Saturday, March 30, 2013

It's a Boy Girl Thing...

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

24 comments:

  1. Now I respect you! A man actually coming up with a cricket match of that sort.
    Proud of you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Red Handed :

      Thank you for the nice words. :-) I had thought about the idea even before, but never expected it to be so successful as it went on to be. Luckily I got the chance to try it out when I had the opportunity as one of the organizers. Just goes to show how some stupid stereotyping and prejudices prevent people from doing things which they would otherwise want to do.

      Delete
  2. Hey Shobhit Awesome writeup :) And sports can be the biggest building block as far as gender inequality is concerned. Even in my office we find very few girls playing TT and most of the times that remains occupied by boys.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gitanjali :

      Maybe you can encourage more girls in your office into playing TT and even competing with boys. I'm sure it will benefit even the work environment a lot.

      Delete
  3. Hey Shobhit Awesome write-up :) Sports can be the biggest building block for filling that gap of gender inequality. It was nice to read something written by you after soo long. Even my brother feels that he will land straight into the hospital if i will be on the driver's seat :P Paglu :)

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    1. gitanjali :

      :D I think you should take your brother out while you are driving so that he can be assured of your driving skills.

      And yes, this is just one of the many benefits that a person and even the society can extract from sports.

      I'm still waiting to read a new post from you. It's been so long since the last one already. :-)

      Delete
  4. A lot depends on parenting and social setup. In many societies girls are not expected to ride bikes or take up sport hence the stares. But things are changing, slowly but steadily.
    Misogyny is so deep rooted that it passes into our language. Don't cry like a girl, be a man.....

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    Replies
    1. Alka Gurha :

      Alka Ma'am, you are so right when you say it is so deep rooted. It is almost taken for granted that boys don't cry and girls weep at the drop of a hat.

      Also, why certain things are not 'expected' from girls or boys is due to the continuous stereotyping through generations. It is heartening to see that things are changing.

      Delete
  5. Badminton khelte the na school mein, mixed doubles... though not official perhaps. Don't remember any such school tournaments, but definitely remember playing badminton with Aradhana, Saini, Anant and few other girls & guys of our batch... in those courts in front of the music rooms, remember? Also, I have some vague memories of guys & girls practising basketball together too. Baki saare sports were meant for pretending a stomach ache & hiding in the dispensary! Especially during the the athletics meet season!

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    Replies
    1. Chicky a.k.a. Kaddu :

      That was exactly my point. There weren't any official mixed doubles matches in school. In fact, they weren't even expected during the normal games periods. At least up to the middle school, the games teachers managed the games periods and sort of made sure that the girls were confined to the basketball court while the boys played hockey, football or cricket. Practicing basketball together was also to save time and energy as we had only one basketball teacher who coached the school teams.

      Secondly, you won't even vaguely remember any girl playing hockey, football or cricket. Even though there was no written rule forbidding girls from playing those sports, it was always taken for granted.

      And I never understood why would anyone try to feign illness to escape the games period of all things. :-)

      Delete
  6. You didn't? Well, were you guys forced to play kho-kho & kabaddi every time?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chicky a.k.a. Kaddu :

      kho-kho and kabaddi ? When was that ?

      Delete
  7. You mean you guys NEVER had to play kho-kho & kabaddi in school games period? :O :O :O

    I hate this gender-based discrimination !!!

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    Replies
    1. Chicky a.k.a. Kaddu :

      Actually, I don't remember kho-kho or kabaddi being played in our school. If they were being played, I'm sure many boys would have had fun playing those. Of course there was a lot of gender-based discrimination in school and games was just a part of it.

      Delete
    2. That's really strange. I remember these 2 sports were a routine part of our (i.e. the girls') games periods for several years, though as you rightly pointed out above, we remained confined to the basketball courts for them too! I also remember I was denied permission to join the gardening activity once (in class 5th, I think) saying it was only for boys. Although after a few years, it was allowed to girls also shayad...

      Delete
    3. Chicky a.k.a. Kaddu :

      Yes, I didn't know that the basketball courts were being used for kho-kho and kabaddi. Maybe because us boys weren't allowed to venture near the basketball courts during the games periods. But even then, it is funny to imagine kho-kho being played on a basketball court because as far as I know, it requires a specific marked field to be played. Maybe it was just on the whim of the female sports teacher who probably thought junior school girls were not tall enough to play basketball. But still, it wasn't a part of the official list of sports and games of our school. Though I don't know why, because both kho-kho and kabaddi are pretty exciting sports.

      Gender discrimination was a common thing with many other activities too. Like 'food-preservation' and 'sewing & knitting' activities were exclusively for females. While the likes of 'carpentry' and 'band' were exclusively for males. The school was, and probably still is, under a sense of prejudice that girls shouldn't be playing hockey, football, cricket or volleyball. And surely not boxing.

      Delete
  8. Finally seeing a post from you after ages! where are you? no news!
    Agree with everything here. This gender discrimination is rampant everywhere :(... wish more men in India could think like you..

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    Replies
    1. Avada Kedavra :

      :D

      Been just too busy with things lately. Will update you about it all.

      I wonder if such discrimination is present there in the US too. Obviously it doesn't seem so for sports at least. That's one good thing.

      Delete
  9. Awesome post! This is so refreshing to read!

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    1. Anonymous :

      Thank you for reading and liking. :-)

      Delete
  10. Respect! I couldn't agree more! You have a new follower!!

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    Replies
    1. Deepa :

      Thank you so much for your appreciation. Do keep visiting. :-)

      Delete

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