Indian Men’s Rights Movement Needs More Women Activists

Even animals have a ministry, not Indian men

Men’s right is not any old concept in India now. However, as a movement, it is still in its infancy. Its acceptance level to the masses is still very low as compared to even animal rights and no wonder why the above situation prevails.

Woman in men's rights, India

IPC 498a the great leveller

IPC 498a is a great leveller. Thanks to this feminist blunder in India, Indian men could unite themselves under the umbrella of the Men’s Rights Movement and felt the need for men’s rights in the first place. Thanks to the same section, there are some women who came in the same movement and started leading it from the front (see Women in India’s Men’s Rights Movement). But most of them who came to the movement either had been directly affected or seen their near and dear ones suffering from IPC 498a. They are either mothers or sisters of a man who has suffered from this draconian law.

So far I have not come across any woman who has not been affected in any way by this gender-biased draconian law and is still supporting men’s rights due to its merits, due to the fact that they respect men around them and want them to be safe. Similar way not many men who have never been affected by this law have come forward in support of men’s rights. Many men who have suffered from IPC 498a and other gender biased laws support men’s rights only because they want to get out of their cases easily with the minimum harm done to them. Most of these men and women would have vanished if there were no IPC 498a and related extortion. In fact, probably there would have been no Men’s Rights Group in India if there were no IPC 498a.

Acceptability of Men’s Rights in India

There are many reasons why people do not understand and support gender-neutral laws. (see– 10 reasons why YOU should support gender-neutral laws). This is the first and foremost demand of the men’s rights groups but unfortunately, even many Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) don’t understand the depth and breadth of the issue. To them, it is only IPC 498a or DV ACT which are the problems. They do not understand that it is the prevailing misandry (see – What is misandry and how we all propagate it) in the society that is the root cause of all such laws. This is the same reason we see people who are not directly affected (or having the threat to be affected) by IPC 498a in this movement for long.

When the movement is still not widely acceptable to the men in the country how can this be acceptable to women in the country? Even many men affected by these laws feel that these laws are necessary. That is only due to the fact that they have never gone down to the problems that men face today or their protector mentality has prohibited them from acting on that.

Under this situation, Indian Men’s Rights movement not only need more women activists but also need more women leaders like the ones who are already fighting alongside men.

Deepika Bhardwaj

Challenges of women MRAs

Under the prevailing patriarchal mindset where a woman is taught to be a victim always and is treated like a victim, it is difficult for one to come out of the mindset. So for any woman who is not a mother or sister of a man who has undergone extreme cruelty under any of these gender-biased laws, it is not easy to understand the need in the first place. The issue is more complicated as most of these mothers are old and can’t fight for their right, even if they do, they can’t be as impact full as any other young girl.

Under these circumstances, the sisters of the victims can make a meaningful difference if they want. But in most cases they have their own family to look after and it becomes difficult for them to fight for a cause that is not paid and looked down upon by society.

There is another serious challenge for these young women MRAs. Their acceptability in the movement becomes low because most of the men in the movement were cheated badly by a young woman like them. Since any woman MRA get maximum attention from society and become instantly popular, many male MRAs in the movement start getting into an inferiority complex. Prominent male ego prevents accepting their popularity even within the MRA group, no matter what these women have done for the movement.

The attention-seeking women

It is also a fact that the movement has seen some women who have joined the movement purely for attention-seeking purpose. They found this immense void in the movement, understood that with feminism being exposed every day by the MRAs, the MRA movement is here to stay.

Recently one such woman advocate who wanted to be a leader in a national men’s rights group was shunned by many veteran MRAs. From her activities and comments to senior MRAs, it was very clear that she has joined the movement for attracting easy attention and becoming a leader with instant fame and popularity. The Men’s Rights Movement needs to be cautious from these women too and identify and shun any attention seeker instantly for the sake of the movement.

The responsibility of male MRAs

Men in the movement need to understand and appreciate the fact that to make society realize the importance of this movement, the male MRAs need to be more acceptable to women in the movement. These women will act as catalysts for the movement and will make it more acceptable to society.

Feminism that started with the theory of age-old oppression for women in different social sectors has found increasingly innovative stories of oppression. That is why today everything has become women’s rights issue. This movement has grown this big only because a section of men have always supported the feminist movement. These men constantly propagated feminism in different areas to make it popular and acceptable to others. They have created some blind followers who do not understand any ideology or care for the same, they just support feminism as others around them do so. The men’s rights movement, too, needs to do that. Otherwise, it can not dream of becoming popular and widely acceptable.

Gender a Non – Issue

Even though it is projected as gender war mostly by the feminists but gender is a non-issue in the Men’s Rights Movement. The need to secure men’s rights arises today because men in the country do not have any rights but all responsibilities today, whereas women have only rights and no responsibilities. This becomes a big issue in the family setup where in-spite of doing everything a man is treated like a criminal.

This is more like a war between innocents and criminals where criminals are not punished simply because of their gender. Here the irony is at times there are women who are victims in the hands of these criminal women but still do not get or expect justice. Feminism thus creates a great level playing field in India by promoting criminal activities and extorting innocent victims from either gender.

Conclusion

Today, feminism is an ideology that creates a divide between men and women to promote only criminals, shelter criminals based on gender and MRAs are here to expose that. Any woman who wants to fight for men’s rights in the country and find resistance from within the group needs to understand that these men who have been brought up in a patriarchal society and probably took all care of women around them, found themselves in a spot by the same women just for being males. It is natural that they would not accept unknown females in their groups or even accept their leadership. It is nothing but a result of the increasing number of attention-seeking women or opportunists around. The more women become opportunists, demand extreme gender-biased provisions more they will face hardship in being acceptable to men around them. This extremism will give rise to a situation where men, especially male victims of gender-biased laws will not accept any unknown woman. Once that happens that may give rise to a gender war, hatred or simple alienation and will be more harmful to the movement.

It is the need of the hour that MRAs understand the importance of women in the movement and also more women understand the need for the movement for the society. Once they understand mutual dependence and realize the value of each other that will create value for the movement as well as for the society

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5 comments

  1. Please could u help to get contact of lawyers specialising in money matters…for eg if the wife keeps demanding increasing amounts of money, coaches the 13 year old son to threaten father, and basically wants to take over inherited family home?

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  2. i tried to comment on men’s rights page but post did not go through.
    Would like to contact Deepika ji and Jyoti ji . Please can you help? Thks

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  3. Karen Straughten said that rather than focusing on being a MRA that instead she would focus on being an anti-feminist. This may be a better move. That way you can screen out dubious women who are secretly feminists infiltrating the MRA movement and then credulous men believing them. Always remember that while men are stronger than women, women have been forced to make up the difference by being cunning and manipulative. There is a reason that Cannakya Pandit wrote “never trust women or politicians.” Anyway, having women form anti-feminist movements is also good in its own right and no one could ever accuse them of being men.

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