I grew up in a home full of books. I traversed the magical world with Harry Potter, solved mysteries with Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie, attended Secret Seven society meetings, and laughed along with the self-proclaimed Wimpy Kid. I loved to read, but what gave me even more joy was sharing these tales with people who I knew would get as much thrill out of them as I did. While I was able to convince my female friends to read almost anything I recommended, it was disheartening to realize that my male friends did not care much for the stories I loved.
You see, when I was reading The Hunger Games, they read Percy Jackson. They solved mysteries with the Hardy Boys, not with Nancy Drew. Even when we read the same authors- Enid Blyton for instance, they refused to read about the experiences of the girls at Malory Towers and chose instead to read about The Famous Five. They considered classics like Little Women or Pride and Prejudice too ‘girly’ and not ‘relatable’. On the surface, it seems simple enough. We all like to read about characters that we feel emotionally connected to. Yet, while girls my age were reading all the books that the boys were reading, the boys were actively avoiding any stories that were about female characters. When asked about the kind of books he and his peers enjoy reading, Aditya age 14 said – “My male friends tease me for reading books like Princess Diaries. While the boys are wary about reading books that have female protagonists, most of the girls I know read anything,” he added.
From a young age, boys are taught to not partake in any activities that may be considered feminine. Even in advertisements, it is common today to see women as pilots and doctors. The same cannot be said for male flight attendants and nurses. Perhaps this is why boys hesitate before letting themselves enjoy things that are largely liked by girls- the pressure to conform to societal expectations is exceedingly high. Not only does this have larger ramifications in terms of mental health problems for men, it also leads to apathy when it comes to anything about women. We become the ‘other’. As boys grow older this indifference towards the female narrative becomes even more apparent. In pop culture, any movie with two or more female characters is instantly labeled a ‘chick flick.’ This is the same reason why it took the Marvel Cinematic Universe 20 movies spanning 11 years, to finally make a movie with a female superhero as the lead. Even then male fans were upset because they wanted Captain Marvel to “smile more”. In the Indian context, it is so difficult to get a male audience to watch a movie led entirely by female actors, that an Akshay Kumar is needed to balance out the stories of 5 women in Mission Mangal– a movie about the Mars expedition which was led by female scientists. The fact that it is men who drive other men to the theatres to watch stories about women empowerment says volumes about the way an entire generation of boys has been raised.
The Bechdel test also known as the Bechdel–Wallace test, is a measure of the representation of women in fiction. It asks whether a work features at least two named women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Although these requirements barely scratch the surface, it is appalling to note that out of the 14 most popular Bollywood movies of 2019, merely 5 pass the test. This absence of women’s voices is notable both on and off-screen. From the directors and writers to the crew and even makeup artists, the industry is dominated by men. So much so that ‘spot boy’ has become the widely accepted term to refer to those working on set.
Representation matters. But what matters, even more, is for men to be willing to hear and read our stories. Perhaps, if men are more exposed to the female narrative they will be able to understand our perspective a little better. Instead of perceiving us as either mystical complicated creatures or the only object of their affections, they will be able to see us for who we truly are- flawed human beings who are just like them, looking for love, empathy, and respect.