Raise a human, not a gender. Say NO to gender stereotypes
What is the first thought when I show you the colour Pink? I am sure your immediate reaction would be the image of a girl. A girl wearing a pink coloured dress. A colour that is feminine, right? But when a boy wears a pink shirt to the office, his colleagues say, “Yeh ladkiyon ka shirt kyun pehna hai?”
When a girl watches a science fiction movie or an action movie, people tag her as a ‘wannabe macho’ along with menial comments like, “Oh, look who’s trying to act like a boy!” And when a boy is emotional by nature, society tags him as ‘too sensitive’.
How parents affect a child’s right to choose
You cannot blame a tree to give bitter fruits when the seed itself is bitter, right? The reason why people casually pass sexist comments is because of their conditioning as a child. Parents have a big role in creating the mental makeup of their children.
They are shocked to see a man cooking in the kitchen and a woman attending a business meeting on her laptop. Cue the sexist comment, “You are a man! What are you doing in the kitchen?”
A well-known child psychologist and school teacher Haim Ginott once famously said, “Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression”. This quote makes more sense in today’s times.
Gender Stereotyping right from birth
Gender stereotyping starts even before the child is born. Boys and girls are automatically filtered into blue and pink categories. Something that looks like a scene right out of the mass production. Why not incorporate other colours too?
I saw a beautiful advertisement by Surf Excel where the daughter was helping her mother in washing clothes and her brother was teasing her. He tells her that he doesn’t have to do these ‘girly’ chores as he is a ‘man’.
But soon the mother signals the son too, to help his sister out. It was a path-breaking according to me. It could be the beginning of a positive change in society.
Parents scold the child if he participates in less manly activities. For example, if a boy wants to play a feminine character in a school play, his school play teacher and classmates give him the intense cringe-worthy glances. Disheartened, the boy is forced to choose a masculine character.
There, another dream of breaking a gender stereotype shattered. But the glass ceiling remains where it is. A two-year-old girl does not have the freedom to choose superheroes over Barbie Princesses as she ‘does not fit’ the mould of a classic girl.
Challenges faced by the Third Gender
These are the challenges that the heterogeneous community faces. What about the third gender and their rights? These people have to face obstacles on another level altogether. The suicide rate in this community is much higher among them too. The reason behind this?
Well, it isn’t easy for sons and daughters to voice their dreams, so you can imagine the mental state of a person who wants to come out with his true sexual identity as a person.
And it requires immense courage to disclose something as basic as their sexual orientation; they do not have access to the most basic human right of their sexual identity because of the intense pressures of the society.
Legends have faced the brunt too
If a man is born, he must fall in love with a woman and the same goes for a woman too. They do not have a chance to say what their hearts tell them to follow.
One of the artistic legends like Oscar Wilde was jailed and electrocuted for being a homosexual. Alan Turing, the father of the Internet, is another example of how society brutally treats someone who bravely admits to his homosexuality.
Common misconceptions about the Third Gender
The moment you see a transgender passing through a train, we immediately look away because as children, our parents always told us to ignore them, otherwise, they will beg us for money and if we don’t give them what they want, then they will curse and humiliate us.
The fact is that brutal discrimination forces people to live off the streets. The business world still does not accept people of diverse sexual identities. Life is unfair for these people who are forced to take up menial jobs. Due to this bias, companies are on the verge of losing valuable talent.
Times are changing
The world today, however, has slowly but surely started to accept this particular community as part of the human race. They were not entitled to this privilege for many centuries. We are slowly getting to a place where all communities can coexist in peace and harmony.
Thanks to the community guidelines formed by many MNCs today, people of all sexual identities can now earn their livelihood in a dignified way.
There are many instances today of how parents have accepted their children for who they are. They have given a new definition of unconditional love. We still have a long way to go, but these baby steps are a ladder to getting there, for sure.
