men and women. Now that we know better, the fight is against these moulds that we are expected to fit into; the fight is against equality and inequality .
The fight is to be honest to what we are, to be more human.
'You shouldn't show skin, because boys will be boys.'
'He cheated on her. He is a boy after all!'
'He said things about her that he shouldn't have. Boys..'
Fed on this mindset, day in and day out, we now talk of men to the likes of sharks- that bite at the faintest scent of blood, who have no control over what they do and have significantly gone back in evolution.
By normalising bad behavior, these sad excuses for human beings took the center stage, putting an entire chromosomal type to blame. Soon people who had done nothing wrong began apologising for the ones who had. They too were tricked into believing that there was something inherently wrong with the entire gender. The need to punish and shame the wrong doers is paramount for this very reason - because not all men!
Google the words "Men will be men" to look at the context that they mean it in. Not one picture puts them in a good light. You will even see a picture of a baby boy reaching out to a woman (with her cleavage exposed) , with these words written beneath. The ones who propogate this aren't even ashamed of sexualizing a child's innocent behavior. How can they ever be right? They have set a standard so low for people to achieve that they need to lose touch with humanity to reach there. 'Man enough' is always associated with aggression and sexism. Vulnerability and kindness is said to be feminine. Humanity however, is a healthy mixture of the two.
If feminism is about equality , this is something that needs to be talked about too.
From the stranger who waited by my side at 3am on a deserted highway until my father came to pick me up because the bus had dropped me at a point where it usually doesn't, to my friends with whom I can have actual conversations with, more human to human than girl to boy , irrespective of the time; the ones I respect aren't the prototype men that they try to sell as brands - these good human beings are all around me. I don't need to search through history books for them. They are here.
When girls are taught that they forever will be the damzel in distress en-route to suddenly mutating into 'sarva-gunn-sampann', boys are taught that they have to be strong, sacrificial and quiet about what they feel because 'mard ko dard nahi hota'.
Yes, there are people who believe that intentions have the power to change with the position of the sun-that a setting sun can mean a significant drop in moral standards. Like a girl texting at night could mean so much more than just that. This narrow minded thought process isn't reserved for men alone. There are women who think this way too. Small minds are not gender specific.
The fact is that if men are like the ones the advertisements and media project them as, the fight would have been between men and women. Now that we know better, the fight is against these moulds that we are expected to fit into; the fight is against equality and inequality .
The fight is to be honest to what we are, to be more human.
