Gender Roles
Transformative Action for Reformed Attitudes (TARA) Foundation is a non-profit organisation that revolutionizes mindsets to bring forth behavioral and systemic changes to end patriarchy in every sphere and build a better world with equal opportunity and treatment for all genders. Their focus is to create curated social designs (workshops, curricula, and literature) with adolescents and youth to critically reflect on gendered societal pressures, unconscious biases, and develop an empathetic, empowering, and inclusive personality.
These small comics/cartoons were part of a series called 'Woke Zone', created for a social media campaign discussing gender roles in various fields and segments of our lives.
At home:
The woman works in the kitchen, and the man repairs household appliances. Normalization and continuance of gendered roles since childhood lead to a set of expected behaviours. Men are expected to do tech work, while women put on kitchen and childcare duty. A disproportionate share of chores thus falls on the woman of the house. So why despite the conversations on gender roles worldwide we still rarely see women changing tyres and as breadwinners or men as a caretaker of the house? Should dividing responsibilities at home be based on expectation or choice?
At work:
Only 3% of CEOs of leading companies in India are women, as per Prime Database. Women employees are subject to being assessed differently compared to men for the same job. Starting from casual sexism, wage gap, expectations and pressure from families, prejudice of opting for “soft skills”, unequal representation are some of the many challenges that leads to a shocking disproportionality in senior level positions across industries. We are a long way from equal workforce participation. We need to move from tokened diversity to reformed mindsets and gender neutral approaches at workplace to ensure that organizations are recruiting and nurturing women workforce at every level.
In educational institutes:
Educational institutes in India inculcate different values in girls and boys, where the former is expected to be responsible and the latter is given a pass at being rowdy and aggressive. The increased emphasis on a girl’s appearance to be prim and proper limits the activities and spaces they can explore. For men, indulging in competitive spaces, like sports is encouraged. Girls are expected to instinctively choose “less strenuous” games like kho-kho, and are not even urged towards rough sports, like football, etc. leaving the idea of pursuing it seriously. The boys are often consoled in injury by being assured "yahi toh khel kud ki umar hai". This in future leads to women being underconfident with their bodies, while men lack inclusiveness and equal acceptance of women in the same spaces. Non-discrimination and providing equal opportunities would be a healthy push for every gender at a young age to develop physical endurance, embrace skills like teamwork, and sensitivity and pursue athletic interests.
In relationships:
Educational institutes in India inculcate different values in girls and boys, where the former is expected to be responsible and the latter is given a pass at being rowdy and aggressive. The increased emphasis on a girl’s appearance to be prim and proper limits the activities and spaces they can explore. For men, indulging in competitive spaces, like sports is encouraged. Girls are expected to instinctively choose “less strenuous” games like kho-kho, and are not even urged towards rough sports, like football, etc. leaving the idea of pursuing it seriously. The boys are often consoled in injury by being assured "yahi toh khel kud ki umar hai". This in future leads to women being underconfident with their bodies, while men lack inclusiveness and equal acceptance of women in the same spaces. Non-discrimination and providing equal opportunities would be a healthy push for every gender at a young age to develop physical endurance, embrace skills like teamwork, and sensitivity and pursue athletic interests.
In parenthood
The term 'Bread-winner often associated to men, protects them from being asked inappropriate questions about family, relationship status and childcare, of how they will manage between childcare and career. It is important to normalize equal involvement from both parents instead of over-glorifying a dad’s participation or taking a mother’s role for granted. It is regressive to assume that a woman’s life needs to centered or be wholly accountable for the child.
