WHEN GENDER INTERSECTS WITH CLASS: TAKING ‘MASCULINITIES’ INTO PICTURE

It is common to talk about girls and women when one talks about policies for ‘gender equality'. But then what about men and boys? Are all of them oppressors and at a superior and privileged position in society? The answer is ‘NO!'. Just as girls and women are ‘stereotyped' and conditioned in a ‘patriarchal' society into being submissive, dependent, polite, emotional etc., boys and men are stereotyped as brave, independent, rational/logical, aggressive etc. This kind of conditioning put an additional pressure on them to survive in a society practicing the notions of ‘hegemonic masculinities' to continuously ‘justify' their gender. The observations made in an all boys' school, reveal that education of boys belonging to low socio-economic backgrounds gives very low expectations and ‘hope' to them and many deviate to crimes as well as substance abuse. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to include masculinities in the study of gender.