Masculinity: A Poisoned Chalice?

Corporate India was first perturbed when news came in that Café Coffee Day owner VG Siddhartha’s was reported missing and search operations were on to locate him. Within a day his body was found in the Nethravati river near Mangaluru and everyone’s worst fears were confirmed. It was another case of suicide since he had written a note to his associates sharing his multiple financial woes and pressures. Men are known to commit suicide when faced with financial ruin.

V G Siddhartha made news in the late nineties when he started the Café Coffee Day chain of cafes. More than a decade ago I was pleasantly surprised to see that the home-grown CCD had gone global when I saw the familiar logo jostling for space with other coffee houses in Vienna. Siddhartha not only converted the family business of growing coffee on plantations to exporting beans and more, but also created a trendy coffee house culture for the youth in India. Today CCD is not just a hang-out zone, but as I have frequently seen, it is also a popular place for SoHo entrepreneurs to meet clients and associates.   

Why did such a successful businessman need to commit suicide? We know that thousands of farmers have committed suicide over crop failures and the pressure of pending loans. But does the owner of India’s largest coffee plantation need to do the same? Some may ask why he couldn’t just run away like so many of his peers. Others are calculating his overall assets and overall liabilities and find that the books are not so skewed that he couldn’t pay off his loans. Was it the fear of indignity and shame of being thought a failure, rather than the fear of the debtor’s prison that compelled him to take his life?

Rates of suicide are increasing in India and is reported to have grown by nearly one and a half times between 1987 and 2007. Suicide is known to have many causes. Mental health conditions like depression, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia and other conditions are known to increase the risk of suicide. But in over half of those who died from suicide, at least in the US there was no mental illness. Men are known to be at higher risk and according to records from India the suicide rate of men is between one and a half to twice as much in women. However in India the rates of suicide among women is disproportionately high compared to other countries and studies show it is related to their secondary social status and conflicts in the family arising due to increasing education and empowerment. But why do men, who have greater social status commit suicide? What are the conflicts that they face? Research into farmer suicides in India has shown how changing aspirations within a new economic paradigms and ideologies of masculinity, honour and status interact with agrarian failure to create new conflicts among men.

The list of causes for suicide reported by Government of India include reasons like bankruptcy or indebtedness, failure in examinations, fall in social reputation, unemployment, career problems. For many of these reasons the proportion of male suicides is much higher than among women. In case of reasons like bankruptcy, indebtedness or employment and career problem it seems like a cause that is exclusively applicable for men. In order to understand the higher rates of male suicide and the how a sense of failure get linked to it may be useful to understand ‘masculinity’and how it interacts with honour and failure as indicated in the study referred to earlier.

Masculinity is the social idea of what it means ‘to be a man’. It includes a set of beliefs, expectations and actions related to men which is specific to any particular society. While there may be commonalities across time and regions there are also many specificities. At the same time since it is a ‘social idea’, the ideas within a specific time or place are held not only by men but by ‘all’ in that society. While boys are born biologically male, they are ‘bred’ into becoming men by a process of socialization which includes imbibing rules and lessons on how they should think, feel and act in a matter which is appropriate within the existing social situation.

There is greater clarity now on how girls are socialized to accept a subordinate position through norms which differentiate and limit their opportunities and resources as they grow up. In a similar manner, boys become accustomed to privileges and become imbued with a sense of ‘entitlement’. While the specifics of what boys and later men come to expect as being their ‘due’ because they are the ‘son’ or ‘husband’ or ‘father’ is different in different societies, the idea of feeling ‘entitled’ to such advantages because they are ‘men’ is common.

This sense of entitlement is clearly the patriarchal dividend that men and boys enjoy, but it is not without a cost. It comes with a series of expectations and assumptions as well. Men have to be the ‘providers’ in the family, their job is to ‘protect’ their family and its honor and to be the ‘procreator’ especially of more men to carry on the lineage. All boys are goaded to succeed, and every achievement is celebrated. Failure is frowned upon and seen as ‘unbecoming’. This often translates to the parental expectation that boys must come first in class and their successes are often hyped and shared widely. This builds a pressure of expectation and boys and men are often ‘untrained’ to manage failure. Failure to perform or fulfil the expectations of being a man is akin to becoming an ‘non-man’, a state that is difficult if not impossible to exist in.

Consider contemporary life and its multiple realities from the perspective of the ‘common’ but ‘entitled’ man. Many of the settled realities of the past are changing rapidly. Roles of being a successful ‘provider’ are being disrupted as old opportunities, related to farming, jobs or even starting local businesses, as well as rural and urban locations have changed within a generation. Women and girls are now more confident and assertive and need much less ‘protection’ and much more ‘opportunity’. They have also ventured into the public and economic domain disrupting men’s primary position in these spaces. Procreative success no longer lies in siring a line of sons.

How do men adapt to such changes? To adapt to change one must be resilient and know how to manage disappointments. Unfortunately, boys are forbidden to cry, the child’s simple and possibly reflex response to disappointment. As grown up men they don’t know how to share their feelings of sadness and frustration. Men mostly vent through anger, aggression and violence. It is therefore not surprising that as contemporary society goes through changes and women’s subordinate position in society is no longer acceptable to women, we see signs of violence everywhere.

Women are no longer willing to be the passive bearers of their family’s honour. Men who are expected to ‘protect’ this honour are unable to deal with this assertion by women and ‘punish’ women’s transgressions through what are known as ‘honor’ crimes. Brothers are killing their sisters, fathers their daughters and jilted lovers maiming their intended beloved by throwing acid on their faces. However, I also recall a case from the time I lived in Lucknow where a man killed his daughter first then shot his wife and other children and finally hung himself when he came to know his daughter had married a man from another caste. Men are unable to face the shame of being without ‘honour’. To be a ‘failure’ to be in ‘debt’ to have your daughter elope with an ‘undesireable’ are all situations which cause loss of ‘honour’ within the current definitions of ‘masculinity’ and to take one’s life sometimes seems the only way out. It may have been so with V G Siddhartha as well. Violence against others and self-harm are two sides of the same coin of men being unable to cope with being an ‘un-man’ in their own eyes.

The question is how does this understanding help any of us, or how is it germane to our lives. Most of us are not professional social scientists or social workers. Most of us may have little to do with suicide prevention but all of us deal with ‘masculinity’ probably every day in our lives. Being part of society we shape the way masculinity is defined and played out by ourselves and others around us on a daily basis. This is something that we can all change. If men have to become more caring towards themselves and towards others, boys need to taught how not to be ‘entitled’. If men need to become more resilient and less violent they need to learn to cry when they are hurt or disappointed. Boys need to be given ‘affection’ and learn to show affection towards others. As father, mother, brother, sister, friend, colleague we need to all react and respond to boys and men differently. Only then will masculinity no longer remain a poisoned chalice.