All inequality starts with the feeling of entitlement. While raising children, giving more attention, better food, educational opportunities etc to the male child gives rise to this feeling. This happens even today in rural and urban areas, in spite of the education and exposure. When a child notices that he gets to pick his presents first, gets better food and has to do less cleaning and domestic chores than his sister, he automatically grows up feeling more entitled.
When he gets married to a well-educated, smart woman, major friction arises when he expects her to take charge of all the domestic work while she, being educated and having been shown how to work and lead and dream, wants to pursue that part of her life as well. Apart from this, when he meets with other women at the workplace, he wonders what they’re doing there!
The friction and disrespect widen and men and women can’t seem to solve this conflict or even understand the other’s perspective.
What we essentially need is mindset change. We need to educate parents who sow the seeds of patriarchy and differentiation by favouring the male child. We don’t need rule passing or bra burning or protests. That only leads to more conflict. For sons to be happy in marriages, mothers have to teach their sons to respect women and not treat them as servants in the house.
When we educate our girl children, we give them dreams of being leaders and enjoying financial independence. And then suddenly after they get married, we expect them to take up the role of homemakers. That’s ridiculous! At school, they aren’t taught how to clean and sow, or lower their eyes when talking to their husbands. They are taught to dream and be more. And men need to learn to understand, accept and respect that.
Workplace discrimination
Good looking women get preference over not-so-good looking women at the workplace. Credit isn’t given for professionalism, but for being attractive. It’s a natural process in a male-dominated workplace. Good looking women get this preference, but this also ends up backfiring on them. As a colleague, a man ingratiates himself with the woman. He makes life easier for her with another agenda — of getting into her pants. But once she’s promoted over him, he resents her. When a woman decides to be a professional, men can’t take it. Sexual innuendo, passes etc can be handled by women with their eyes closed because it’s something they are used to dealing with since puberty. What is difficult for them to handle is when they aren’t accepted as professionals and treated equally. Respect and dignity are what women want at the workplace.
Office management
• Inspect the toilet every day. Very few men understand that one of the most important spaces for a woman is the toilet. Men don’t care about hygiene, but women never even touch the public toilet seat — they literally hover over the pot! Management who cares for its women employees will make sure that the toilet is as clean as the kitchen. If a woman can trust her office toilet, she can trust her management.
• Train the HR department to counsel men on how to treat women equally. Just sacking them won’t solve the problem. We saw what the reaction to #MeToo has been… employers just want to stop hiring female employees! And that, certainly, is not the solution. Legendary ad guru and entrepreneur
Prahlad Kakar is founder of Genesis Film Production Pvt Ltd
(Co-ordinated by Meena Rai)
