CHENNAI : There are far too many days in the calendar set aside for an ‘International Day’ to raise awareness of some sort and it’s becoming difficult to keep track of them. Monday the 19th for instance was declared five years ago as World Toilet Day, ‘an official United Nations international observance day on to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis’.
What is interesting is that World Toilet Day shares the stage with another international day, and one that is celebrated by over 70 countries — International Men’s Day (IMD), November 19.I had no idea such a day existed. When I woke up to tweets on the matter, I dismissed it as a Men’s Rights Activists (there’s such a thing too) activity.
It was from the articles of other women writers that I discovered that IMD has been around since 1999 when it was officially launched by Dr Jerome Teelucksingh, a doctor from Trinidad and Tobago. The aim of IMD, I discovered, was to draw attention to men’s health including male suicide, toxic masculinity and mental health. It was also now that I learn that IMD is closely related to the more popular Movember and No shave November when men grow facial hair to throw light on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention.
Now, I am certainly the person who would poo-poo the idea of celebrating a day for men given the state of women’s affairs, especially in a country like India where there is no evidence that men’s mental health is worse than that for women, growing facial hair is anyway the normal in most places, and toxic masculinity is even celebrated in many parts. But, I do understand why we need to set aside a day for men, not simply because there is one for women, not to celebrate manhood, but because we better get the conversation going in every little inch of space we can manage to claim. This year seems just as good a time to start, with the theme being positive role models.
And instead of going to celebrities and popular social media profiles as positive role models, I urge each to think of the men in our lives easily outnumbered by those-who-need-not-be-talked-about that do the some things right, some differently, and consciously try to make it better for the women around them, while challenging their own constructions of how they should behave.
So take the time I say, to think about men who cry, men who speak about their feelings, men who begin tough conversations, men who want to ‘resolve’ issues, men who stand up for the women in their lives, men who share household chores and emotional labour, men that cheer women on to greater success, men who claim paternity leave, men who are stay at home dads, men that let the women in their lives grow, be and think independently, men who do not abuse their power, men who can take ‘No’ for an answer, men who are actively trying to grapple with the debates around consent, and men who die for falling in love, and die wearing a blue t-shirt that has ‘Jai Bhim’ printed on it. Disclaimer: Men in the above context refers to cis-heterosexual-white/upper caste men and women to everyone that is not.
There are so few men defined this way that dare to do, say, think differently, and if not go as far
as celebrating, it is worth it to encourage them and to be kind to them on IMD and on every other day. They are fighting our fight too, and they need the support we know we could use.