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Prejudice in ourselves exists too, apart from the world around Can we be bold enough to shed our prejudices, to welcome the world and its people?
Prejudice in ourselves exists too, apart from the world around us. Can we be bold enough to recognize and shed our prejudices, to welcome the world and its people?
“Looks like she’s a show-off.”
“The way she laughs with guys…”
“Why is her clothing so revealing?”
“He must be a nerd.”
“He must be eating everything that he sees.”
If we’ve heard any of these quoted texts or spoken them in our lifetime, we surely understand that prejudice is prevalent in us, and around us.
There are many feminist movements wanting to stop portraying women as sexual objects, but does the size of someone we dare to speak about make us a part of that movement?
Do we realise that when we comment about someone’s body, we expect them to be aligned with the beauty standard set by us?
Hanging out with male friends makes a female a slut.
Revealing clothes = slut.
A woman who’s new, famous, and not liked by us at first sight = slut.
The irony is women judging women without knowing them personally. It’s similar to when someone says that a cake tastes like lemon, without tasting it.
I believed that prejudice was normal, just like domestic abuse, racism, and sexism.
I could say, if it’s socially acceptable, that I’m a proud victim of prejudice. And I couldn’t deny the fact that I judged people like I was being judged. I believed that prejudice was normal, just like domestic abuse, racism, and sexism. The widely-used proverb “The face is the index of the mind” confirmed my belief. I judged people by their face, size, clothes, and the marks they scored.
The major breakthrough happened to me when I started watching crime-based movies. In some of them, a culprit would easily escape from being convicted because he/she’d be trained to act innocent during the interrogation. A man with a scar could be a war hero rather than a thief. A young lady could have the thyroid and have an eating disorder which made her fat. A real identity could be camouflaged by various criteria, and a real person could be judged wrongly based on the way we see them.
My classmate revealed that she thought that I was a rude person just because I sported a pixie cut. One of my professors admitted that she was scared to approach me at the beginning because I wore no accessories. Though I like them now, it hurt me to know that I was not approachable because of the way I dressed.
If were the girl who loves to eat a lot in a restaurant, I don’t want to be judged.
Perspective helped me to overcome judging people at first sight. If I were the guy who wears a flowery shirt, I don’t want to be judged. If were the girl who loves to eat a lot in a restaurant, I don’t want to be judged. ‘Don’t judge’ became one of my favourite mantras.
Cutting down our bad habits, as our mothers would say, can be difficult, but it should be cut down. Life can be really tough for many of us. We should not make creative judgements to add more pain to them. Our efforts, on hating or judging people, may be of no use to them. In the process, we also make our false fact making part of the brain work unnecessarily. Instead, all we need to do is approach the person, befriend them and get our facts right.
I don’t need to say, women are oppressed in our society. Prejudice adds fuel to the oppression of women. Women or not, one shouldn’t be a victim of prejudice. Equality is achieved only if we treat others like we want them to treat us. It doesn’t take a big revolutionary movement, but a quick question to ourselves before judging a person. “If I were that person, would I want to be judged?”
“Prejudice is a great timesaver. You conform opinions without having to get to the facts.” –E.B. White
Mindset concept image via Shutterstock
Curious student for life. Periyar, Ambedkar, & Marx fills my gray matter; but I'm no blind pop-culture follower wearing a Che Guevara on my Tee, but a critical thinker who'll question any regressive read more...
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We can’t bombard impressionable young women in the name of enlightened entertainment to feed them the same drivel. At least let us not label misogynist movies as helping the cause of women.
I have watched at least 2 ‘purported’ trailblazing Bollywood movies in the recent past that left me with a feeling that I had taken part in the ice-bucket challenge all over again. This time around, however, without even the satisfaction of having supported a worthy cause.
Both the movies have about a 90% liking rate on IMDB/Rotten Tomatoes. Both are touted to ‘sensitively’ portray the taboo topics that seem to be mostly hidden underneath a layer of banana peels – dangerous to even tread nearby.
Dushyanta clearly remembered everything. But he didn't have any intention to accept a poor woman from a remote hermitage as his wife and her son as theirs.
Dushyanta clearly remembered everything. But he didn’t have any intention to accept a poor woman from a remote hermitage as his wife and her son as theirs.
She sat motionless on the royal bed, her knees drawn up to her chin, staring vacantly outside the palace window.
She was sheathed in exquisite scarlet red silk, shot through with golden threads forming intricate traditional patterns. Chests of gems and jewellery were strewn all over the bed. The maids were fussing over whether a diamond-studded necklace would suit their queen or a gold choker would look better. Another younger maid was arranging her tresses in a coiffeur.
Is the prejudice against dark skin linked to lack of education? Or rather, is this prejudice going strong among so-called educated Indians too?
One summer evening at my Moms Club, while chatting, one mom said that her daughter was turning dark from her rigorous summer camp activities. She also vowed not to send her again next summer, saying that she looked ugly with her darker skin. I got pissed off hearing that and with my disgust showing, told her we have to make our girls confident rather than conscious about their skin tone. I am appalled to see the way some mothers discouraged sun exposure, especially for a girl child. This mom here is a good friend of mine, well educated, affluent and lives in the Western world!
Let me now share another incident. I was chatting with a woman who is uneducated and underprivileged. She is a mother of two girls and doesn’t mind that her daughters are dark. She wants them to be well educated. She works hard and strives relentlessly to make ends meet. I applauded her in my mind for being so sensible, determined and free of prejudices. She is my domestic helper. I do not know how to react to this juxtaposition. Why can’t we, the so-called erudite folks, change our mindset? Why are we so obsessed with fairness and a fair skin tone?
Destroying stereotypes to bring up a more gender equal generation is a slow process, but it can be achieved if every parent decides to do it in their homes.
The other day, on a reading group, there was a post which spoke about how a 10-year old girl scoffed at a boy for getting a Cinderella book issued through the school library saying “It is a ‘girls’ book”.
There was an immediate flurry of comments and within no time all the mothers of little boys and girls were speaking up about similar issues they faced about their children. One mother posted a story about how her son was bullied and called a girl for liking the colour pink. Another posted about how her 3-yr old girl was subjected to “Isko badi hokar khana hi toh banana hai! (She has to grow up someday and cook anyway!)” just because the little one showed interest in cooking.