Vogue Empower

29th November, 2014

#VogueEmpower: Boys’ Don’t Cry

Background: Gender policing is one such topic that has been discussed over and again in India. It is one of the most sensitive issues in the country that needs to be addressed with utmost importance. The issue can be solved only when it is tackled at the root levels. Parents need to understand the impacts of gender policing and aim at eliminating gender discrimination right from their home.

In the family parents are the role models for their kids, and they will only learn and follow what their parents do. If the male members of the family is suppressing, insulting and imposing violence on females, children in the family also grow up learning the same. For instance, girls playing with dolls are considered normal while boys are expected to be tough. This stupid and relentless approach is one of the basic reasons for rise in violence against women. (Shetty, 2014)

To show how gender-stereotyping of men in India, a huge role in creating an unsafe environment for women plays, Vogue India released a powerful public service message, “Boys Don't Cry.”

It is a well-documented fact that India – the world's second most populated – has constantly remained one of the most dangerous countries for women in the world, its high-profile rape culture brought to worldwide attention through the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus in 2012. In June 2012, a poll of 370 gender specialists around the world voted India the worst place to be a woman out of all the G20 countries.

The video by Vogue is a part of a women empowerment campaign – called #VogueEmpower – a series of short films which feature some of the biggest names of the Indian film industry.

An article in Vogue India explains how parents render the female sex as inferior to young boys, a consequence to the common deployment of phrases like “Boys don’t cry” and “stop crying like a girl.”

"When we teach young boys at an early age to not do something...