The Mardon Wali Baat Programme works with young people to understand, reflect on, and change their perception and practice of masculinity away from the patriarchal understandings of it as sexist, violent, and competitive. Through research and direct interventions, this programme tries to enable young people to build new and diverse definitions of masculinity.
The Mardon Wali Baat Programme works with young people to understand, reflect on, and change their perception and practice of masculinity away from the patriarchal understandings of it as sexist, violent, and competitive. Through research and direct interventions, this programme tries to enable young people to build new and diverse definitions of masculinity.
About the Program
Mardon Wali Baat works with young people in campus and community settings to facilitate a deeper reflection on masculinities that can lead to a rejection of patriarchal gender norms and gender based violence. Through research and direct interventions, the programme takes up systematic reflection, dialogue, and action on intersections most relevant to the lives of young people such as relationships, social media, sexuality, caste, work, and friendships. Through this, participants are provided with a critical lens that allows them to reflect on their lives from a distance in order to reflect on the impact they have on themselves and the world. Ultimately, it seeks to deepen the understanding and practice of feminist leadership by young peoples towards a rejection of violence along with advacancement of positive masculinities and pleasure in their daily lives.
Mardon Wali Baat was launched in 2016 with the goal of working on these issues specifically with young people on the issues of masculinities in the context of Lucknow, where violence rooted in asserting the hegemonic position of men is normalised and treated as an everyday phenomenon. In 2018, the programme carried out research in three cities of Uttar Pradesh through personal interviews, life histories, and focused group discussions with college-going young men about sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) outcomes. The research focused on understanding and highlighting their perspectives and experiences around masculinities and its performance, as well as its impact on their sexual and reproductive health. In 2021, the programme also published a research report in consultation with fifteen organisations to understand the impact of COVID-19 on their work with men and boys. Adapting to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the programme launched a direct intervention in 2021 to speak directly on the changing realities of young people.
Locations
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Jaipur, Rajasthan
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
Related Resources
Impact of the Programme
The programme works with young people to shift their perception of masculinity as a rigid idea that must be learnt and replicated. The programme works towards making young people realise their role and power in decision making processes to make relations more pleasurable. It enables participants to examine the many ways in which masculinity is constructed socially, thereby facilitating their understanding of multiple forms of masculinities and not just a single fixed idea of masculinity as oppressive and violent. Through both online and on ground interventions, the programme seeks to counter the pressure to replicate violent and sexist norms of masculinity that are set up as aspirational for young men and boys. In 2018-19, funded by the American Jewish World Service, qualitative research was carried out with over 80 college-going men across three urban sites in Uttar Pradesh to understand young men’s experiences of masculinity and gender and its impact on SRHR outcomes. Read the Executive Summary of the report here. In 2016-17, the programme directly reached out to around 2000 young people and adolescents on-ground and an audience of around 10,000 people online. In 2016, TYPF trained 13 young men over seven days in Lucknow, with support from The Asia Foundation. The participants were equipped with knowledge on power and patriarchy, gender and inequality, and sexual harassment. Through social action projects, the participants reached out to more than 500 young people in educational institutions to generate awareness on gender-based violence, women’s safety, human rights, and issues of masculinity. Digital media products such as posters and podcasts were developed in collaboration with Agents of Ishq. These were used during the campaigns and were also made available to the public. In 2018, the programme published a research called “Mardon Wali Baatein” to understand the everyday experiences of young men and boys. The report provided insights to expand the work happening with men and boys in order to be cognizant of their needs. In 2021, the programme published a research titled Men, Masculinities and Pandemic to understand the impact of COVID-19 on organisations working with men and boys. The programme also released a consultation document in collaboration with fifteen organisations to talk about the way forward in working with men and boys. In 2021, the programme launched direct intervention that has reached around 200 participants from Varanasi, Bhopal, and Jaipur through a two day training.
OnGoing Work
The programme is developing a story-based online engagement which will offer young men a space to interact and reflect on the various experiences and notions of masculinities they navigate in their lives. The project will create and curate audio-visual materials and prompts taken from real and relevant life issues and choices faced by men as interactive stories on a website. The stories present scenarios that require navigating gender, caste, sexuality, social pressures, personal aspirations, and diverse relationships. Group sessions are also offered in tandem with the online story-based engagement in order to strengthen participants’ perspective on issues associated with masculinites.
