Breaking Stereotypes – Are you Ready?
While surfing & searching on net I came across one article on -“not all disrespect towards
women results in violence. But all violence against women starts with disrespect.”
Wow, what a thought provoking sentence. In that article there was an instance of a nine year
old boy who was trying to hit his elder sister & his mother’s continuous but futile efforts
could not stop him. Well in most of the cases like these, mothers would tell their daughters to
remain calm, since it’s obvious for the boys to show aggression and girls are meant to be
taken for granted. The article was based on GENDER STEREOTYPING. It just clicked to
me then & there, and i got answers to all my questions.
YES……..it’s all about Stereotyping. This is the root cause.
Stereotyping means fixing up a pre-conceived image for an individual & ignoring his/her
unique qualities and skills.
The most common gender stereotypes that we (society) create are:
Boys are physically stronger than girls
Boys don’t cry.
Isn’t she a Tom Boy.
Oh! she doesn’t know how to cook.
Don’t cry like girls.
Boys are naughty.
Boys are good in sports & girls in art-craft
Girls are gentle & soft.
Girls are docile & less aggressive than boys.
Isn’t she getting bossy.
Pink is for girls & Blue is for boys
Boys are better in maths
Such types/examples are also given in the chapter Diversity & Discrimination in NCERT
Civics book of class VI (my son is in class six so i know)
These gender stereotypes are experienced by our children from an early age and they
inadvertently start following these. Boys start thinking that they are born with aggression and
such behaviour is acceptable. Both the genders see their mothers as home makers, the demure
housewives who are taking all disrespect from the tough working men of the house, the so
called bread winners. And unfortunately if their mothers are the working women, they see
them struggling & juggling between their responsibilities as a home maker and a working
woman, striving hard to maintain a work life balance. These types of gender stereotyping
from our day today lives generate differences & allow the masculine gender to take the other
one for granted with our children being the witnesses.
This campaign “Nip in the bud” is a small endeavour to sensitise our parents about the need
to teach their boys about equality and respect for the other sex. The young lads should be
taught that they are not in any way superior to girls, they can also be house-husbands, and
there is no issue at all in becoming a chef or a school teacher..
As an adult we need to be wary of our words, attitude and behaviour while dealing with our
boys. Any kind of gender stereotyping at an early age might turn into disrespect & violence
against the females later.
Though we are evolving gradually……even our media is supporting, with movies on role
reversal like KI and KA, we are also witnessing our real male role models – from the brilliant
cook Sanjeev kapoor, creative fashion designer Manish Malhotra to the maverick father
Mahavir Singh Phogat who surpassed all odds & stood tall to give India it’s first lady wrestler
– Geeta Singh Phogat. These men broke the shackles of gender stereotyping in one way or
the other. But still there is a long way to go to show some positive results on our growth
trajectory.
As we all know that every revolution begins with a spark, lets illuminate that spark by
following few simple things in our lives:
Stop buying pink stuff for girls & blue for buys, let them decide themselves.
Let him play with a Barbie doll or a teddy bear of his sister.
Encourage him to be friends with girls.
Never tell him to stop crying like a girl, after all he is also a human being and has the
right to vent out …
Let him be garrulous, there is no need to tell him to stop.
Let him take art & craft, knitting as his co-curricular.
Don’t force him for any physical sport, it’s okay if he likes to cook .
Teach him how to use a cleaning or a cookery device.
Also tell your girls to give their brothers or friends a straight punch, if they misbehave. Such
small efforts may sound redundant at this stage but one day or the other they will bear fruits.
Now the onus of teaching & preaching has shifted…..from “the parents of girls” to “the
parents of boys”. Rather than telling our growing daughters on how to carry themselves, to be
calm and composed, teaching them the art of forgetfulness & forgiveness, we should better
train our boys on how to behave themselves.
Authored by :
Dr Anubha Gupta
(Blogger, Author , Trainer & Co-founder ILLUMINATE MINDS )
Nip in the bud
