New normal, old norms & normativity

If we were to introspect every decision of our life where gender isn’t relevant, we’d understand the gravitas of gender norms, write Amith Hiremath

Historically, we’ve considered gender as a critical determinant of an individual’s behaviour and role in society. Conventionally, the responsibility of taking care of the family is fulfilled by women and that of providing for a family’s needs by men. This gender-centric perception is systematically ingrained into our mindset by our family and society at large.

We buy dolls for girls and superhero figurines and cars for boys, which they don’t choose. Throughout the development phase of kids, girls are taught how to be poised, gentle, and gracious with extensive training in handling household chores. Boys are taught to be strong, bold, and not show their emotions. The moment you look at an individual as a boy or a girl, we deny them half of what they can choose to be in their lives. It’s a no-brainer that we see children under immense stress to meet an image the society or rather their parents have pre-conceived for them.

In terms of career choices, there are numerous fields where one of the two genders has poor representation. One of the major contributing factors for this is, we as a society feel that some fields are meant for men and some for women. While any career option has nothing to do with gender, we attribute career choices to gender strongly. A simple example is the poor representation of men in the field of nursing and women in the field of mechanical engineering.

We define men by their salary and women by how good they are at looking after their home and family. A woman who is ambitious about her career has very little time for the daily chores and taking care of the household, yet, because of societal pressure, she is made to feel guilty of having help to manage her house. Let’s say that a man doesn’t find happiness in his job and wants to be the primary caregiver for the family. We are audacious enough to tell them that a man has to earn. This should be the personal choice of every family where they decide how they want to split the responsibilities of their homes. We have made money the most respected commodity in the world.

There was a time when someone great meant someone we looked up to and felt inspired. But today, it is the rich that everyone looks up to. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to be rich, but the obsession of looking at the richest people in the world for the sole purpose that they are rich, reflects our focus in life immensely.

We need to evolve our ideologies to look at well-rounded idols. We are giving rise to a world where aesthetics or things that are intangible are not valued. We rarely look at things we cannot buy any more like creativity, aesthetics, happiness, wisdom, and patience. While our standard of living has increased, it has come at the cost of quality of living. We have to enable individuals to be the best version of themselves. Equality of cerebral opportunity is something we need to implement and facilitate. Educate individuals to choose taking gender into consideration, only when it is relevant.

Behave without gender constraints, and dream of everything that one deeply feels for, irrespective of their gender. If we were to introspect every decision of our life where gender isn’t relevant, we’d understand the gravitas of gender norms.

In some areas, we are making progress in educating people to think, act, and express themselves without worrying about gender norms. Bachendri Pal became the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Laxmi Narayan Tripathi became the first transgender person to represent India in the UN in 2008. Narthaki Nataraj, a renowned dancer, became the first transgender person to be conferred with the Padma Shri. Mathieu Day-Gillett is a full-time stay-at-home dad and the primary caregiver for his family.

We were all created by nature. We deserve an equal amount of respect and dignity irrespective of our gender. We all have our passions, our dreams, and deserve an equal opportunity to fight for them.