Boys are brats, girls are soft: Begins at home

Boys are brats, girls are soft: Begins at home

FPJ BureauUpdated: Wednesday, May 29, 2019, 05:16 AM IST
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The little boy makes a nuisance of himself — either at a visit to a friend or relative’s place, in school, on the playground, in a restaurant or a moviehall. He jumps on and off furniture, flings things around, makes a racket, picks fights with other kids and throws a tantrum if things don’t go his way. The father couldn’t be bothered — kids are the mother’s problem; the mother look fondly at the little monster and says, “Such a goonda he is, no? He already has so many girlfriends, when he grows up he will be a heart-breaker.”

And so it begins, the spoiling and ‘bratifying’ of Indian sons. The daughters are constantly told, sit properly, speak softly, come help mummy in the kitchen, don’t fight with bhaiya, go ask daddy what he wants to eat. So it begins, the ‘softening’ of Indian daughters, whose brains are filled with what is proper behaviour for girls.

The sons see that they are treated differently, if not always better, than their sisters, and grow up sure of their own superiority. Girls are silly, girls cry, girls are no good at maths, girls mean yes when they say no. The father may not hit the mother or shout at her in front of the kids, but even the man who believes he is metrosexual (or whatever the label of the day is), will not hesitate to crack a sexist joke or laugh at one; will pick up his own plate or change an infant’s diaper with an ‘I’m so great’ attitude; will make fun of his wife’s size, her dress, her cooking, her driving, and expect her to be a good sport about it.

“Women just don’t have a sense of humour,” he will guffaw, if any woman objects. The wife will just roll her eyes and get on with her work, if she wants some peace in the home. For all this talk of gender-neutral parenting, at least in urban areas, go to any toy shop and there are dolls, cooking sets, sewing kits, jewellery, pink and heart-shaped objects for girls, while boys get guns, drum kits, cars, footballs, and cricket bats.

Even the most enlightened parent might encourage their daughters to play sports or a feminine musical instrument (no drums!), but will hesitate to get dolls for their boys. Even today, with all the gains of the women’s movement, tomboy is an acceptable term, sissy is not! Which parent would want their son to be bullied at school for playing with a doll; and which parent would dare dress their son in a frock!

Then there is the problem of sexualising little girls by dressing them in tight, strappy dresses and putting on make-up at a very early age. (Reality shows on TV, think nothing of making pre-teen girls wear revealing clothes and perform sexy moves). Boys are exposed to porn at a very young age, before they are able to understand what sex and gender relations are all about.

It is any surprise then that so many boys — not all — grow up not just with a sense of entitlement, but with a vague disregard towards women, because within the family they see women not being given unconditional respect; outside of their family, they see women portrayed as sex objects. They come to believe that it is not right for girls to be aggressive, competitive or outspoken. While women, of course, hit their head against a glass ceiling in almost every career.

So men end up grabbing power, and whenever there is such an imbalance, there is bound to be exploitation, including sexual harassment. Because respect for women, for their ambition, for their consent is simply not inculcated in children in a majority of homes.

Expecting a totally gender neutral society seems like an impossibility, but when it has been attempted, the results are there to see. To quote from a piece by Jessica Salter in The Telegraph, UK, “One study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that children subject to strict gender expectations are at an increased risk for mental and physical health problems during and after adolescence. A separate study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology found that kids enrolled in the Sweden’s gender-neutral kindergarten system had access to more opportunities, which the researchers predicted would equate to more success as adults.

“There was also a BBC documentary last year, No More Boys and Girls: Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?, which followed a class of seven-year-olds. It observed that girls called themselves pretty, but had lower self-esteem than the boys, while boys had a limited vocabulary when describing their emotions. Dr Stella Mavroveli, a personality psychologist from Imperial College London who has studied the gender differences between boys and girls, says that both sides of the gender neutral debate are guilty of extremism.

‘We have to accept that there are physical and psychological differences between men and women, and while as parents we need to allow our children to flourish and develop in an environment that is not too prescriptive, we do tend to gravitate towards the extremes, as of late. I wonder whether we will end up with children who are even more confused and fixed in their opinions and choices’.” However, it does begin at home, in small ways, like not telling a crying boy to stop acting like a girl, or not telling an assertive girl to stop acting like a hooligan; not by telling girls to be careful when they go out, but by telling boys to behave better.

Deepa Gahlot is a Mumbai based columnist, critic and author.

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