India, Masculinity, Identity

Abstract

Throughout modern history, much of Indian society was and remains staunchly patriarchal—a society in which men control access to power, property, and resources. Coming of age in India, most cisgender men grow up being told that they are stronger, more capable, and more powerful than women and minority genders. Aside from some regional variations in descent and residence patterns, most Indian societies are also patrilineal and patrilocal. Family and kinship play a crucial role in shaping the lives and life choices of most Indians. While daughters are expected to leave behind their natal homes to join their affinal kin and become part of their in-laws’ household after marriage, in most Indian families, sons inherit family property and assets almost exclusively. Women are further disempowered in workplace and in public, where they confront persistent sexism, misogyny, discrimination, harassment, and gendered violence. Patriarchy remains enshrined within the very fabric of social life in India, empowering men economically, politically, and socially. Indian manhood is defined through this assumed and often unquestioned supremacy of men over women and minority genders. Yet the power and privileged status that Indian men enjoy accompanies with it a whole set of responsibilities and limitations. Patriarchy restricts their gender identity, expressions, and desires. Despite being in positions of power, Indian men have a lot less control over whom they can love or marry, what kinds of families they are allowed to have, and the kind of educational and professional opportunities they are allowed to pursue. Their choices are limited by their parents, their extended families, and their caste and ethnic communities. In this way, Indian society can be characterized as “Macholand,” as a society defined by male supremacy and patriarchy in which men relish in the privileges that accompany being a man while simultaneously resenting the limitations that patriarchal family structures place upon their individual aspirations and personal lives. Indian men’s lives and the very definition of masculinity and sexuality in India are constituted through endogamous marriage, heteronormative family, and patriarchal kinship. Irrespective of the various coming-of-age ceremonies and initiation rituals boys undergo as they transition into manhood within different ethnic and religious communities across India, marriage and fatherhood remain the two most important rites that all men must undertake to become men. This article surveys the current body of scholarship exploring regional variations and nuances in how masculinities are developed, embodied, and performed in different regions of India, among different caste and ethnic communities, and within the Indian diaspora. Also included are accounts of men who challenge hegemonic or dominant constructions of Indian masculinities by refusing heteronormative marriage and refashioning family and kinship through queer frameworks of belonging.