Experts weigh in on the challenges of raising feminist sons in India at a talk

An Aadarsh Baalak poster

Patriarchal societies like ours perpetuate misogyny and gender privileges exist in every strata of our society. From a young age, boys are raised with a sense of entitlement, which starts to manifest itself early - in the form of right to education, play, religious and cultural rituals - and continues into adulthood.

In an effort to shed light on this subject, Bellevue Salons, a conversation platform, is organising a discussion titled Raising Feminist Sons at an art gallery in Bandra. The event is being held in partnership with Tara Kaushal, the author of multimedia gender journalism and activism project Why Indian Men Rape.

Tara Kaushal

Kaushal will moderate a panel featuring filmmaker and activist Bishakha Datta, visual artist and scholar Vidya Kamat, blogger and author Kiran Manral, and associate professor Shilpa Phadke.

The talk will focus on the failures and corrective measures required to reconstruct the idea of masculinity right from a boy's childhood.

They will also discuss how the gender paradigms of inequality have an impact on not just women, but the men too. Restricted by gender norms, boys tend to enter adulthood with a vicious attitude that further leads to hostility and violence.