Sangat Musings: Day One
When I say ‘Day One’, it doesn’t automatically imply that there’ll be daily updates. Though ideally I guess, there should be. Now, to get to the musings before I get distracted again.
Tl;dr: I received a fellowship to follow through a Feminist Capacity Building Course on Gender, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Peace. It’s a residential course in Nepal, and is hosted by this organisation called Sangat — and has some stellar people conducting the workshops. It’s given me a newfound appreciation for feminists, especially as the movement isn’t synonymous with misandry in this space.
“Our intellect and our heart does not exist independently of each other. The superiority of the mind has been used to colonise.”
This is something which stuck with me because I’ve always prized intellect and intelligence over everything in the past. Not over the last year or two, but before that; when I was under the impression that that was the only thing which mattered anywhere. Thankfully, I seem to have outgrown that to a certain extent. I say ‘certain’, because I still (rather sadly) think some people are incurably stupid. But at least now, I keep my damn mouth shut instead of being outright offensive.
I’ve been changing and un-learning a lot of things I thought were set in stone for me; perceptions, beliefs, practices…stuff like that. The change has been rather rapid over the last three years, and I don’t think my teenage self would recognise who I am now. I’m not entirely sure if this is something good or bad, though I’d like to think it’s for the better. Either way, it just is.
The first day of this course helped me to verbalise — succintly — what some of these changes are. They’re pretty obvious, I think, but something I still struggle with defining. Many of these had to do with perception. While I’ve been pretty resolute knowing what works for me and what doesn’t, the last year has been somewhat…tumultuous, and I think I lost sense of who I was/am as a person, a lot. It put me in a state of limbo, and I wasn’t able to find a sense of self, or of reassurance knowing I was living a life I don’t regret. A ton of “what if”s came crashing down, rather unpleasantly; and I finally felt what social and peer pressure felt like. Having been someone who was immune to such pressures, this was not pleasant, let me tell you. It basically made me super insecure. And I had enough insecurities without having to deal with an identity crisis out of the blue. The rest of this blog doesn’t have anything to do with my changes or perceptions, but of what stood out for me today. It’s pretty basic, but in an attempt to start writing (non-work related writing), here goes.
Being You
When defining Gender (social construct) and Sex (biological), Kamla Bhasin asked us a simple question: Why can’t you successfully, completely, change your sex? It had an equally simple answer: because your sex is what has been given to you, not what you made.
Ergo, there is, technically, no issue with our sexes. What the issue is, is with genders — because gendering created binary definitions and set social standards.
Something new I learnt today was that nature, biologically, did not make women inferior.
Apparently, women are biologically stronger than men and the Y chromosome is weaker. The XY chromosome is more susceptible to diseases than XX.
Add to things I didn’t know, nature apparently produces 105 male fetuses and only a 100 of girls; knowing that 05% will die off anyway. I say ‘apparently’ because I didn’t cross-check this myself, but another nurse here confirmed it.
So basically, everything you learn about most physical differences when growing up is bullshit. It’s just that boys are given more active, outgoing roles even as kids (with everything from their clothes to toys facilitating this), and girls are given more nurturing, quiet roles (dolls and kitchen sets), because they have to prepare to serve tea to their husbands one day.
Ah well.
Gender Here, There, and Everywhere
This isn’t groundbreaking or anything, but are just a few sentences off the sessions that I’d like to remember. Gender is everything, and everywhere. For people who think otherwise (like oh, it doesn’t happen here/ we’re developed/ my religion is feminist), a few questions:
- Can you marry four women at the same time?
- Does your sister have to come home earlier than your brother?
- When you, as a child, had dreams and ambitions, was it to be a pilot or an air-hostess? The president or the secretary? A doctor or a nurse?
Q: “You are a girl, you can’t whistle.”
A: “But why? Am I physically unable to? Boys don’t whistle with their penises, so you can do it too.”
Q: “You are a girl, so you can’t go out at night/ stay out late.”
A: “Why? Do I have night blindness? Don’t I have two legs?”
That’s apparently called naturalisation, where society doesn’t have to take responsibility for discrimination. Add to that, you have to dress nicer, look more appealing, use more products etc etc etcccc. (I never use etc as a general rule, but taking a break this time bc it’s nearly 11pm and we started the day…really early. It’s basically going to be 6am to 9:30-10pm runs from now).
- “We’re not asking for equality in our sexes, because
(a) there’s no issue with our sex
(b) because we can’t get it regardless.
We’re asking for gender equality.” - “Those bloody men, they drank milk off our breasts. These are not their playthings.”
- coming from a 72 year old, the way she said it was hilarious. - “Gender defines everything. How you behave, act, speak, stand. When food is served, the men go first. They don’t wait: they take. Even when they’re boys, their toys and clothes are catered around activity and action. Guns, cars, shorts, solid shoes: it enables them to run around. Girls? They get dresses and frocks and heels. It discourages them from playing the same way, forces them to behave differently. If they tried climbing a tree while in a dress? “Chee chee, can see your panties. Shame!”
Boys don’t have this sense of shame. There is no [concept of] shame for them.”
Yes yes, we all know this. It’s just that we don’t register them all the time, or realise this. Well, most of y’all don’t, at any rate. But given that we’re living in it, and it surrounds us at every stage, at what point is your choice of clothing (or behaviour) actually yours? And not one influenced by pop-culture, or commercialism, or making yourself attractive to the opposite sex and all that? Three simple questions when getting something done.
- Why was this created? (shoes? to protect your feet while walking)
- For what purpose? (heels? why not sneakers?)
- What does it do for me? (objectify you or help you walk?)
For me, I guess this depends on context. As someone who used to exclusively wear ratty jeans, and oversized tees and sandals from the men’s section and cringe in horror when I see photos of those now, I don’t think female clothes is a bad thing anymore. That said, I don’t wear things that are impractical (for me) either. No sarees, no heels, no face-paint.
Who knows, maybe I will in a few years, maybe I’ll cave into gender norms for convenience and to fit in.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll also become a #LifestyleBlogger and #Influencer.
/s
p.s:
Disclaimer: I didn’t proof/ edit this, so ignore the mediocre text. Hopefully, I’ll become a whiz at blogging after constant practice :P
