Telangana has become the first state to make gender education compulsory at the undergraduate level. This has started the debate on gender inequality in a highly patriarchal society. On August 15, 1947, when India got independence it was considered as freedom for all. But equality between the sexes remains a dream even 70 years after independence.
Many women’s movements have fought for women to be given their rights. But most of us have grown up with a patriarchal mindset that has deeply penetrated our society for years and is difficult to eradicate. Education is considered the greatest tool for the cultivation of the human mind. Education aims to empower students to question the pre-existing social norms, cultures, and prejudices. I am in my final year of graduation in social sciences. In my 15 years of being in the Indian education system, I have seen students changing their perspective on politics, equality, equity, development, capitalism and many more things. But surprisingly and unfortunately, the bigoted views of most people that I know, especially male students, on gender, still remain more or less the same. While making this statement, I do not intend to generalize every male student.
Many boys, are very skeptical about feminism. They thought of feminism as something that degraded men. They justified their stance by pointing out the privilege that women have in the society which is nothing but benevolent sexism. As part of the course on Gender, we learned about radical feminism and the same boys we were having a discussion with, criticized the theory and also questioned the relevance of such theories in the curriculum. Many times, I have also heard that feminism means ‘ladkiyon ki chato’ (Obey the girl).
Girlfriend and boyfriend relationship – (more public than private):
This is the most incessant reason for the humiliation of girls. As relationships are normal so are breakups. And it is an individual’s personal matter so nobody has the right to interfere but when the society gives their unwanted opinion we can clearly see the baseness in that. While pursuing my education I have seen many relationships growing and breaking up. In some cases, people consider boy as the reason for break up and in some cases it was girl. If girl is the reason for breaking the relationship then she will become not less than a devil for other students including her own friends. In some cases, her friends had boycotted her. Boys prefer her as a slut and by many other derogatory terms and if that girl gets into another relationship then only reason boys give for that relationship is her “uncontrollable sexual desire”. Hence we can say that concept of ‘Be a Bitch‘ given by radical libertarian feminist has not been accepted by so called educated youths also. But for the same; condition for the boys is vice versa. Here I have seen the boys who do have more than one affair but people do not humiliate boy for that. I would like to compare this with the rest of the cases which are happening in the patriarchal and conservative society where husband’s extramarital affair is not that much controversial as compared to a woman’s affair.
Tomgirl (feminine male) and tomboy (masculine female):
Tomgirl (feminine male): In my college, there is a boy who is considered as tom girl by other students. Feminine male characteristics such as his walking style, his action, his speaking style and his friend circle which mainly consist of girls. Due to these characteristics he is bullied and stigmatized by his male friends. Carrying a girl’s bag is still considered as a disgrace. (In this context carrying a girl’s bag do not signify the benevolent sexism). This act of stigmatization clearly shows the patriarchal mindset of such people as being girlish considered as a state of shame.
Tomboy (Masculine Female): When she had newly come to college whether to call her ‘he’ or ‘she’ was the burning question of the whole college especially boy’s hostels. Her short hair and boys’ attire gave her look of a boy. If we refer to the social concise about tomboy then she was a perfect tomboy. Her upbringing in her house was the reason of her personality. But everyone should highly admire her due to her qualities and achievements. An athlete, intelligent and brave girl. Most of the time she used to be the only girl on playground among all boys. But do all these qualities of a girl matter to society? Despite all this, she suffered from stigmatization by rest of the students. Apart from students, Kaka-maushi (class IV employee) was also getting confused with her. Sometime security guard had stopped her at the entrance of girl’s hostel assuming her to be a boy. Maushis were critiquing for her male attire. At an instance one can afford to ignore the perception of Kaka- maushi about her because they are not educated but what about this educated army of this country? Where has their theoretical knowledge gone when it comes to practice in daily life?
Views On LGBT:
When we talk about gender as a whole then it becomes inevitable to talk about LGBT communities. In this campus, many students consider that referring someone by gay or lesbian tag is something immoral. If two girls are very close friends, then they will be declared as lesbian by some group of boys and some girls will also be offended. While interviewing, I asked students what will be their reaction be if their children will identify as LGBT? Many of them at first instance got confused about the type of question! First reaction of most of them was that they will not let it happen. But on forcing those on what if it were to happen then many of them said aggressively that it won’t happen and they refused to answer further. Small group of them were saying that they won’t be able to accept this fact
“The problem with educated people is that they have not educated enough to question their education”
Without an educated and empowered populace, the dream of gender equality and a more non-violent world will forever remain ambiguous. But we need to have a skill based education to bring this equality. According to the report of the organization for economic cooperation and development; current educational attainments remains far away from the adequate for the enhancement of personal well-being and social progress. The objective of empowerment of women and gender equality are influenced by qualification and skills that men and women possess. Gender equality is not an option. It is a collective responsibility of one and all for the betterment of the country.
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