…..of gender roles, masculinity, and feminism

I started my car and switched the FM radio on. After a song and three commercial advertisements, the RJ started with his jibber jabber. He was conversing with a manager at a club in Chandigarh on the recent ban on girls (he did not prefer using the word women) wearing skirts at night clubs and discotheques. The RJ then asked if girls could wear salwar suits instead, the manager was aghast and said of course not. He also reasoned by saying there could be an incident of the dupatta getting stuck while dancing to cause an accident. RUBBISH! I ask, wearing skirts would cause what kind of an accident exactly? The eyes of a man popping out of the socket or will someone die of high blood pressure? ..I tuned out of the rest of the conversation and switched the radio station for some music.

This brought me back to another incident my friend narrated. A man on a bike and a lady in her BMW X1 were having a squabble on a busy street in a Mumbai suburb. The lady in question was hurling expletives and the man was meekly listening to every word. Soon a bunch of people gathered and started physically abusing the man without reasoning or trying to understand the situation. My friend asked a hawker by the road what had happened. The hawker told my friend that this lady had just come out of the salon by the lane, constantly blowing on her nails to dry. She started her car and put it in reverse. She was still busy drying her nail polish and dashed the biker passing on the road. Further, the hawker opined that woman drivers are to be blamed as they care more about chipping their nail polish than careful driving. After making sense of the situation, my friend first intervened and shamed the people (aping as feminists) for abusing the man and assuming it is his fault. Then went back to the hawker and told him that just because the driver was a woman, he couldn’t conclude it is the woman’s fault always.

It’s about time our generation starts questioning and eventually banishing this gender bias. We must fight against the stereotypical roles assigned to men and women by patriarchy. The fact that men cannot be victims, that they have to be stronger (read ‘manlier’) all the time. The fact that women need to be dressed in a way that they do not turn these manly men into predators is completely imprudent.

We are ingrained with this bias since birth. And it starts with; blue if it’s a boy and pink if it’s a girl. Why can’t the world be a beautiful rainbow and not be divided based on one’s sex! The pressure to be in a certain way depending on your gender is what we should be against. Gender is something one identifies with, and not something one is assigned to at birth. And that goes for one’s sexuality and sexual preference as well.

So, next time your 5-year-old son picks a pink color shirt for himself, let him. If your daughter wants to join a ju-jitsu class instead of classical dancing, let her. To see a change, we have to be it.