July 2,2019
We (Sethulakshmi Vinayan and I) did a Gender and sexual harassment workshop in the school I studied in. It was a surreal experience to lecture the teachers on gender ( And, a few of them have asked me not to talk to boys in the past). Please refer to the write up below for the details on the workshop and I will share some interesting anecdotes.
Favouritism- teachers pointed out how all the cleaning tasks are assigned to girls while physical work like moving benches is assigned to boys. They acknowledged how they are reinforcing the stereotypical patterns. And how they hit boys more because they don’t react and when something goes wrong in classrooms their first reaction would be to taunt the boys.
Teachers said they face gender barriers in their workspace too. Like how they sometimes end up doing more writing work because they are told they doing it better than male teachers. They also mentioned instances like how women are the ones who stand throughout the day in the entrance of textile shops to welcome customers.
They also spoke about the restrictions they face despite working and earning. Like having to return at a particular time, being given only little pocket money though they earn their salaries. In a lot of families, their finances are still handled by their husbands or fathers.
What would you do if you are a man? We had usual responses like I want to roam at night. ( We might soon organise, loiter/ occupy at night kind of things ;))
Then there was this incidence- A group of boys making fun a girl in a classroom and the girl complained to the teacher how she was scared to confront them because she said the boys might start bullying her by puncturing the cycle etc
For the stereotypes found in textbooks, the suggestion that was discussed among teachers is although we can’t keep dealing with it regularly if we sensitise the students that there is discrimination in books and they might start seeing it themselves. And,at least find a pattern.
So much more to share.😅 I got so much satisfaction in playing movie scenes and asking them to identify the respective IPC sections for famous movies like Kushi scene with Vijay and Jyothika ‘en idupa pathiya’ to Rajini’s monologue to Dhanush’s stalking. Very therapeutic. And, it felt perfect because Sethulakshmi Vinayan and I watched Korean serials at night and swooned over guys and lectured people on gender the next day. In the coming days, we would be doing it with parents and students of the school.
Thinnai 