ABSTRACT
This exploratory study sets forth to identify various practices of young men which are being enacted as ‘Violence against Women’ (VAW) in the policy settings of Bangladesh. Firstly, 15 young male students in tertiary-level education were purposively selected for the formative part of the study. In-depth interviews, participant observation and the life story method were used for data collection. The paper takes R. W. Connell’s concept of ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’ to conceptualise young men’s practices as a way of embodying dominant masculinity as well as leaving space for exercising their agency and changing the construction of masculinity itself. Secondly, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in one residential hall (n=30) on male residential students using probability proportional sampling. The descriptive results of the survey are being considered here as complementary data for validating the findings of the thematic analysis. The study identifies young men’s practices like valo meye/baje meye (Good girl/Bad girl), moja kora (Having fun), piche laga (Following/stalking), shikkha dewa (Revenge and punishment), kotha shuna (Controlling mechanism) which are linked to the enactment of violence against women and girls as recognised in the policy context of Bangladesh. Identifying the practices of young men is of interest for designing policy interventions.
