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It is everyday sexism that we take for granted that gets a vicious grip on mindsets and creates the molester among us. The onus is on us to change.
It starts right from the time the child is born. Blue for boys and pink for girls. Growing up, telling the boys not to cry because men don’t cry and asking the girls to be polite because apparently girls are delicate.
It seeps in drop by drop. Through the environment a child is in. The society looking at the father’s work as the ‘manly’ one while the mother’s as the ‘homely’ one.
The tv ads… re-enforcing what a child sees around. The movies… with dialogues like “hansi to phasi” or “ladki ki na mei bhi haan hai“.
The objectification, the sexist jokes, the inequality, the supposed ‘male domination’.
The subtle entry of an 8 year old brother who walks to the shop down the street with his sister. To ‘protect’ her. The ‘protection’ provided here would not be by the virtue of his strength but would wholly depend on the virtue of his gender, accepted by the society.
It grows. Builds up piece by piece. And it solidifies taking a shape. Takes the shape of a mentality.
Looking at women as objects, as inferiors, as helpless, as second class citizens.
Who are the rapists and the molesters roaming around in the society? Are they men with horns or wings? How do we identify such creeps?
Ummm… well… we can’t. Because they are a part of us.
But, what we can do is, identify our own actions, our own mentality. Be more open minded, teach the boys that they are not here to protect their sisters or mothers or wives. They are here to coexist.
Women don’t need help. Women don’t need men to walk around freely. Women don’t need men for protection. Women need respect. As equal human beings.
We form the society. We encourage, accept, implement double standards. We don’t believe in equality. And that one faction, that one small thought at the back of our minds laughing at sexist jokes, accepting that women need help and considering women not equal to the other sex – it collectively takes the shape of that man who soaked all those things that he saw as a child, things that we showed him, the things he later believed as a man.
The onus is on us.
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Published here earlier.
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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