NEED TO CHANGE THE GENDERED MINDSET

Nauseating anguish engulfs me whenever the face of that 8-year-old cherub or that shot of the semi-conscious poor Unnao kid (even she is a kid- a mere teenager) flashes before my eyes. But surprisingly, there are quite a lot of people who don’t feel that the incidents are worth an outcry! If one recollects, even after the Delhi gang rape , there were people who felt that had the victim not been out so late, she wouldn’t have suffered. Here too we have a crowd of people manhandling the reporters covering the Unnao story or rallyists in support of the alleged rapists. I feel, therefore, that the issue is not so simple to be seen in the perspective of only laws and punishments. They are enough and the fact is that certainty of punishment is more important than severity of it. The whole issue of rape is intrinsically related to the issue of dominance of one gender over another. Recollect the famous lines from Tennyson’s The Princess- ‘Man with the head and woman with the heart: Man to command and woman to obey’. Recollect the consummation of marriage in Pear S Buck classic- - ‘The Good Earth’– ‘ There is this woman of mine. The thing has to be done… He gave a hoarse laugh into the darkness and seized her’. And recollect what Nirbhaya’s killer said in an interview-‘… Boys and girls are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls…’. Isn’t it all the same, a continuum of that same mindset since ages? The solution therefore lies in changing this gendered mind set that women are a different species altogether, which is lesser in intelligence and physical prowess. Primary education, both formal at school and informal through society and media, shapes our thinking. Both need a revisit. It is of utmost importance that the material presented before children is such which is empowering for girls, making them realise their potential, frees the boys from the bondage of stereotype male-hood of aggressiveness and curbing of emotions, and raises a generation that is not conformist but critically evaluative and constructive, capable of contributing to the making of a just and compassionate society.

Dr Skand Shukla Dy secy, UP Basic Shiksha Parishad