<i>Mai kya hūņ?</i> (what am I?): masculinities, paid domestic labour and care work in Delhi and Gurgaon, India

This article introduces and conceptualises ‘protective care’ – a masculinised and commodified form of caregiving – involving male domestic workers (MDWs) in India. Drawing on ethnographic research, it describes how MDWs negotiate gendered authority within feminized and stigmatised labour. Challenging portrayals of MDWs as passive or silenced, the article highlights constrained agency and efforts to assert masculine respectability. By linking empirical insights from India with debates on ‘caring masculinities’, the article shows how protective care recodes hegemonic norms. Ultimately, protective care emerges as both an adaptation and constraint; it enables assertions of paternal authority in domestic workplaces, but is also a commodity that must be carefully performed to meet expectations of employers within marginalised and informalized labour regimes.