Gender Equality?—?Ingrain it in you, the society will automatically imbibe it!

Last few weeks the whole of India has been talking about misogyny. Social Media Channels, blogs, websites, TV channels, newspapers, etc. have been talking about how prejudice against women has so strongly been ingrained in our society, and how that is curbing the real potential of modern day women in India.

Since the whole world seems to be talking about the problem at hand, let me not be left behind, I’ll put my two cents in on what I believe is the need of the hour. Off late, the conventional Indian primary education methodology has been condemned a lot as one that puts a lot of undue pressure on young children. As much as I agree to the same, I believe there are some very evident benefits of that system which we could adopt in our regular walks of life.

One such experience was our teacher making us write repeatedly things which she wanted us to memorize. Usually this was done in primary classes to get the basics deeply instilled in us, so that our journey forward was simpler. Here too, instead of worrying about bigger problems let’s stick to the basics. And please, please don’t use social media or your computer for the below exercise. Let’s first find a piece of paper and a pen (or pencil if you want to really go back to your very early school days kind of feel).

Now let’s think and find five acts done by individuals from the opposite gender (here again since gender equality is the buzzword, I request both males and females to do this exercise) which instilled in you a lot of respect for those individuals. If you really put your grey cells to work am sure you can find a single individual who has performed those five acts. I personally know women who don multiple hats in their lives and switch between being mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, fathers and at times even supporting husbands (to their mothers) apart from their professional lives. I am sure each one of us can find such inspiring stories which are worth putting pen to paper. But please ensure that you actually write these down on the piece of paper you have, and not just think about it.

Once you have written those acts, read it out loud once, only to yourself. Take two minutes to envision you doing those same acts with the same passion and sincerity with which the concerned individual(s) did it. I believe if all of us complete this simple exercise it would ingrain in us all what we need to know about gender equality. Once this is achieved the society will automatically imbibe it, making the world a much better place with equal opportunity for all brought about by mutual respect.