Boys must not be boys

What’s happening with young men in India, as more women move out of allotted gender roles, bears deep examination. Men act out their entitlement. It often takes the familiar form of retributive violence – in Aurangabad, a male graduate student set himself and his fellow student ablaze in their professor’s office, because she rejected his proposal.

More often, it is simply the inability to see women as people with wills and desires of their own, who exist for themselves and not to serve men’s needs.

Our institutions mirror this mentality. Police investigations turn their glare on the woman who is victimised, judges ask women to marry their rapists or make assumptions about what is expected of a wife, or discipline them for not being ‘‘pure’’ and compliant fem-bots.

It’s alarmingly evident what harm this kind of thinking has wrought.

Most men are schooled into power and dominance, taught to be ashamed of ordinary vulnerability. An increasing number of women are questioning this order, seeking their own freedom in education, employment and life.

Men, who don’t see that a system set up to serve them is harming them, lash out in confusion and rage at women.

The future will change only when boys do.

This opinion is not necessarily shared by Stuff newspapers.