Not celebrating Men's Day?
Originally written in 2020
Today in the absence of any WhatsApp messages, Insta shout-outs, Google doodles, or anything else remotely celebratory, we have Men's Day. On a page called 'Mother of Sarcasm,' I read - "Men’s day isn’t as popular as Women’s day because we can’t celebrate all the achievements of men in a single day." Funny, but mostly curious.
It made me think of why we celebrate anything. Publically, we usually tend to celebrate the good things. For something to be good, it has to have been bad before; otherwise, there is no recognition of the good. The good Lord Rama killed the bad Devil-king Ravana to get Sita back. Ayodhya people have been said to have not left a single house unlit on the night of their return. And it has only grown from there. We now celebrate Diwali because it universally represents 'good over evil'. Imagine if there was none of this. If Rama-Sita just had a normal (God-kind of normal) life, would we still have Diwali? Probably not. It wouldn't have made Rama less of a king (or God), but we would not have celebrated a day declared by some king with a normal life for something mediocre for centuries to come.
I guess we don't celebrate Men's day for the same reason. Men have remained majorly unchanged in the course of modern history. I am not saying that "men" haven't achieved anything or haven't changed the basic fabric of how we look at nature or society. They have, of course, heavily contributed to those memorable moments of human existence. But they have done only little to change their lives. My great-great-grandmother probably never stepped beyond a few kilometers of her house. She probably feared dying in labor or burning alive with her dead husband on his pyre. My great-grandmother, her next generation, knew what a book was. She went to school for a few years until she was made into a child-bearing factory and an unpaid chef at the house for most of her adult life. My grandmother completed school, worked, voted, and decided how many children she would like to have. My mother became a doctor and controlled her life while saving those of others. For several women, over a few generations, the growth has been nothing short of heavenly. Compared to that, my great-great-grandfather was probably a poor man working as some brahmin in the temple who tried hard to provide for his family and had a designated social status and power that he enjoyed. My great-grandfather probably had the comfort of a "job" but essentially had similar life and goals. My grandfather worked hard at a job and then got a pension. He strived against the rapidly changing world (and India) and tried to make life easier for the family. My dad studied, got his medical practice, and earned more money, comfort, and respect. It has been like a movie franchise where nothing too game-changing has happened after the first part or two, regardless of the massive fan following.
The progress of a large number of men, as to who they are, who they can or can't be, and what they can or cannot do, has been slow enough to make it look almost invisible. Men have been largely stuck with the same problems for the last two hundred or so years. From family feuds to cross-country wars, it has been the same lust for land. From Wall Street to street racing, it has always been that insatiable and compulsive need to win the dick-measuring contest. From any form of supremacy to any kind of gang, it has been about that obsession with "being in charge" and keeping others away from power, no matter the guilt and suffering felt by yourself or the pain inflicted upon others. It is indubitable that the significantly high suicide rates in men speak to the masculine neglect towards mental health, beyond any biological risk. Education and technological progress haven't helped men avoid abusing, violating, and raping women and children. Too busy changing the world, the men have done little to change themselves, including the known bad parts of them.
The argument is not that women solved or are solving their problems all by themselves. From Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who fought for extinguishing the Sati fire to Pincus & Djerassi, whose invention of oral contraception pills fundamentally changed the lives and liberty of billions of women, and countless other nameless men have done much more for the women than my angry female peers calling out every shitty tweet for misogyny. My argument is that men haven't done the same for themselves, either due to incapability or arrogance. But to be clear, women won over their problems. They fought, died, cheated, and borrowed from men, but won over their biggest Ravanas. And they continue to do so. Maybe it's time to woman up and take care of our shit? Maybe if we reach zero suicides or rapes, we will feel good enough to celebrate Men's Day.