“Through ECF sessions I understood the meaning of gender equality. Both my sons Ashutosh and Ayush learned about respect and equality, and shared their lessons with me. I hope every parent in my community supports this effort, and understands its significance as it will help us all to build an equitable society.”

Asha Santosh Kamble

Asha, the mother of two of our Action for Equality (AfE) alumni, Ashutosh and Ayush, who are among the 8000 boys who have been a part of the journey with Equal Community Foundation (ECF), continues to inspire us with her dedication. Despite navigating early marriage and the responsibilities of managing a household with three children, she continues to be deeply engaged with our Gender Transformative Programmes to empower her community. To understand why her dedication matters, let’s reflect on what gender equality means to society.

Gender equality is a women’s issue but it is a men’s issue too. Right from an early age, our boys learn norms that contribute to inequality. ECF’s vision is that of a world free from gender-based violence. And so, we must begin at the root by engaging boys and men in conversations to challenge existing mindsets and create a safe space for reflection and action. It is with this core belief that ECF has, for over a decade, worked on the mission of raising boys to be gender equitable to create safe spaces for all genders. Along with our flagship AfE programme which we talk more about below, our endeavours in Research, Development, and Evaluation, including Project Raise, are all driven by a unified goal to raise Gender Equitable Boys.

Action for Equality (AfE) is our behaviour change programme that raises gender equitable boys by equipping them with knowledge, peer support, skills and leadership abilities. The programme is for adolescent boys belonging to the 12-17 years age group as this is the age where they are still shaping their worldview but are ready to take a stand of their own.

This is evident in the journey of boys like 13-year-old Prithviraj who, like many boys his age, found himself caught in peer pressure. He said, “I never thought that jokes about girls can hurt them. No one ever taught me this before.” However, after learning about human rights and understanding the impact of such actions, he realised the harm they could cause. He also acknowledged how peer pressure led him to use disrespectful language. “I am now aware that using such language is disrespectful,” said Prithviraj.

Let’s turn to Sanket whose voice stood out in the session on sexual violence, “In society, they say that only when girls wear revealing clothes, rape or harassment happens. But I have observed that no matter what clothes they wear, be it kurtis or skirts, violence against girls and women is still there.” His views on women’s clothing and violence underwent a major change. He came to discern that regardless of how women dress, society still practises violence against them.

Masculinity is like a script given to boys early in their lives. There is a constant pressure to fit into the box of toughness, and be silent and dominating. But what if we all rewrite this script?

When we think about masculinity, sexualities and rights in the context of our work with adolescent boys, some strong connections immediately emerge. Masculinity seems like a performance. Boys often reckon masculinity is something to be “proven” through adopting risk-taking behaviours or asserting control over others, especially over girls and women. A 15-year-old boy shared that he is constantly mocked for being “too soft” in the way he speaks or express himself, with peers telling him, “Tu toh mard hi nahi hai, mard itna nazook nahi hota hai” (You are not even a man, a man is not this delicate.). Whether or not the boys are ‘acting the part’ is policed by peers and linked to rigid ideas of masculinity.

Sexuality still remains a heavily silent topic loaded with shame for many boys in the communities where we work. What stands out is that while boys pass jokes about sexual experiences publicly, in private they have fears, confusions and inaccurate information. A frequent finding from our sessions is how rarely boys have spaces in which they can ask about their body parts or relationships without fear of judgement. The silence feels heavy. So breaking it is important to let go of those burdens. When a boy finally speaks in our session it opens the door to honest dialogue and reflection.

ECF’s Gender Transformative Programmes show that talking around masculinity and sexuality must be intertwined with rights. It is not only about awareness about the rights of others, but also their right to feel, express and see differently. We have seen boys move from saying,“Bartaan saaf karna, jhaadu-pocha toh aurat ka kaam hai” (Washing dishes and sweeping and swabbing are women’s work) to later sharing with a smile, “Ab toh bhai bhi meri help karta hain!” (“Now even my brother helps me!”). These shifts in attitudes and behaviour from gendering household chores to seeing them as responsibility for all challenge the petty thinking of masculinity and begin to reframe the conditioned notions of masculinity.

This is not easy work though and there are some facets that are important to consider when working with adolescent boys from wide-ranging social settings. In programmes like ours, there is the possibility of diluting conversations while engaging with boys to be ‘respectful’ or ‘caring’, without addressing the emotional range of their experiences and the messy, complicated or sensitive emotions that accompany them. The values of respect and care can seem hollow if we do not create space for the deeper emotions like fear, shame, anger or vulnerability that boys often internalise and hide from society.

Masculinity and power often move together. Letting go of one without the other is not easy. Deep-rooted ideas of power and dominance are linked with being masculine. When we encourage boys to question and to reflect on and shift harmful masculine norms, it also involves letting go of the power they’ve grown up believing is theirs. This is challenging, uncomfortable and emotionally demanding at the same time. It disrupts their understanding of themselves, and they eventually rethink their identity and where they stand. We are learning that boys do not need examples of “good behaviour”, but rather a safe space to question, explore, try, be vulnerable and imperfect, and slowly unlearn. Which is why it is important to not dilute conversations, and instead create a safe space of openness and empathy for boys to deal with their inner struggles.

Another growing realisation is that gender policing happens among boys in terms of behaviour or any particular traits much more perhaps than among adults. The main ideas emphasised amongst them are “men do not cry” and “real men have sex early”. When we talk about masculinity and sexuality it goes beyond what boys think about girls. It is equally significant to question how they treat each other. Peer groups hold a lot of power because what their friends think really matters to young boys above everything else at this age. Therefore, we may need more deliberate engagement to promote peer practices rooted in empathy, respect and acceptance among boys’ circles.

Working with boys on changing attitudes and behaviour is always a gradual process and does not happen overnight. It requires consistency, intervention and long-term engagement. Also equally important is how we approach this work – neither treating boys as perpetrators, nor as a problem to be fixed, but as a part of the solution. It means that the work has to be solution-oriented and rooted in positivity.

Revisiting these dimensions reminds us that this is not a process of what boys say and do in front of others. It is about using a deeper lens, about a relational shifting in boys on what they feel, believe and carry within themselves, for each other, and for society around them. As Asha Santosh Kamble, quoted at the beginning of this article, proudly says, “…it will help us all to build an equitable society.”

Cover image by Alex Sunshine