Happy International Men’s Day! This is the day that focuses on men, in particular to their contribution to the community, family, marriage and child care. In a broader perspective, this day is to promote basic Humanitarian Values.

Talking about this day was a bit difficult for me. While my feminist dominated side wanted to highlight the present scenario and talk about gender discrimination, the other side wanted to put down few rational thoughts about biological & psychological differences between the sexes, co-existence and the concept of yin & yang.

Amid the tangled theoretical knowledge and cross questioning, I grabbed my bag and opted for a practical approach on this matter. I went to the most visited place of Udaipur-Fateh Sagar for a social experiment and ended up with the most comforting concept about men i.e., they are of two types!

Dressed up in tee, open sweater and slacks (that was a deliberate attempt to notice the effects of clothing on psyche but that’s a different topic altogether), I walked along the lakeside carefully noticing men who belonged to different ages, mostly young. Also, I pretended to be an outsider until I was met by a familiar face and smiled back at them.

Walking alone on a busy street grabbed attention (exactly as I was hoping for). After spending 30 minutes there, I came up with the aforementioned conclusion of which below is the detail:

Type 1:

Holding a coffee cup in my hand, I was disturbed by weird sounds (the ones we usually make to call an animal) by Men on bikes and unnecessary gibber just to catch my attention. What happened next was outrageous on the part of Men. I happened to be walking at the paal when I found two men sitting on the bench, stop talking as soon as I proceeded and started staring.

Everything was fine (yes, it is NOW a normal thing for me to be gazed at) until the one who had his back on my side turned to just stare. It took me nearly 20 seconds to approach them and they just sat there staring! I passed by them and suddenly turned to face them. I halted for a bit, gazed right back at them while they still shamelessly kept looking with those eyes that read immorality.

They both were educated since they both talked about politics. They dressed well in branded tee and definitely seemed from well to do family. Also, this is NOT the first time something like this has happened to me and I know of many friends with whom acts similar to this have happened before.

The conclusion: This type of men is what makes the society’s feminist act, notion that ‘all men are the same’ and ‘the problem is that they are Men’ gain more weight and we fail to see the rational side of it all. This is the type which is one of biggest causes of misbalance in our society and instead causes a bear-effect on the progressive minds.

Type 2:

The contradictory comes here when I was acquainted by the gentler, nobler side of the specie where I was being looked as someone who co-existed in the society. As I ensued with my experiment, I went near a group of young men who were busy chatting and asked them to suggest me few places worth visiting as I was new to this city.

To my surprise, they talked to me on an eye-to-eye level and with politeness suggested to me a number of places. None of them tried to get personal or project in any way an unacceptable behavior and once done, carried on with the usual- minding their own business.

The conclusion: This type of men is what keeping this side stable. The ones we look up to who can make a difference by not just being morally right but also who can take the onus of bringing a change in the mindset of others.

The Harry Potter girl Emma Watson had raised the campaign on gender equality called ‘HeforShe’ at the UN stage on an international platform and completely changed the direction of women rights and feminist movement involving men to be part of it.

International Men’s Day is for men and we have a number of rational, aware and progressive men among us who need to take up the mantle to start giving a definition to ‘Men’ which doesn’t involve a negative connotation while saying ‘All Men are the same.’

We all know the problem, we all know the type 1 kind of men who we see and usually ignore (some of them may be our friends) but it is about defining a single person as his behavior is creating a definition for many others who become the victim of societal bigotry.

I felt it was my duty to write this on a social platform this simple concept as I fear that if in such anti-social situations, if we (especially men) do not act or speak up now, then when?

Men, take up the challenge and save yourselves from this identity crisis. If we all unite for a movement of equality, then the concept of Humanity would only remain a thing to work on and not about men and women and their rights separately.