Men, Inclusion, and Feminism
‘At a time when women have owned up to their narratives, are telling their stories, and forming solidarity, is it essential we enquire after male poets’ perspectives on feminism?’ Shamayita Sen discusses various aspects of the feminist struggle in her introduction to the collection Collegiality and Other Ballads: feminist poems by male and non-binary allies.
"We believe feminism is a way of life, and that it requires instillation in a nation’s cultural memory. Men’s involvement in feminist politics builds a web of solidarity for empathetic futures. This collection, very much in tune with the third and fourth waves of feminism, puts the onus onto those who are historically and structurally in socially privileged positions of power: men, white or upper caste. Instead of usurping the emotional labour of survivors, these reflective pieces quantify social uplift basis male action and intention. The anthology also discusses issues that concern Dalit, Indigenous and Queer poets, issues that patriarchal society and elected governments invisibilise as non-existent."
The collection Collegiality and Other Ballads: feminist poems by male and non-binary allies was published in May 2021 by Hawakal Publishers, featuring poetry by numerous authors and essays by Shamayita Sen and Saikat Majumdar. Below is an special extract from the collection, Sen’s introductory essay, “Men, Inclusion, and Feminism”.
Much has been written and said about feminist politics, making us believe that the world is changing slowly and steadily. But for most parts, the world has changed in verse, not in action. I remember the first conscious feminist words that were uttered to me in middle school. Our Physics teacher, in a passing comment, pointed out to us how most Mathematics problem sums presuppose a ‘he’ in charge of buying goods, indicating not only that language is essentially gendered but also that we entrust men with buying, selling, and decision-making powers. I believe much has happened since. In India and abroad, women in rural and urban spaces have been offered tools that have ‘empowered’ them to recognise patriarchal violence at home and work. We are aware that gender is a social construct, and a performance[i]. However, women empowerment has not quite served the purpose; it has not eradicated gender violence.
Women empowerment puts the onus of social uplift upon women. It weaponises female experiences, women’s struggles, and the emotional labor of survivors. To quantify social evolution, this anthology, very much in tune with the fourth wave of feminism, puts the onus onto those who are historically and structurally in socially privileged positions of power: men, white or upper caste. This collection aims at inducting contemporary male poets into active feminist politics. We believe no equilibrium can be attempted in a society without the ones in systemic power willing to speak up in solidarity with those suppressed since times immemorial. Of course, male poets will write without the lived experiences of female suffering, but most political writing is invoked from worries locked up in the human subconscious.
We believe no equilibrium can be attempted in a society without the ones in systemic power willing to speak up in solidarity with those suppressed. Of course, male poets will write without the lived experiences of female suffering, but most political writing is invoked from worries locked up in the human subconscious.
The idea behind this anthology must have slowly germinated in me since the time I realised I had had a gender-neutral upbringing, or during the many cooking sessions with Baba as we both waited for Maa to return home from her election duty, or when my parents enrolled me in Bharatnatyam as well as martial art classes so that their child may grow up into a well-rounded person, and so that my gender may not determine my vocational interest. I understood gender is fluid after moving to Delhi through interactions and exchanges with a vibrant group of people at university. I shall be ever grateful to my professors, friends, and colleagues who helped me open my mind to this world beyond its confines of the gender binary. Feminism, for me, is this ability to find oneself in the world, in any form one chooses to—to own one’s body and to be able to see beyond gender as a notion constricting human lives.
When I began thinking of this anthology’s theme and structure, I was concerned if the time is apt for a work such as this. That is, at a time when women have finally owned up to their narratives, are telling their stories, and forming solidarity, is it essential we enquire after male poets’ perspectives on feminism? The Me Too movement (2017) exposed sexual violators at educational institutes and workplaces. This watershed moment served as an eye-opener for society. For the first time, perpetrators (and not survivors) were held responsible for a sexual offense. The movement shifted the lens of scrutiny from female bodies to male intention and directed us to think through nuances of sexual misconduct.
Two of my favorite poems from the collection are K. Satchidanandan’s “Non-negotiable” and Paresh Tiwari’s “Surviving Marital Rape” because of the sheer emotion they evoked on my first read. Both speak of the pangs of victimhood. The reader is rendered hopeless, wondering whether survivors ever get over traumatic life experiences. Patriarchal violence remains at the core of other poems. Kinshuk Gupta’s “How Our Sisters Live and Die” is written in memory of Dr. Priyanka Reddy. Allan Kolski Horwitz’s “Census” is a tale of resilience that characterizes survivors’ instincts. Khal Torabully, through his use of heteroglossia[ii], shares excerpts from the narrative of a female coolie who is reduced to a mere ‘police case’ post suffering brutalisation during her journey across ‘dark waters.’
In contrast, Madhu Raghavendra’s “Conflict” advocates non-violent resistance through its reference to ‘sex strike,’ a practice to bring back peace in specific communities—‘I am a woman; I can freeze civil wars between my thighs….’ Chandramohan Sathyanathan writes keenly on questions of beauty and desirability. In his poems, “Plus Sized Poem” and “Portrait of a Poet as a Young Woman,” he establishes beauty as an elite, capitalist construct. Kiriti Sengupta points out gender stereotypes prevalent in Indian society. In “The Y-Gene,” he writes, ‘After school he (son) tells his mother, Girls sit on the left side.’ Gender stereotypes normalise the belief that girls (and women) deserve little to no care and compassion. Sengupta directs us towards what bell hooks says—‘there was little feminist education’ to develop ‘critical consciousness’ and revere ourselves and ‘our bodies in an anti-sexist way.’[iii]
As I continued to work on the anthology, multiple questions dangled before me. I wondered whether one must be a feminist to compose feminist poetry? But isn’t Feminism an ever-evolving ideology? Can anyone ever be an ‘ideal feminist?’ Again, isn’t it heterogeneity that gives life to an anthology! The least I did while choosing work was not to include poems that offer voyeuristic pleasure. I was wont to question: What pertains to feminist writing by men? Should it only be about conventional feminist issues such as consent, patriarchal violence, social bindings of heterosexual relationships, etcetera? Or, should it focus on men writing about themselves sans machismo, sans violent metaphors, sans the male gaze?
Of course, social evils such as female foeticide, female infanticide, mutilation of female genitalia, and corrective rape, which are still prevalent in certain cultures, require legal and governmental interferences to bring about changes in the patriarchal mindset. But it is time to ask other pertinent questions: In apparently progressive urban elite spaces where intimate violence such as domestic violence and sexual offence is on the rise, how is one to develop a feminist conscience or the tools of feminist parenting? I believe we have moved beyond the initial phase of acknowledging problems that mar patriarchal society. Now, we should look for active solutions to be able to live well in heteronormative familial spaces. Feminist politics, unfortunately, fails within the intimate space of the home and family. When out on the streets, empowered women may fight their own battles, but it is within the family where she lacks an ally in a parent, her in-laws, and often even in her partner. The reported number of domestic violence cases during the lockdown is disheartening proof of the same. Familial spaces presuppose gender inequality which adds to the power hierarchy of heteronormative familial relationships.
There are a few self-reflective pieces in the collection. Alvin Pang’s “Lovers without Hands” begins with ‘Let’s stand in front of mirrors and rehearse touch.’ The poem calls for empathy, agency, and mutual pleasure in intimate relations. Chand writes about gender identity with a kind of fierceness that comes only with defying gender binaries. Gender fluidity is a distinct aspect that plays with the readers’ minds in Chand’s ‘My Gender,’ Dibyajyoti Sarma’s ‘In Which Shikhandi Regrets His Decision,’ K. Satchidanandan’s ‘She, Inside Me,’ and Ra Sh’s ‘Andro and Estro.’ These poems strike a necessary balance in an anthology that focuses on harassment and violence against women. Tim Kahl’s “An Underdog in Training” and Manik Sharma’s “Leaving” discuss the speakers’ frailties and fears. Amlanjyoti Goswami’s “On the Terrace” explores what Jacques Lacan explains as ‘the fear of the father.’ Goswami presents a moment in his poem where children deliberate upon inviting the father to play, worrying if he would curtail their spirit. ‘The height of your father, waiting. A komodo dragon’ is an image that uses ‘father’ as a symbol that patriarchy often associates with terror, power, and punishment to invoke fear in children.
This anthology responds to various tenets of third and fourth-wave feminism. Feminist theories do not exclude men from its periphery. It must be noted that anti-men statements that are rampant in popular media are misrepresentations of feminist politics. We believe in bell hooks’ imagination: “Feminism is for Everybody,” or as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie emphasises that men should be gender-sensitive, or as Kamla Bhasin puts it: ‘Feminism is not biological. Feminism is an ideology.’ We believe feminism is a way of life and requires instillation in a nation’s cultural memory. Men’s involvement in feminist politics does not necessarily override women’s struggles. Instead, it builds a web of solidarity for empathetic futures.
In recent times, some brilliant series and films have been released that deal with social issues with a kind of empathy that was often lacking in their precursors. For instance, Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors (2020) and Pieces of a Woman (2020) ask difficult questions through their anti-sexist portrayal of female bodies and female experiences of loss. The cinematic depiction of the female body bereft of a male glance (in the shows mentioned above) helps de-glamorise marriage and motherhood. Also, the fact that both the shows have male directors is a hopeful turn for feminist art and politics. In a way, the anthology is inspired by this shift in attitude in mainstream media.
I often wonder: Now that women are speaking up, are we willing to listen? The scope of no feminist movement is ever limited to only calling out heteropatriarchal violence. Instead, they aim at bringing back the promised safety into this world.
In light of the above statement, it would be good to explore a few pieces from the anthology. Motherhood juxtaposed with deprivation and sacrifice is depicted in Milan Mondal’s “The Silent Lane” and Dibyajyoti Sarma’s “In Which We Eat.” It is refreshing to note that these poems lack the celebratory tone that one connects with motherhood. The old and ailed female body is a common symbol of neglect in our households. The image of the old woman in Sanket Mhatre’s “Bed No. 187” indicates how human bodies are weighed against their material and economic value. Female bodies suffer tremendous neglect and disrespect as they move beyond their procreating age. Mhatre writes, ‘A night ago, she held my hand and cried—If I die here, will you take me back to my village? She handed me a letter with no address.’ Quite a few other poems in the collection explore this theme with subtlety. Vivekanand Selvaraj’s “Bharat Mata” (translates as ‘Mother-India’) has an interesting take on hyper-masculine nationalism that perceives a country as a ‘motherland’ requiring constant protection and preservation. Selvaraj parodies this notion and presents nationalism as mere school performance.
What holds this anthology together is its depiction of cheap sexual labour and unpaid female domestic labor—offerings that patriarchal society thrives on. The poets, through their pieces, blur barriers between the Madonna and the Whore[iv]. The collection begins with Abhay K.’s dedication to ‘pleasure givers,’ who are hurt most by government agents, lawmakers, and executives, who, instead of targeting demand, enable organized crime against sex workers. Abhay K. portrays them as ‘pulled into police vans, taxis, limousines and dumped somewhere.’ The Madonna is strikingly merged with the Whore in Basab Mondal’s “Foetus,” as a ‘moll,’ carrying a child in her dark womb, is accompanied by a ‘halo.’ Or, as Milan Mondal depicts—mother willing to go with anyone without ‘bargaining’ so that she may be able to feed her little ones. Sexual slavery is the norm for coolie women in Khal Torabully’s extracts from Voices from Aparavasi Ghat, for young girls in Amit Shankar Saha’s “Trafficked,” for home-makers in Paresh Tiwari’s “Surviving Marital Rape,” or as Ra Sh points out, for young men in prisons. The latter writes, ‘In prison, my ass is a treasure sought after by 1000 men. Catcalls follow me, wolf whistles fly around me, My ass is groped…branded by the owner, emasculated, feminized.’ Oppressive social structures enable toxic masculinity. Spaces of work and domesticity become an abstraction of emotional abuse. The female body that is a metaphor for silence, sadness, and burden, paints the walls she lives within with wails of trauma. An impending burden of household chores is thrust upon Sumallya Mukhopadhyay’s characters, Maa and Didi, or the wife in Raja Chakraborty’s “Of Houses,” or the maids in Abhay K.’s “A Maid’s Monologue” and Ankush Banerjee’s “Two Women.”
Cultural theorists have now moved beyond an ideological understanding of the world to identity politics that pays heed to individual lives and their choices, desires, and necessities. The anthology voices concerns shared by Dalit, Indigenous, and Queer poets portraying and celebrating realities that patriarchal society and elected governments have for long invisibilised and ghettoised as non-existent. We believe writing about feminist issues cannot be divorced from one’s racial and class identities, and I have done my very best to incorporate varied voices that discuss the same.
I often wonder: Now that women are speaking up, are we willing to listen? The scope of no feminist movement is ever limited to only calling out heteropatriarchal violence. Instead, they aim at bringing back the promised safety into this world. We must move beyond visualising feminist men only as leaders[v], and now they should be able to inhabit our everyday lives. This collection is merely a beginning. But it hopes to achieve at least something of what it aims at: developing and promoting a feminist conscience in a society fraught with violence and regressive politics.
Notes
[i] from Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990)
[ii] Khal Torabully uses heteroglossia as a means to challenge monolingual perceptions of language and identity.
[iii] quote from bell hooks’ Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2000)
[iv] A reference to the Madonna-Whore Complex. Patriarchal set-ups perceive women in either of the two categories: the Madonna or the Whore. The Madonna is a de-sexualised figure of women as the Mother, as against the explicitly sexualised figure of the Whore. And, for the tragedy of the society, these two categories are not meant to overlap in most fiction, even though in real life, most women house both characteristics within themselves.
[v] To name a few prominent Indian social activists in this context: Raja Rammohan Roy (eradication of Sati and abolition of child marriage), Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar (widow remarriage and female education), B. R. Ambedkar (Hindu Code Bill).
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Shamayita Sen is a Delhi-based poet, lecturer and PhD research candidate (Department of English, University of Delhi). She is the author of For the Hope of Spring: hybrid poems (Hawakal Publishers, 2020), and editor of Collegiality and Other Ballads: feminist poems by male and non-binary allies (Hawakal Publishers, 2021). Her research articles and poems have appeared in various avenues in India and abroad. She can be reached at: shamayita.sen@gmail.com and on Instagram: @shamayita_sen.
