EXPLORING MASCULINITIES        

The concept of 'masculinities', informed by recent feminist thought and the women's movement, has emerged as a means of renewing feminist discourse by encouraging a more relational approach to masculinities and femininities. This also allows for the investigation, problematization and interrogation of masculinity equally with femininity. Not withstanding these enabling possibilities, however, "gender" is still essentially deployed in contemporary social science discourse as a synonym for women, its relational aspect obscured and the invitation to interrogate masculinities largely ignored. This is unfortunate because a textured understanding of the diversity of South Asian men's experiences, attitudes, beliefs, practices, situations, sexualities and institutions is essential to not only challenging the social dominance of men over women but for building a more humane world.

The travelling seminar on masculinities has been conceived from the position that the study of masculinities is important in that it is 'simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the affects of these practices in bodily experiences, personality and culture.' (Connell R.W, 1994:71)

This website has been set up by Aakar, a registered Trust based in New Delhi, to generate a dialogue and sharing between researchers, activists, groups, artists and individuals working or thinking on the theme of masculinities.

In the last decade or so, Aakar has through research, seminars, films, trainings been at the centre of the thinking and interventions emerging on the theme of masculinities in the region.

We hope that this site will provide for a lively exchange on the theme of masculinities within south Asia and beyond.