India today is abuzz about how things are changing for the new Indian woman. Yet no one is talking about men. As the varied discourses within gender studies grow increasingly complex, the study of masculinities continues to remain an area of darkness within the South Asian reality. The obvious is familiar to all—the visible, hegemonic masculinity which bristles on the slightest provocation and proudly displays its wares. But what about various other masculinities, those which remain silent and unrecognised, pushed under and behind their ‘hyper-masculine’ brethren? One might ask—are the two kinds of masculinities locked in an eternal conflict? And are these masculinities permanent, unchangeable, or do they evolve and transform with time?
An unprecedented and timely effort, the Little Book on Men, attempts to address many of these questions in a creative and reader-friendly manner through drawings, text and video frames. Drawing on popular culture, socialisation charts used in schools, poetry, personal narratives and documentary footage, this unique book brings together the main theories, key concepts and empirical research on masculinities even as it contributes to the construction of a language which men in South Asia can use to talk about themselves in different and individually distinct ways.
