Indian patriarchal system never teaches a boy how to learn and accept rejection. How to set the boundaries and agree on the consent.
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Some news is about one partner killing another partner over rejection, this rejection can be small like not cooking food saying no for sex saying no to start a relationship, or saying no to continue a relationship. I have never researched; however, I think one of the reasons is we never teach boys how to accept rejection. We have never been taught that consent exists it is not a one-way process.
Parents have extra responsibility to build that foundation where boys can sensitise towards girls understand consent, and accept rejection. A sister cannot say no when a brother asks for a glass of water, A daughter can never say no to any household work, and a wife cannot say no to her husband for anything, not even sex, or choice to have children or not. All of this leads to violence every time. Kind of violence you do not want to even read about or do not want to watch photos or videos.
Working in the social sector for more than 15 years, one sad part is most of the non-profit organisations also do not want to work with boys/men. They are also teaching girls and women how to keep safe themselves, making them aware of their rights but not including men who do not understand that women have equal rights and men are no one to provide for them or give them to a woman. It is there.
I do not see a big difference between these kinds of social organizations, society, and the legal system of our country. Society teaches women how to behave in society, working on women's rights kind of NGOs teaching how to prevent and fight for their rights, law ask women how this incident happened to them, and why you were outside your home at late night. When are we going to include men in such conversations and how men and boys can understand that consent matters, we all need to set those boundaries where no one harms each other.
There are many cases I have read within six months where a boy has killed a girl on rejection. And I always think about in life we all face situations where we got rejected for example in study, sports, job, career. We can accept that rejection but when it comes to rejection by a woman why we are not ready to face that? Why we are not ready to accept that? There might be more reasons why people are committing such violence, however, I wanted to raise a point about boundaries and consent.
In one of my sessions around Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights in Tanzania, many men accept that they want to rule most of the decisions related to sex, when to have children, how many children, difference between the children. Why all this is not happening in mutual decision, why do men think he is the main person to decide everything for women? What is something that our family, society, schools, and books are teaching us wrong?
On a positive note, of course, there are progressing men and society is changing but why these people are less? What environment those men are getting which others are not? Why does even a single person need to suffer? Some organisations are working with men's rights and they also say that men's rights are not accessible for those men whom they are working and again they are also only working with men. What is inclusion, what is consent, and what are some boundaries?
Thank you for reading, I am sharing my experience based on my onfield sessions and interaction with people when we discuss topics like gender, violence, SRHR, harmful culture, and safeguarding. I will be sharing more about how society expects certain things from men and women and how it impacts everyone.
In this blog, I have used Grammarly to correct the grammar.