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We grew up hearing girls were equal to boys. We were taught to be better than the boys, while picking up after them. Not exactly fair, was it?
We grew up hearing girls were equal to boys. We were taught to be better than the boys, while still picking up after them. Not exactly fair, was it?
If you grew up in India in the 2000’s, you might remember being told that as girls, we were on the same level as the boys. You can do everything a guy can! We were told, ‘we are raising our girls who can walk alongside, or even overtake men’.
But what we weren’t told was that we get to do all that – after finishing our duties in the kitchen, cleaning our house, taking care of our obligatory duties as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law…
We were trained to think like boys, play their game and beat them too, be better than them… after we cleaned up behind them.
I cannot forget the days of our summer vacations, which were spent at our aunt’s home. My aunt led by example, and taught my cousin sisters and me how to do the household chores in record time. Rise before everyone else, cook and clean efficiently, do the laundry, fold and put them away, all while hustling in and out of the kitchen. Tending to the elderly in the house, picking up things along the way, straightening the picture frames on walls, dusting off the dirt from surfaces all with a smile on her face and gratitude in her heart.
There was a rhythm to her effortless movements, like she had done them so many times before. Now, we had to be trained to do the same. And be done before our brothers woke up!
We’d follow her while she took us around the house like a curator in an art museum, emptying bucket-loads of information on us whether we understood them or not!
Once we had carried out all of our girly chores, it was time to get back to enjoying our holidays with our brothers. Play, fight and be better than our brothers at reading , spelling, drawing, running and playing catch.
The family elders always boasted that they don’t treat their girls differently from their boys. That is, after the girls had proven early in the day, that they now deserve to be treated as equals!
Photo by Schnapps 2012/Getty Images via Canva Pro
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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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