The Gender Gap- A Reflection on Societies

As I reflect on the recent horror story in New Delhi, I find myself searching for answers to questions like --why did these men become so inhuman?  What were their own experiences that led them to become such monsters? What desensitized them to such an extent and so shamelessly…. What pumped them up to such level of brute arrogance…..?  A sense of justice is disturbed within and questions like this keep erupting.

Examining it quite clinically, I find that answers are hidden behind more questions… poking accusing fingers at the very society that is silently feeding the male gender to its grotesque inner form...

Aren’t culprits a product of the society they live in?  What happened is terrible, but what is even worse is realizing that they are a byproduct of the socio-cultural environment they live in. Isn’t it the same society that kills the girl infant, and devalues girls by marrying them off with a “dowry”…. and the one that denies daughters education and nutritious food while the sons are pampered to the point where they never learn to take responsibility of their lives? So isn’t this society teaching men that they are worth more just for being the “male” gender and that their lives are more valuable than that of their female counterparts? …Silently but surely, isn’t this society creating such insensitive  monsters?

How long can this type of silent and institutional violence continue, noticed and yet not? Why are those who were oppressed as a girl child becoming the oppressors of the same girl child as mothers—or to be less harsh, why are they allowing it to happen? Aren’t men and women enslaved in this system because they have chosen to be blind and deaf, conforming quietly to such irrational traditions -- paving the path for such atrocities?

So doesn’t change start with each one making fair choices. You cannot change a whole system, but do you have the courage to change yourself and shake free of this inhuman construction? Can you as parents make sure your girl child is made to feel like gold along with your boy? Can you as parents, fathers and mothers, stand strong against killing of the girl infant and can you as parents allow your daughters to get the same education as sons and not give her away as if her marriage is a favor bestowed upon you? Can you make sure you train your sons to be responsible and not smother so much of selfish love into them that they never learn to appreciate but take things for granted? Can you teach your sons through your own behavior that women are to be respected and that they too should fight against injustice? Can you as a woman make sure you take care of yourself and not give so much away that your children and husband think that your only job is to give to them and that you are not important otherwise? Can you make sure you learn that while the love of a man is important to you, you will never give yourself away to norms that subjugate you to them? Can you men and women please, please not keep quiet at the face of injustice but talk to educate, teach and pave the path to justice?

Societies everywhere, ---men,  women--- adults, have stopped thinking and questioning for most part…and they lack the courage to stand up for what is right, or to even differentiate between right and wrong in the first place. Like robots, this society (as most societies) is machinated and runs on the engine of unjust (including gender) value systems ….so why would it not do something inhuman? Anything robotic is clearly far from anything humane. So, machinated, dehumanized products of a society can surely commit inhuman acts, right?

More generally, whatever the ills are in a society, clearly the source of change lies in the choices we make in creating the kind of society we wish to have….We… each one of us, through our choices and behavior, make or break the monsters in our societies.   If we can have the courage to give space to justice in small ways, the bigger picture will be just too. But if we lack courage, act blind and deaf in the name of culture and traditions well then aren’t we too responsible for the atrocities in our societies? Remembering Gandhiji, we have to be the ‘change we want to see” and for that we need the “truth force” to push against systematic, institutional wrongs through  the choices we make. As teachers we need to build the steps to this ladder by helping  young minds learn the skills to stand up for truth  and justice even if it means going alone.