In December 2019, I was at IIM Ahmedabad attending their winter school program. One of the sessions had started with the facilitator asking us about the ten things we would keep in mind if we are to leave home at/after 10 PM. And this was my response.
(not endorsing Cello Maxriter by any chance, if you’re thinking)
If you’re a girl living in India, this list should not surprise you.
And if fortunately, you’re a boy, would your list look any different? Maybe.
But if you’re asked to list ten things for a girl who you know is leaving home at 10 PM, would it look any different? Definitely no!
The last few days have been extremely triggering for me. Personally, because like many other women I have also at some point or another, been cat-called, slut-shamed, or touched inappropriately. But at the same time, imagining the extent the Hathras case had gone to, and the way some news channels and public servants have responded, breaks my heart. I may not be in a position to imagine what the family and close ones of the girl would be feeling right now, or every girl who has been harassed would be going through, getting triggered almost a hundred times in a day with such horrendous news pieces. I can only describe how I felt, and reflect upon certain things.
Looking at how politicians responded to the situation, and how the narratives have been taking shape of public discourse, I feel disgusting, angry, and disappointed.
Somebody once said to me (I am guessing they quoted a famous Philosopher but I don’t remember) that when we know what kind of society we want, we would know what kind of education we’d want.
And so, I started reflecting up on how homes can become learning spaces for children where they might learn about the many things that are going wrong around us. If we want a society where rapes is not an everyday news, we must also educate children the same values.
I remember an older woman telling me “Yeh sab toh chalta hain rahega. Duniya mei aisa sab hota hain.”
But maybe I am not okay with this. And neither are so many more people.
Homes are great spaces for people to learn and unlearn. Growing up, children learn how to behave in a family and ultimately in the society. Adults, on the other hand, unlearn the toxic and unhealthy habits and try to learn more inclusive practices. In academics, we discuss the case of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’. Here we will mostly focus on nurture. How environment around you can shape you as a human being and as a denizen of the society.
In this essay, I am trying to talk about two issues, different but interconnected in almost every social issue that is prevalent today in India. While this list may not be exhaustive, I thought they were most relevant.
- Chore for all four
According to the most recent report by NSO (National Statistics Office), women spend 243 minutes in household chores whereas men spend about 25 minutes, almost ten times less than women. Our Indian society has conditioned women since childhood that they have to take charge of the home once they are married and so they have to start learning household chores way before getting married. On the other hand, boys grow up either by not contributing, or by doing stuff like getting groceries out of the market or filling water et cetera.
While growing up, the best place for a child to understand equality in paid and unpaid care work is a home environment. If they see their mother spending most of her time in the kitchen and the father being at work or watching television, he is being fed a hidden curriculum of gender discrimination in terms of chores. The extent till which this goes is interesting. While boys are given cars, bikes, and superhero toys, girls often get Barbie doll sets or kitchen sets to play with. (If the dynamics have changed now, I am glad. But I am not updated since I am almost a boomer and don’t have a child yet.) Very clearly, when the girl child plays with kitchen set and also sees the mother mostly in the kitchen, her gender role expectations are already set. This, in my opinion, is problematic.
Children grow up looking at their parents and idolising them in most cases. It therefore becomes imperative that the home environment is free of discrimination in order for the child to learn it.
Here’s an article I wrote for LiveWire by The Wire about gender-neutral parenting that you might find interesting.
And this is not a parenting advice. If you’re a sibling, relative, parent, life partner, almost anything, this should be equally relevant to you. If you father helps with chopping vegetables or mopping the floor, it would be equally a learning environment for him as it would be for anybody else.
On the other hand, formal education also teaches them about gender roles and stereotypes. Who cleans the class black board? Who lifts heavy objects in the class? Are girls and boys allowed to sit together? How many stories of women are covered in the curriculum? so on and so forth. These set expectations for children too.
For an example, in Japan, children clean classrooms, dishes, and toilets by themselves. This has also proven to have helped them with gender equality. Here’s a video that Brut covered on their tradition of cleanliness.
If children are taught to divide tasks equally and not based on their gender in schools as well as home, they respect every work and not call sweeping as ‘girls task’ and picking heavy stuff as ‘boys task’.
- Caste and Class
In their book ‘Where India Goes’, Diane Coffey and Dean Spears tell us why for any social issue, India is unique. It’s because of the decades old caste system that is deeply entrenched in the society. The book majorly discussed about the problem of sanitation and open defecation in India and provided extensive research on the reasons behind the problem. According to them one of the major problems why India is worse than other developing/underdeveloped countries is its caste and class system.
Discrimination based on caste or class could happen due to various reason, one of the common ones is the idea of purity and pollution. The idea of spiritual pollution is often attached with those of the so called ‘lower’ castes. And while there are systems in place that ‘ideally’ should be working on alleviating this social hierarchy, discrimination is often outside the system, and in our everyday lives as well.
Here’s a video published on Youth ki Awaaz of a Dalit activist Beena Pallical that explains the reality of caste in India.
Now while the discrimination might not be out there, it manifests itself in subtle forms.
1. House help sitting on the floor to eat while you eat on the table.
2. Domestic worker using different utensils than you.
3. Giving stale food to the house help while you eat fresh food.
I am sure we can get the list going…
Social hierarchies like caste sometimes deprive human of their basic rights. Take the example of multiple news based on caste, where people are beaten to death. What’s their crime? Taking water from the well, taking a particular road to travel, or sitting on someone else’s bike. The list is countless and I would not even bother you with the details because they are everywhere.
If there’s discrimination at home, can there be equality outside?
Situations become worse as these social circles interact with each other. That means, there is already a discrimination between the genders. Upon this, if caste comes into picture, things become worse.
Imagine this, do you think there would be any difference between how a rich upper-caste woman is discriminated as compared to a poor Dalit woman? Yes, very much.
In this article on Akademi Mag, Jyotsna Siddharth talks about caste based violence.
Teaching our children and family members of caste-based discrimination in domestic spaces, work spaces, and every other sphere, would not make them turn their eyes another way when someone talks about caste.
But how could these help with the greater issue?
One of the many reasons men (many) believe they are the superior sex is because of the unequal distribution of labour. India goes a step ahead in unequal labour force participation with most of the unpaid care work that women do. Intersectionality makes situation worse in all the social spheres.
In small but effective ways, diving household chores encourage children (and adults) to take up responsibility of both paid and unpaid work, and not see one as inferior to another. Understanding everyday discrimination based on caste and using small but effective methods to understand and eliminate the discrimination could go a long way.
In conclusion, I guess what I am trying to say is that our homes are great places for us to observe and learn, and make action plans. During this lockdown, I read so many articles on how online learning could be encourages, and how schools can be brought home. Extending education beyond schools and learning about gender, caste, and class would go a long way instilling humane attributes in children and adults, and maybe give more hope for the future?
Pass the Mic, Mike!
The recent Hathras case has made me understand caste and gender discrimination more, and I am learning more almost every day. One thing that I learned was that I barely had any friends who belonged to the Dalit community, people that actually could explain to me what it’s like to be in their shoes, rather than to listen to other people talk on their behalf. I started reading Dalit voices, their side of the story and their narrative. I am sharing some resources I found useful and that I learned from. I hope you do, too.
Literature:
1. Ambedkar: https://www.mea.gov.in/books-writings-of-ambedkar.htm
2. Everybody Loves a Good Draught by P. Sainath
3. Where India Goes by Dianne Coffey and Dean Spears
4. Republic of Caste by Anand Teltumbde
5. Persistence of Caste by Anand Teltumbde
6. Caste Matters by Suraj Yengde
7. Why I am Not a Hindu by Kancha Ilaiah
8. Coming Out as a Dalit by Yashica Dutt
Dalit Activists to Follow:
1. Sumeet Samos
2. Grace Banu
3. Cynthia Stephen
4. Beena Pallical
5. Yashica Dutt
6. Kiruba Munusamy
If you’re still here…
These are some articles I read in the past few days that I found interesting and so I am sharing them here. :)
Philosophy for a Time of Crisis
Outpouring of support for aged couple running ‘Baba ka Dhaba’ in Delhi after viral video
Transgender cabinet minister Petra De Sutter a world first for Belgium
it felt so soothing while reading the article. was able to connect life from beginning itself.. very well written and phrased and presented .. loved it..!!