Background: This is influenced by the recent developments in India and the activism surrounding it: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/bois- locker-room-scandal-fir-against-south-delhi-teens-for-obscene-instagram-chatter-6393840/

This is a perspective. This doesn’t come out of a place of insecurity. This isn’t a counter narrative but rather a corollary one.

The very foundation of any liberal accommodation to take place in a contemporary society, leading to progressive cultural assimilation is NOT of generalisation. It’s letting individual expression flourish. It’s about highlighting multiplicity and interests of all subjectively.

Yes men are the major part of the problem, by inadvertently promoting the patterns which are problematic. Yes men inherently tend to have an unreasonable sexual inclination in the Indian system. Yes men have a privilege arising out of their sheer gender identity.

But this entire privilege thrives on a power dynamic. When you’re only having one metric of gender identity to determine a privilege, which leads to victimisation of the underprivileged, it’s problematic.

This opinion of ‘not all men’ tries to accommodate itself on these subjective lacunas in the popular narrative of ‘Yes, All Men’.

  1. ‘Yes, All Men’ actively tells us there’s victimisation. It establishes a responsibility on all men to help all women as the only notion of tangible change. What this does is it will create a cycle of victimisation and responsibility towards the one rigid target; for every step where one can’t identify other means of change and other ways to locate responsibility. This is a bandwagon approach.
  2. It dismisses any dialogue of Men’s problems. Yes these may not have credibility. Yes often, voicing men’s problems at such a time is just saying ‘no u’. But if we dismiss this coming forward, we also disallow any minority opinion to come forward. Just because of a gender identity, we’ll neglect an idea. We’re using the power of the narrative to Suppress rather than Establish. We’re activity giving the narrative a negative function. We haven’t even talked about the possibility of other gender identities and sexual orientations, while speaking of minority opinion.
  3. It limits the scope of general problems. Name calling, role assigning are problems on both the ends of the spectrum. If one community suffers from an action, the other does too from that same action. If we want broad change, we need to acknowledge it’s broad scope.
  4. It creates stigma( partially). We’re often stigmatised to censor words such as rape, but not murder . It’s becomes there’s no coherence amongst the communities. Say you’re a women in this context; now by generalising, you are also more afraid of the traditional herd mentality. You never know if someone is a predator or if someone has been through a tragic experience, hence you’re sensitive in your approach. This is partially because you have a sense of generalisation in your mind which dictates this caution. Yes this caution is good, but it often translates to stigma which limits your expression and concedes to one’s vulnerability.

Now coming to why, “ Not all Men” works in the current scheme, at its best case scenario

  1. It recognises the wrongs with more clarity and more facilitates introspection: It tells that there’s a portion of men that ideally shouldn’t be a part of the problem. It tells that they’re confident and in acknowledgement. It actively makes them introspect further to see which side they are on.
  2. It demands more clarity on the problems. Sexualisation isn’t necessarily wrong. It’s from the time to post a popular pop singers shirtless picture on your feed to you performing a bold steamy jazz dance to you finding creative ways to masturbate. Harassment is wrong. Being disrespectful in unacceptable. In this light, We seek context and then find relative solutions rather than a fixed solution to every scenario.
  3. It dwells further to analysis of the System we’re in. For instance, sex is not much of a taboo in most western states. But in India it is. You can get away with almost every rap song having subjugation and highlighting hoe culture. But doing that in India is problematic. It’s more easy to incorporate casual sex jokes there than here. So now to bring in any of those ideas, one is aware of the consequences due to their sheer application in numbers differing in India . So you’ll adjust yourself to the system and create subcategories amongst men. You’ll try to identify how some ideas such as Bollywood item songs & occupational gap are detrimental.
  4. It promotes integration. It tells us Male privilege exists. By saying ‘not all men’, you provide your own application to the male privilege, so you can align yourself with values which are in conversation. Because men recognise their privilege, they’ll need to actively try to adjust to a middle ground with the women’s inclinations outweighing theirs. They’ll integrate themselves to the cause just as effectively, with more clarity. They’ll support the fundamentals, rather than acts in isolation.

Yes it has its demerits, which are greatly amplified, which I agree, at its worst are far more prominent than the merits such as:

  1. Promotes men being defensive and in denial.
  2. Gives false validation to those to fail to introspect.
  3. Is disrupting the progression of an established narrative, sometimes, for the worse.

But acknowledgement is instrumental.
To wrap up , acknowledging the validity of the narrative, will lead to more progressive dialogue. If a narrative has come up, it’s for a reason. Dismissing it will do no good. The reasons can be rectified, the narrative can actually be accommodated in a larger picture. Progress can never be rigid. The more established narratives in discussion, the more efficiency in examining the implementation of the popular ideas. It gives a more reformative rather than retributive undertone to change, making it more inclusive and less black and white.