For me, this is a very perplexing as well as thought-provoking title and I would like to stress on the sarcasm too in what you are to read ahead. Recently I was going through a blog post by one of my friends where she had highlighted the gender-discrimination regarding how a father was taking care of the kids and mom was enjoying a family vacation. Her question was apt – why do we need to highlight a father’s affection towards his own kids as something special rather than expecting it as a common feeling which should be equal in both the parents?
My thoughts wandered around so many similar things around us. All these which at different stages of growing up had left a series of unanswered questions of…
WHY NOT!
- does a boy learn household chores at par with his female siblings?
- do a girl’s parents save for her studies more than they do for her wedding?
- does a boy’s mom gets equally worried than a girl’s mom would, when her teenager is outside the house more than a stipulated time?
- is a daughter-in-law treated the same way as a son-in-law when she visits her spouse’s home?
- do parents have the same expectations of a daughter as a son about taking care of her parents during their retirement days?
- does a mother feel the same sense of insecurity for her son that she would feel for a daughter when he goes out to work during late hours or to unknown places?
These questions might seem quite ironical but raising them is a necessity. Something I want to and have been trying to voice out from the bottom of my heart and shout out loud to the Indian society and say; ‘I am not at the mercy of a judgemental society and need not prove innocence to any one’. This phrase, this common thinking, this notion that — ‘After all I am a woman and despite education, economic liberties, career growth, being in charge of the family reins and respected as a goddess in scriptures & temples I still need to live in the modern world with an exclamation mark!’
For me real change will happen when we don’t exclaim or to be precise proclaim when a boy/male/man has stepped into the shoes of his female counterpart and vice-versa. Humanity is when we humans – the superior species among all living beings, should not be controlled by our speech but speech should be a power used by us to stop discrimination on the basis of gender and simply respect humanity above all genders.
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