Gender Struggle: Changing Beliefs, Challenging Patriarchy
At the core of all the struggles, in history, is belief. The belief to be liberated, the belief to be treated as equals, the belief that we are not wrong! How does one fight for equality if we don’t even consider ourselves as equals, or believe that men and women should have an equal space in society?
Introduction
“Didi, phir maine bhi bhaiyan ko ek thappad mara aur pucchha…dard huaa? Mujhe bhi roz aise hi dard hota hain. (Didi, then I also slapped bhaiyan back and asked him, Did it hurt? I feel the same pain every day).”
I can’t forget that time, when the room with 40 people fell completely silent when Laxmi Bai said these words. Her large eyes were moist, conveying more than her words ever could. She told this story on the very day it happened, her face still bruised from the beating, but with a strange serenity in her demeanour.
This was one of my first experiences of interacting with women like Laxmi Bai and I thought to myself, that through this one act of courage, she has defied all her previous generations and altered a norm for generations to come. All it took was that one little retaliation in the form of a slap and a question, “Did it hurt?” A moment and that’s all. How must she have felt after that? What would have gone through her mind? From where had she got the strength to say enough is enough?
What Is This ‘gender’, Bhaiyan?
Many social anthropologists and experts have tried to explain gender. Some have identified gender as a framework, which is the genesis of all inequality of power and control, finding its relevance in the notion of patriarchy. For some, its centrality lies in describing and critiquing the attributes associated with one’s sex, attributes of being feminine and masculine. According to the Oxford dictionary, the word ‘gender’ has been used since the 14th century as a grammatical term, but it did not become common until the mid-20th century. Every year, for the past six years, the women we work with have been innocently asking us this question, “Bhaiyan, yeh gender kya hai (What is gender, Bhaiyan)?” For them, gender simply implies all the discrimination and the biases they face by virtue of being born women.