- 2 days ago
In a wide-ranging interview, a speaker highlighted the deep-seated 'culture of silence' surrounding sex and reproductive health in India. The core message of the discussion was encapsulated in the quote, 'Desh Badlega Jab Mard Badlega,' emphasising the need to change men's mindsets to achieve gender equality. The interview revealed that less than 1% of Indian men opt for vasectomy, partly due to a myth that it causes sexual weakness and a social fear of being cuckolded if their wife gets pregnant. This is contrasted with female sterilization, which accounts for 67% of family planning methods. The speaker detailed efforts to normalize conversations around sexuality through the TV serial 'Mein Kuch Bhee Kar Sakti Hoon' and the challenges of introducing sex education in schools. The importance of parental leave and redefining masculinity were also discussed as key policy and societal changes needed.
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00:00So I was recently privy to a short conversation between a friend and her
00:05father and the friend is 26 years old and the father is about 55 and he wanted
00:12to broach the topic about her having children she's married and he couldn't
00:17get it out he couldn't say you know have a child so he said beta about me
00:24because he was just finding it so difficult to converse with his own child
00:31about her reproduction and her future in terms of childbirth and so I wanted to
00:37ask you first that in a country where a man finds it very difficult to talk to
00:43his own daughter about having babies how are you walking into rooms full of men
00:48and talking about sex
00:56it's a good question and I I went into it naturally you know sex is such a natural
01:07part of our lives being reproduction everything so I've never thought of sex
01:14as a culture of silence taboo and all of that and for me reproductive rights
01:24reproductive health is what I see women engaged in much of their life and once
01:32they have children then taking care of the children is where their life is spent
01:37and that's why we don't have so many judges they give up they give up early in
01:42life women not just judges but others because of the caregiving role not just
01:48the caregiving role of their children but caregiving role of the entire family
01:54including the husband's parents and not just their own parents it is the women who do
01:59that so you know when I I'll give you two incidents which are much better way to
02:05describe so I was in the health ministry the entire leadership the bureaucracy was
02:11there and we were talking to them about season two of a program a serial we made
02:17called make which because I think it was on door darshan because we wanted to
02:22reach media dark areas and women whose lives and realities are very different
02:27from those present here but you might resonate with their lives so anyway so when I
02:33said to the bureaucracy so what do you want us to focus on in season two they
02:41said look we can't deal with sex as government it's all about sex reproduction
02:48women's health is so related and there is so much sex in our society but we can't
02:53talk about it so try and normalize sex use of condoms and so on and then the
03:01additional secretary health gave me an example how he can't buy a condom in the district where
03:08he's the collect we was the collector he goes to other districts and of course we joked with him
03:13he gets a stock so we joked with him and said you used condoms that have expired anyway so that is
03:22you know people know about the importance of sexuality in life and say and I won't just say
03:30sex but sexuality sexual behavior sexual issues sexual issues of sexuality sexual empowerment and
03:37so on but there is not just a culture of silence but there's a taboo like in the case of this of this
03:45father second incident I'll give you I met a minister from the current government in the Ministry of Health and
03:52Family Welfare and people thought I was mad to go and talk about sexual how sexual behavior and
03:59sexuality of young people brings a huge burden of mental physical sexual all these issues you know
04:07young people have access to misinformation they do not have sex access to information the father leave
04:18alone the father's eighty percent of mothers in India educated and not illiterate and not so literate
04:26cannot talk to their daughters about their menstrual debut you know can you imagine the shock the young
04:34girls get when they start if I may use a crude word bleeding so I showed him a few there was a government
04:43program that was about to be launched called Rashti Kishori Swasthi Karikram this was supposed to be a very
04:49conservative health minister and I said to him our program rollout
04:54and you're talking about eight million peer educators amongst adolescents so he said up say carry I said you
05:04know we are a scheming society we roll out schemes and there's nothing in that scheme so you be the first
05:10minister to roll out something for adolescents which has a lot to do with their sexual reproductive health
05:18you know an addiction anemia all of that was in it but that's the easier bit to do so I showed him some
05:25programs we had done cuts from make which because of you and he looked at I showed him on you know promiscuous
05:35things like even virginity you know how it impacts women's lives educated or not educated if their
05:43hymen has broken big before they have their so-called first night and he looked at all that material and
05:52he was not at all uncomfortable and he said may hindi may bolongi quoting him up name hard this
06:01and of course I briefed the health secretary I was going to see him you always do that you never go to the minister without so if you want to get something done anyway so if you want to get something done anyway so if you want to get something done
06:09so we rolled out a program where you will not believe what we put in but you know what we didn't put in the word sex so if you have a
06:33you will not believe what we put in but you know what we didn't put in the word
06:39sex sex cut taboo hair we even talk about intercourse without using the word
06:44sex so just you know in Rome do as Romans do so we were very careful and
06:50third talking about sex and sexuality you know has to begin in the schools the
06:58teachers are so nervous all of you must have heard that they go through that
07:04reproductive bit even in biology without reading it so we have to you know we
07:10think the doctors even doctors don't talk about sex sex and sexuality and how you
07:17know it dictates people life people's lives in a big way God forbid a young
07:22girl gets pregnant whether she is married or not married a girl child having
07:28another child or dealing with the whole issue of pregnancy so what we really
07:34really need to do is include in the education whether it is medical
07:39education nursing education and the frontline health workers you know when I
07:45meet our showers and a&m's and I talk to them when I ask them the question if a
07:50young girl gets pregnant at age 14 she may be raped she may be sexually abused by
07:55family member nay nay nay nay abortion make an ending we really need to change the
08:01paradigm and we need to first work with those who are reaching young people and
08:08the other is young people are accessing information from the internet so we really
08:15must produce the best informative material that young people have access to and we
08:22produce six episodes called sex ki adalat we use the word sex because the population
08:28foundation of India was doing it online but when the government people saw it and
08:35they wanted to use it we change the name to such ki adalat sabkuchi such that so you
08:40know you have to find ways in a society that is nervous about sex not about doing sex but
08:48nervous about other people and sex you know you have to find creative ways to do it and you can
08:53do it our young people their mental health is so influenced with issues around their bodies
09:01around their sexual attractions love and so on so that's another area we could do a revolution by
09:11having good stuff and we have about we have a chat bot where young people or older people can access
09:20privately through whatsapp as well as through facebook which very few people you know especially girls so
09:30that's why we went on whatsapp where they can ask any question about related to not just their sex and
09:37sexuality anything that bothers them so you've got artificial intelligence instead of doing away jobs
09:46let's create good content for our young people and for society you know we've been talking a lot about
09:55women it's a woman summit but I feel one shouldn't exclude men and there have been some wonderful
10:03interventions done where you know in Bihar for example where they found that when you involve men and you
10:10educate men the results are better when it comes to reproductive rights not just reproductive rights but
10:17all-around rights for women and you know there have been beautiful case studies you know with a young
10:22lady saying now my husband wants me to go back to studying he helps in the house so there there is a lot
10:29um beyond the power of choice you know we have talked about information right now but also in
10:36including the entire household so i love that question i love that question see we women this is primarily
10:47women right we women have to take one responsibility of going wrong and that is we don't bring up our boys
10:55boys and girls equally and worse we bring up our boys very badly and that's what we are seeing whether
11:04it's sexual or other forms of domestic violence we also you know no man is born being bad ke main
11:14will i will practice patriarchy or he is born knowing what patriarchy is or inequality and so on so we have to
11:23begin by first changing our men and we have a campaign which i'll be happy to share you can use it in your
11:32house you can use it in society the world and our nara and our campaign is right so what do we do in that
11:46how do we handle that one is the first is that we need to talk to our men we keep talking to the women
11:56there won't be a woman in this room who doesn't know what the problem is that impacts due to which she
12:03experiences or other women experience uh inequality so the thing is that we need to change the way men
12:15we need to think and only not address women we need to address men and the results are great just from
12:22meh kuch bhi karsakti you as serial you know we heard in the newspaper in a chota newspaper in a place
12:32called uh in um gundel khand a place called chatarpur
12:38probably the most patriarchal conventional society then men have started a movement
12:45after seeing meh kuch bhi karsakti hun just seeing we hadn't contacted them and they took a pran
12:53that's how i learned the word pran a vow that they will not beat their wives anymore one that they will go
13:00through vasectomy two and three the most important way men can play a useful role in society and be
13:10happier men happier families by playing a role in the house of contributing to child care home chores
13:21work at home and collaborating with their partners in making decisions and so on and so forth
13:28so we thought this was newspapers thoda shahed unohne exaggerate kar diya ho but agar likha hai toh humko
13:39investigate karna che we went there and it was true and we made a film on them the men of chatarpur
13:45and we we did a big uh program called uh enough is enough to end violence with farhan akhtar who runs
13:52an ngo who's a very close partner of ours and we believe it's important for men's voices in any case
14:00he has an ngo called mud men against rape and discrimination and he drops everything to help
14:05us in our campaigns he won't drop a film obviously but he does come and spend time so there we gave an
14:13award to the men of chatarpur who started this movement uh and the award was given by sharuk khan not
14:19even farhan akhtar you know and anyway so we the results are very good in working with men terrific
14:29in terms of you know redefining masculinity is what we focus on is what we focus on
14:37is from the behavior so that's something we have to bring up our children
14:44different we have to start addressing men we have to change men and we need policies in the last
14:51session a program was a question was asked we absolutely need policies and i for the next five
14:59years i am going to be focusing on this desh badlega mart badlega but borrowing from um nordic country i
15:08believe it's um a nordic european country has uh has started a masculinity commission within that it is
15:20mandatory for government and uh private sector to give parental leave not just pregnancy leave but child
15:30care leave so if your child is ill the woman takes leave it's mandatory that both get equal leave so men
15:38also then take care of the child a woman doesn't have to drop out of her career or office and
15:43important meetings every time so there is just so much we can learn from others what they've done
15:49countries countries where women have experienced equality are the countries where women have been
15:57supported by the governments for child care for three-year pregnancy leave when needed and so on and so
16:05forth so we have to think of working with men much more maybe you should have a male summit and men
16:16making commitments men talking positive masculinity sharing and sharing with other men it'll help you
16:24know um time's up but there's we did talk a lot about contraceptives and the fact that it's very
16:32concerning in india that the most popular choice of contraception remains female sterilization which is
16:41non-reversible and it comes with its own burdens and it's one of the reasons is that women don't have
16:47access to information now we're not going to go into that but i did want you to share um why you think
16:54men shy away from condoms because i found that very interesting so 67 of the family planning in india
17:03is women going through sterilization and that also going through sterilization in camps you know like
17:11men guess what is the percentage of men who uh practice vasectomy less than one percent since we don't have time
17:25otherwise i would have done a quiz less than one percent and the reason given is they will be weak even the
17:33woman will say no no mera mard nahi karega vasectomy wo wikho jayenge not physical weak sexually weak is the myth
17:41and misconception we have happily lived with for generations but i want to share why i think apart
17:51from the myth and misconception men do not uh practice not just vasectomy any kind of form of family planning
18:01and of course science is loaded against women this is a session on science where we haven't made
18:08really condom we haven't made contraceptives for men why who are these scientists all men come on women
18:17scientists let's get our act together but finally what i want to say is for men it is the responsibility
18:26of women not just the privilege and empowerment of being able to produce a child but family planning
18:3540 percent men say that publicly in government surveys and for men it's about sex and pleasure and for
18:43women it's about burden of caring caring caring and finally i believe that men do not practice vasectomy
18:54because men know we know we are a sexually active society however much the conservative or strange
19:04people may tell you so they know that there are women also along with them who are sexually active after
19:12all they're having sex with the women extramarital sex ho jai and a woman gets pregnant you see when a man
19:19gets a vasectomy or a woman or you sneeze in your house in india everybody knows so aapne vasectomy
19:27and your wife gets pregnant so that's why that's the main reason men don't have but it proves that we
19:35are sexually active they know it we know it so let's talk more about thank you so much for sharing that
19:41thank you
19:51you