Recently, while visiting my relatives in another town, I
came across a rather strange situation. My sister-in-law (my younger cousin’s
wife) suggested a visit to a nearby Mughal monument. But since my brother had
taken the car to work, we had to manage on my sister-in-law’s two-wheeler for
our ride. Having not ridden a two-wheeler in about ten years, and being an
alien to the roads and traffic of another city, I preferred to ride pillion
with my sister-in-law who is used to riding to work on her two-wheeler everyday.
Before, during and after our small journey, I came across
many reactions from people who saw me riding pillion behind a girl. Right from
the neighbors, the traffic policemen to the guy at the parking, people reacted
as if they were highly amused at the scene.
Which makes me wonder, why is it considered so unusual for a
female driving a male on a vehicle. Why is it so ingrained in our psyches
(specially males) that it should always be the male to drive a vehicle while
traveling with a female ? Is it just an ego issue ? If so, then why ?
Even during college days, it was a common sight to see dating couples zoom around on motorbikes. But I don’t recall seeing a guy riding pillion behind a girl, even though many of those girls were used to riding their own vehicles when alone. I guess they were too scared of being the laughing stock if they tried going against the ‘norm’.
Why are people stuck with stereotyping absolutely normal
everyday tasks with gender ? I realized that we have been unconsciously promoting
such stereotypes into people’s minds right from childhood.
For example, during our school days, both girls and boys
were encouraged to participate in sports. While girls were quite active in
sports like badminton, table-tennis, basketball and athletics, but when it came
to sports like football and cricket, it was absolutely out of bounds for girls.
And no one ever even dreamt of girls participating in boxing. But haven’t we
heard of a certain multi-world-champion called Mary Kom ? Why shouldn’t schoolgirls
be allowed to play football or cricket ?
And also, we never used to have any mixed doubles matches
for badminton, tennis or table-tennis at school. Boys and girls were never
allowed to consider that they can actually compete together against one
another. Though one thing which I still remember about our school’s annual
athletic meet was the absolutely exciting relay race in which each team used to
comprise of four girls and four boys in alternate succession.
Why can’t girls compete in the same game against boys ?
Agreed sports like football are high contact sports, but why not cricket ? Or for
that matter, basketball, handball, volleyball or water-polo ? And I don’t mean
a team of girls competing against a team of guys. But we can have teams comprising
of both the genders competing against each other.
As the student in-charge and treasurer of our college sports society, I proposed such an idea during our annual sports fest. I suggested for a “Six-a-side” cricket competition in which each team would comprise of three girls and three boys. Amazingly, this idea was taken up like hot pancakes as participation poured in and we had an amazing and fun-filled day of cricket. I did tweak the rules of the game to make it a level playing field for girls. But it was pleasantly strange to see so many girls wanting to play cricket, something which they are usually denied right from childhood.
Strangely, most of my team-mates from the college cricket
team gave it a miss. I came to know that they were very uneasy sharing a
cricket field with girls. In other words, they felt too manly to compete with
girls in something that is considered exclusively a men’s game. Maybe they were
shy to hit a ball from a girl bowler or just too ashamed by the thought of
being hit by a girl batswoman. But to their own surprise, most of the matches
were closely contested with girls proving a handful for the boys.
Me, (in the blue pullover) clarifying the rules before our team's match
I feel that such a concept of mixed gender sports would
actually help in discarding at least a few of the male-female stereotypes and
would perhaps help in neutralizing the sense of ego that many males grow up
with. If not those, at least such a concept would help curb the practice of
sledging and misbehavior on the field.
Sports can be an effective tool to promote mutual respect
between the two genders. Specially since stereotyping is probably the biggest
hurdle in the path of achieving gender equality.
Image courtesy : Google Images
