Respect - A Two Way Street

One of the fall outs of this media based gender bias is the power play based on different roles. The narratives on the media create a hyped version of power of one group over the rest based on the content that is being peddled for the purpose. Examples of few such power plays are:

• Parenting - a frenzy around best parenting strategies, what constitutes best parenting, should the child co-sleep or not, should you hold an infant to pacify while upset, to be a stay-at-home-mom or working mom, father the disciplinarian or friend (the same for a mother too), participative parenting vs friendly parenting or any such parenting trend.
• In-laws woes: daughter-in-law or the mother-in-law is the queen of the house, sister-in-law - the influencer of decisions in our home, joint family or nuclear family.
• Boys physically stronger and girls intellectually. Men associated with physical strength (mechanical & civil profiles) and earning potential. Women associated with home based roles & responsibilities and HR & administration related job profiles.

When such biases are projected through the most powerful visual medium, it has a long-lasting impact on shaping one set of people as strong while the other automatically becomes the weaker one.

This leads to toxic expectations of dutiful daughters-in-law and her family to always adjust and submit to the power wielding husband and his family. The society's expectations that the female gender must adjust leads to that gender bearing the various #socialissues metted out against them in silence, like domestic violence, unreported rapes - especially marital rapes. This also leads to early burn out of over stressed and over worked daughters-in-law (professional and homemaker alike) who is trying to meet the high expectations of juggling various responsibilities in her marital home.

On the other side we have the grown men who are caught between wanting to be the supportive spouse for their wives by sharing home responsibilities, but ridiculed for the same by his own family as a Hen-pecked husband. Most ego clashes between married couple are a result of this. How wonderful will it be to see a society where all are deemed equal and there is harmony instead of the struggle to wield power. Harmony doesn't mean lack of power, but it is the existence of power that is equal from all wakes of life. A society filled with self actualized individuals working together towards building a progressive community that appreciates growth and celebrates the differences.

This would, in true sense, be a sign of a matured society in thoughts and action! 

Republished from Momspresso, as they closed down in 2023. I wanted to ensure that the broken links opened to the right article.

Hierarchical or Equal - How do you see the world around?

Recently I attended a gathering and the host suggested that we share our life experiences and how they impacted our family and friends, maybe even our work and community. When it was my turn, I responded "Challenges and choices are what make life. Without either there would be no purpose."

"How do you mean?" said the host.

"Challenges push you to move ahead and overcome it, to succeed and in the process of doing so, you choose which path to follow and what to do overcome the challenge life threw at you!"

"So tell us about who inspires you!"

"I am inspired by everyone around me."

"True, but there must have been one person whom you aspire to be. Isn't it? Someone you think is at a higher place than you which you would like to reach."

That is when I realised that without even a pause I could confidently say that there was no one person like that and I did too. "I really do not aspire to emulate one person. For me, every individual I have met and read about in my life is an inspiration, but they are all peers. Age, race, religion, status, gender or sexual/political inclination was not something that I saw as a hierarchy. For me, these are just attributes associated with a person, not their identities. What differentiates them is their attitude and behaviour and this is something I do try to emulate when I think it is something worth emulating. Even my children can inspire me and I will listen to them if there is a learning in it for me."

I am not sure if I made sense to them or not, and I do not know if this is something that would relate to any of you as well, but I have been this way from the time I can remember. My friends' circle was and still is the most diverse with people from all walks of life, belonging to different age groups and ethnicity. I have always felt that this diversity is what helped shape me into who I am today. This is what inspires me to write as I come across different interesting & inspiring stories from this group of contacts. It has helped me see the world from a different perspective and gives me hope that love and acceptance of what is, can always bring a sea of positive change, that can only benefit the community as a whole.

Some of us enjoy being the privileged lot for reasons that we may not fully comprehend. Let us use this position of privilege to embrace those who aren't so lucky and be the support that we would want if we were to find ourselves in their positions. Drop all the differences and accept everybody as equal - in the true spirit of #EachforEqual, exponentially increasing the happiness quotient in this world!

Republished from Momspresso, as they closed down in 2023. I wanted to ensure that the broken links opened to the right article.

Breaking Gender Stereotypes - Role of Media

We, as a society, tend to excel in passing the blame for bad behaviour or bad influence on someone else rather than look critically at self. Keeping in line with this habit of ours, the easiest soft target seems to be media (any form). We are quick to suggest that media glorifies machoism, heroism, feminism and any other kind of -ims. This is the route cause of chaos in our culture.

Media as well had kept up this image by supporting subtle and sometimes not so subtle, gender stereotyping in the ads, movies and debates. Not so far behind are the product manufacturers and retail business owners who try to cash in on the mindset influence that media has successfully created. We as mad consumers are not so far behind all these.

Let me first list a few examples to make it easier for all of us to be on the same page and understand what I am talking about:

1. The husband and wife jokes where husband bashing or wife bashing was considered fun and applauded. This normalised the aspect of ruthlessly bashing the opposite gender despite the emotional trauma it caused. The justification given used to be, 'Just for fun'. No fun can come at the cost of one or group of individuals' pain!
2. Ads that showed the husband waiting for long hours (not just minutes) before the wife comes down all decked up for function and they leave to the venue only to find it empty, or a wife/mother going crazy at shopping, while the husband waits at the bill counter checking his watch or the child telling that the mother has gone crazy. This is just another form of degrading one gender by saying that they are not time-conscious.
3. Home appliances and grocery ads only feature a lone woman (or a group of women) in the kitchen using the product in focus - a glaring declaration that tells that the kitchen is a woman's fort and no one else is welcome. Not a healthy stereotype. A kitchen is a place where food is prepared, a common need for all genders for survival. By, extension this needs to have the participation of both genders.
4. Kids apparel and toys advertisements showing boys in a blue dress playing in a set up that dominates with blue toys and blue fixtures and girls dressed up in pink, playing with predominantly pink toys, in a pinkish decor indirectly pushed the concept of associating pink to being a girlish colour and blue to being a boy's choice that it is now a norm.
5. Fairness products that started off with saying dark-skinned girls/women needed these products to gain confidence and be successful, thereby insinuating that darkness is a problem and fairness is good. The presence and absence of a pigment - Melanin - is the cause for dark and light skin. Biologically, the melanin pigment is considered to be protective in nature.
6. Subject books in school that define gender roles of family members very clearly indicates that working, driving and buying are Dad's jobs while cooking, caring and cleaning are mother's job. These gender roles are no more reality and need to change.
7. Retail outlets for garments and toys add to this madness by grouping dresses & toys for boys & girls with each one having dominantly the obvious two colours (and related shades) associated with the respective genders. If by chance any parent or child wishes to break the norm, they have to be ready to face the never-ending question (in fact the same content in different forms) of why they chose a colour that is not for their gender!
8. Another irritating fact of retail stores, more specifically for apparels is almost always the dresses, including t-shirts and jeans in the girls/women section are skin tight and a size shorter in length that it will invariably show skin if you are to move your limbs in a free manner thereby saying that a girl/woman needs to be prim and proper if she is to be termed a 'lady'! I thought I was the only one who went to the men's section to buy western wear - t-shirts & jeans, but now my daughter also finds her western wear in the boy's section as it is more comfortable and has colours that she loves.

I can go on and on about how gender stereotyping is so deeply ingrained in our society at various levels and it is going to be a long time before we can break these completely. That said, I am pleased to have come across a few wonderful creators who have slowly but steadily broken these stereotypes. 

We are a long way from making waves in social change with respect to gender norms & stereotypes, but small welcome changes in narratives (in every field) gives hope that we can and will reach there eventually.

As consumers, we can also contribute to pushing this change in the right direction. How you may ask?

1. Stop being a blind mad consumer who believes in the media peddled version of what beauty, confidence and success is all about.
2. Learn and understand what success means to us individually and start defining what our self-image is without being a passive recipient of media's version of an image dependent on our gender or role (another form of stereotyping that has the capability of wrecking havoc in relationships)!
3. Make choices that fit you (not just with retail products even life decisions) and not based on the gender norms. If that means buying pink for a boy/man and blue for a girl/woman, why not?
4. Do not judge when you see someone break the norms & stereotype even if you aren't able to break it yourself. That is your fair share in supporting those working to break these for all of us!

As parents, (a subset of the consumer segment), tell your children to get out of the gender norms by talking to them about conscious personal choice and comfort!

As a community of consumers, when we reject the media-based gender norms and stereotypes and do what is right for us, what is comfortable for us, then there is nothing to stop the change from happening and our children will grow up into sane, practical (logical) adults who are capable of breaking these baseless stereotypes. What do you say co-consumers? Are you ready to do your part in making this world really a place where #EachforEqual is an undeniable reality?

Republished from Momspresso, as they closed down in 2023. I wanted to ensure that the broken links opened to the right article.

Breaking Stereotypes As Parents - Gender Neutral Children

This is an event that happened a few years back when we were living outside India. Children were having their Spring break. My then 8 year old daughter and 4 yer old son, were busy with "pretend play" - their favourite filler game in those days.

This day the inspiration for their pretend play, were their parents (Mommy & Daddy) - us. Here is a snippet from that pretend play:

My daughter pretends to be her Daddy, puts on Daddy's coat, scarf, hat, and bag, ready to step out of the home for office. Seeing this my son wants to pretend play as well. Now that Daddy's role is taken, he decides to be Mommy. So he requests his sister to dress him up (which she dutifully does) with my coat, hat, and a grocery shopping bag.

A weekday conversation is enacted.

Daddy (my daughter): I am ready to leave for office. Bye. See you in the evening.

Mommy (my son): Take care and have a nice day.

Now for the weekend conversation that they are privy to at home.

Mommy (my son dressed up as his mom): I am leaving for shopping. Will be back soon.

A few seconds later, Mommy is back from shopping.

Mommy: Look, how many fruits I have bought! Daddy (My daughter dressed up as her father): Oh... Let me help you carry the heavy bags. (Hands a glass of water) Sit down and rest. I will handle the cooking and take of the kids.

I was grinning from ear to ear bursting with pride. If I need to still spell it out loud, here are the various stereotypes that we broke for them as parents:

• My children without batting an eyelid decided to enact the opposite gender's role in their pretend play. Okay, I can hear many of you say, this nothing great a girl always loves her father while the son's favourite is his mother.
• They enacted snippets where the traditional roles of shopping and cooking were interchangeably assumed by either of us. This breaks the idea that the kitchen is a woman's world while the cool outdoor shopping is a man's job (a stereotyped role that is still seen in some of the school and casual reading books for children).
• Serving water (drinks), hosting, and cooking is as much a man's job as it is a woman's.
• My daughter loves blue and my son loves purple. Black is a favourite for both of them. (might be a very simple thing but the point here is they do not go crazy about any colour being a boy or a girl colour. They understand that all colours can be for anyone and everyone!)

At an age when they can form deep connections to what they see around them, we managed to give them these lessons, which I am happy that we did.

My daughter is a middle schooler now while my son is in primary school. They do not conform to the traditional gender norms of the society. My son can equally enjoy Barbie and go crazy for the Avengers series, play Roblox and paint, sing and learn martial art, cry when upset and comfort when someone else is upset without having to so much as utter a word explaining why or how they are upset, be brave to stop his friends from doing things that don't feel right.

My daughter can gush over an anime teenage romance, get excited about How to train your Dragon Netflix Series, appreciate the confidence of Elsa, Anna & Merida, aspire to be like Mulan, and logically discuss about certain obvious loopholes in the screenplay of the movies that we watch as family including Harry Potter, Disney animation movies, Tamil movies starring Vijay, VJS, Rajini, Jothika, Nayanthara, Suriya & Karthi. She thinks Jothika is cool because of her recent movies like 36 Vayathinile, Jackpot, Raatchasi (her recent favourite - one that she watches almost every fortnight on Amazon Prime or is it Netflix - I forget) My son loves cooking and keeps asking to help when he can. Recently, I am almost always surprised by the level headed logical approach that my daughter takes to make decisions pertaining to her higher studies and extra-curricular activities. They are uncomfortable when they hear gender-specific statements (that are so normal in our society). Some examples of what kind of statements that make them uncomfortable are:

• Stitching is a girl activity. Fixing things are for boys. (My daughter says stitching is also a form of fixing, so shouldn't everyone learn it?)
• Cry like a girl - My son says that people cry when they are upset. Why only girls can cry and not boys. I also get hurt when my friends call me names and do not stop even after I tell them that it hurts.

I know they will grow up to be fine level headed adults who can impact this society positively by their way of life and the value systems they are now building for themselves!

I think it is time for gender-biased (specific) roles to be replaced by gender-neutral roles and policies everywhere. This will restore the respect each one deserves instead of the shame that seems to associated with certain natural behaviours, emotions and roles.

Would you agree with me or do you have a different take on this? Would love to hear your opinions on the blog or the existing gender bias or probable solutions to implement to achieve gender neutrality from home!

Republished from Momspresso, as they closed down in 2023. I wanted to ensure that the broken links opened to the right article.

The incident describe in the initial part of this article is from another post of mine here - Proud Mommy Moment

Homemaker or Professional Parent(s) #EachforEqual #6Blogsin6Days

 Morning chaos at home. Rajesh is in the kitchen getting breakfast ready and packing lunch in boxes for the family. Seema rushed into the kitchen, grabbed her breakfast and literally stuffed it down her throat in a hurry and rushed out the door. Rajesh called out reminding her to pick up her lunch as she left home for her early meeting. Vinay slowly walked down in his school uniform and sat down at the dining table with a long face. Rajesh brought his and Vinay's breakfast and joined him at the dining table.

"All okay Vinay?", asked Rajesh.

"Hmmm..."

"Eat your breakfast and let's get you to school!"

"I don't want to go to school"

"Why? Something wrong at school?"

"No."

"Then why don't you want to go to school?"

"My friends make fun of me. They ask me why my Mom is never there to drop me at school? And they also laugh when they know that you don't work! Why should you stay at home? Why can't you work like everyone else's Dad and Mom stay at home?"

Rajesh smiled. It was time to teach his son what Equality for all meant.

"Come on, let's walk to school and I will tell you on the way why this works for us." and all the way to the school conversed with Vinay and dropped a happy proud Vinay at the school entrance. Vinay waved his father bye and went into the school ready to share the pride of being different from the majority.

Rajesh had done his share in bringing about a mindset change in at least one person of the next generation to break the gender norms that sometimes become a stress for those who break them as these norms do not fit their life choices.

Fiction or not, the above snippet is a reality in at least a few homes. When textbooks, commercials, and people's thoughts do not catch up with the change that is happening around them (in small pockets but still a start), it leads to a judgment that can be stressful for young children and the people who belong to the family that goes against the age-old norms of the society.

As much as ridiculing those who break norms is rude, strongly going against norms and saying it was wrong also may not be right as we are unaware of why they came into existence. We can only infer from what little we know of those times through stories told by history and people who lived during those times.

Change is the only constant and embracing it would make life more interesting and open up a world of possibilities..Let us be more open to all kinds of people and families. Differences bring more variety to the society, giving children different perspectives that expand their thoughts and make them more accepting of differences and reduces the stress for the entire community of having to conform to irrelevant norms for the current times.

Republished from Momspresso, as they closed down in 2023. I wanted to ensure that the broken links opened to the right article.