A viral image recently showed how, on International Women’s Day this year (8th March), significantly more people searched the Internet for information about International Men’s Day than they had on International Men’s Day itself last year! (IMD falls on 19th November.)

When we looked a bit deeper, we discovered that while this was definitely the global trend, this year it wasn’t true for India. But it did hold true for India as well in the last two years. Was this a peculiar sigh of collective loneliness, we wondered?

And so, in the spirit of scientific enquiry, we set out to find out why. We asked many so-called ‘average’, ‘boy-next-door’ and ‘decent’ men, the ones who are in our lives. And we also asked some committed men’s rights activists. Mostly from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Bihar, between the ages of 18 and 35.

So, on a day to celebrate women, what did they think could be motivating so many people into such curiosity about the opposite gender? Very few men were frank enough to confess that the impulse might have been, “But what about me?”

From the rest, some choice quotes below that made us raise our pointy eyebrows.

Persecution 

“When you look at what problems men have, it will dwarf what the third wave feminists are saying.”

“So much of the media makes you feel bad for being a man. Dalda vegetable oil is telling you that you eat before your wife, therefore you’re horrible. Now put yourself in a man’s shoes, how many times will I be told I’m a horrible person when I’ve done everything [right]?”

“The BJP is gynocentric [concerned exclusively with women]. Every political party is gynocentric.”

“Every family court case is biased against the man. In the eyes of the law, men have no dignity.”

“In India, a man cannot go to court expecting he’ll win the case against the women, even if he produces evidence.”

“Lawyers are always happy to give men a shitty deal.”

“Why men’s day? Who is celebrating International Men’s Day? Who?”

“In the media, advertisements, debates on social media and the news, we observe that men are being seen as perpetrators of crimes in a very negative way.”

“People always see men as a potential criminal or rapist.”

“Movies, the media, newspapers, all portray men in such bad light. We are not all violent or murderers or rapists, but that’s how they make us feel.”

“The demands of feminists were fair to a certain point. After a point in time it became abusive.”

“It takes an honourable woman to not file a domestic violence case during a divorce.”

“Every man has met with a threat or actual filing of a case against him. If every man is facing that, from the uneducated guy who mops your floor to the guy sitting high up in the ivory tower, don’t you think that that will build up resentment?”

Anger 

“The oppressor is becoming oppressed. In fact, I feel the transition is complete.”

“I used to be a feminist, but I was treated so badly in feminist spaces that I simply couldn’t be one anymore. It’s impossible.”

“Feminists see all men as the enemy, and all men as part of the construction of patriarchy. But I am my own individual, not a token of the patriarchy, and I won’t put up with feminists treating me like I am.”

“I used to be a feminist but I decided I’m going to be myself. I don’t believe in being ideologically driven, and you see the Left and Right always fighting. When you take a point to an ideologically driven person, all their arguments sound the same. They talk for the ideology and not for themselves, and I absolutely feel that way about feminism.”

“You’re not heroes anymore, that’s what feminists don’t realise anymore. Society is dissatisfied with the movement, and gone are the days when feminists always had the moral upper hand and high ground.”

“If you’re not going to listen to a man and willing to have a fair conversation with him, he’s going to blow up one day. Look at the mass shootings in the US. I don’t know how it will manifest in India because guns are controlled, but at some point of time men will get pissed off.”

Jealousy, FOMO

“See the number of ad campaigns for International Women’s Day. Buy this, discount this, sale that. What do you see on International Men’s Day? Nothing.”

“Women’s day is backed by funding from the government. It’s a day when political parties show their propaganda and try to woo the women’s vote camp.”

“Men are also looking for a voice.”

“We would like to have one day where it’s okay to celebrate the sacrifices and the work that men have done to contribute to the world and society and better place.”

“We men never talk about our problems.”

Err…Guilt?

“Check NCRB data, crimes against women have fallen.”

“I did everything right!”

“I’m not a bad person!”

“Young men are disillusioned by being called bad all the time.”