I probably come across as annoying, esp to women, when I keep bringing up the topic of patriarchy. It might seem like I'm mansplaining, or trying to be "woke" or virtue-signalling.
After all, it's a woman's problem, right?

Sorry, but I don't care what you think abt me. 1/n

Feel free to unfollow me if you think, as a man, I discuss women's issues too much. 2/2

We KNOW most problems Indian women face are due to patriarchy. It's a multi-headed monster impacting women in diff ways.

And yes, men too.

It's powerful & all-pervasive in our society.
Which is why ALL of us have to COLLECTIVELY get rid of it.
Kisi ek ke bas ki baat nahin hai.

From my life's limited experience of solving complex problems, I've learnt one thing.
The WHOLE looks very daunting.
Break it up into small, manageable chunks - and you feel better about fixing it.
I think patriarchy is similar.
As a whole, it's complex - so let's break it up.

One more thing.
I might be talking a lot of nonsense here.
Pls feel free to call it out - I've absolutely no ego in this matter. :-)
The nonsense would come mostly from a place of ignorance or privilege, so I'm happy to be corrected, if wrong.

Way I see it (and I've said this many times before), the problem lies with MEN - and therefore the solution too has to come from them, and them only.
Women can keep screaming (and legitimately so) about all that's going wrong, but until men change, NOTHING is going to improve.

Ok, for one moment, I'm going to park aside women who have been SO conditioned all their lives to accept patriarchy, that they've actually become patriarchy enablers.
At one level, it bothers me - but I feel sorry for them too.
I'll leave it for women to open women's eyes.

So I'm going to focus on MEN, and how to get them to change.
If I can succeed with a few, and they can, in turn influence a few others, change can happen.
So what arguments can I make?

I bring to bear all my life's experiences.
Also, of having lived abroad for a bit.

My approach wouldn't be theoretical.
For multiple reasons.
Most people, and esp men, don't like gyaan. :-)
Most men anyway think they're God's gift to mankind, and have massive egos, so any suggestion they're doing wrong and need to change would be received w/ utter disdain.

I'm now generalising & talking about the entire population of men - so pls don't #NotAllMen me.
If you're not like this, great.
You're already on my side, and I actively seek your help.
But a very large number of men ARE like this - and they're our target audience for this.

Breaking the problem into smaller chunks, and recognising lack of gender sensitisation as a big problem, I think this is one area that we could, and SHOULD, do MUCH more in.

I know there are workshops even today - but how many?
650m men in India?
How many are gender-sensitised?

So what prevents us from having gender-sensitisation courses/workshops in every high school across the country?
Catch 'em young.
Teach them about consent, space, gender equality, everything that will make these teenage boys better men in future.
This would make a HUGE diff IMO.

I think we could even start in primary school, cos impressions get formed pretty early in life.
Some lessons I learnt in my life were from what I read when I was in 3rd Std. :-)
Anyway, this is detail.
Point is, catch 'em young.
And do it on institutional scale.
But do it WELL.

Since I have ZERO trust in competence of the Indian Govt (centre or any state govt), and this is just TOO important a topic to slip up on, I'd entrust responsibility of this to NGOs.
Design courses/training with great care.
You're building character of tomorrow's men.

We could do with gender-sensitisation training for adults too.
Am not sure how successful these will be (I'm much more upbeat about the ones for younger folks), but even this is worth trying. If even 10 out of 100 who take this course, change - great.
Anything that could help.

Another thing we need is to break gender stereotypes.
Esp to do with "Taking care of the household is the woman's job".
Ghar ka kaam - cleaning, cooking, childcare, eldercare.

Need to start getting boys to do ghar ka kaam.
From childhood.
Why do only girls learn this early?

When I lived in Europe, I was pleasantly surprised to see my friends' kids (boys!) do a LOT of housework from a young age.
Doing the dishes, ironing clothes.
My friend would say "if he knows how to eat, he better know how to wash the dishes too". :-)
The kid was 9 or 10.

Sure they had dishwashers and washing machines.
But they ensured the kids (boys and girls) did a lot of work around the house.
And didn't discriminate at all.
One weekend, the son would do the vacuum cleaning, the next weekend the daughter.
Putting out garbage, everything.

In India, we bring up our sons like "mera raja beta".
Too much mollycoddling.
We forgive all his transgressions, justifying them as "seekh jaayega, abhi bacha hai".
The son grows up entitled, thinking the world owes him.
The world owes you ZILCH.
You EARN any respect you get.

So we're doing serious gender sensitisation in schools and in workplaces.
And we're not mollycoddling our sons. We're making them do housework from a young age. Yes, cleaning, cooking, the works. Just like we do today w/ daughters.
Sons shouldn't grow up w/ sense of entitlement.

Another thing to do is to ensure women are encouraged to be, and are, financially independent.
Being financially dependent on someone undermines your self-confidence and agency.
So what needs to be done here?
Educate women more.
Change laws that deprive them of wealth.

It's already midnight now, so I'm stopping here for now.
There's a lot more to do ofc, but all I've said here is quite doable, isn't it?
If we take each chunk, and work on it (they're fairly independent of each other!), we'll make progress.
So let me end on a positive note.
Gn.

Oh, and pls feel free to leave your thoughts here.
This is all just my rambling till now - nothing thought through at all.
Just wrote whatever came to my mind. :-)