Men and Shame

A lot of my work and my creations revolve around women. But I also know that men are shamed equally. Sometimes, by the very same sources that shame women.

In the Islamic Pakistani culture that I grew up in, men weren\’t allowed to express emotions. Their job was to bring money into the home and support their families consisting of their wives, children, divorced daughters, parents and sometimes their divorced sisters.

In the western world, men are shamed for their sexuality: they are shamed for wanting sex; they are shamed for not bringing a woman to orgasm; they are shamed for not lasting a long time during sex.

I also confess that some women are very good at making men feel inadequate about themselves.

I do believe that men need to work towards reclaiming their own manhood and peel the layers of shame off them.

For now, I have chosen to focus on women but I believe that we need each other. We need to hear about your shame and you need to hear about our shame because,

Only when we empathise with each other, that we will have the capacity and opportunity to dissolve shame for all genders.