#100days200words: Day 3 - Why it’s important to mindfully address stereotypes

When I strolled out in blue Spiderman pyjamas, my young nephew was flummoxed.

That’s a boy’s pant! You can’t wear it!

But I like Spiderman.

If there was a Spidergirl, you can wear it. You’re a girl.

Hm.. is it ok if girls watch Spiderman on TV?

Yes. TV’s fine. But that’s a boy’s pant. Spiderman is a boy.

Hm. So what if I like you? Can I have a photo of you on my T shirt?

Yes.

So then, why not Spiderman on my pyjamas?

There’s girl’s clothes and boy’s clothes – Spiderman is for boys.

What about flowers? Is that a boy or a girl thing?

Girls.

Those shorts belong to your uncle. ( husband’s flowery Goa shorts)

Thoughtful.

Anyone can wear anything they like, sweetie. (Not convinced, but thinking about it)

I often wonder if I’m being radical by addressing a stereotype whenever I come across it. Thinking about it though, the societal order is so strong, it’s a given that gender-based role enforcement will happen. In this case, there’s no bias in his home, but obviously there are many possible influences in a child’s life. My conclusion is that it’s important to address a stereotype when you recognize it, because if an alternative is not presented, it can never exist. Choices are needed to make good decisions, such as buying the right phone. Choices must also be needed to decide what principles you want to buy into.  

The men who do it all

These are two of several surprising conversations that I happened to have in various situations. When I think about them, they bring me hope. So no more intro text from me – I want these to speak for themselves.

Conversation 1:

At a major power exhibition, an industry that has been a very traditional and hence male-dominated domain. I spent three days with a group of experts, diverse in their Indian cultures, passionate about their technologies. Here I connected with a first time father of an infant, a few months old. He is from Bihar, working in Chennai. His personality is very outgoing, - he finds humour in everything, and puts me instantly at ease. When we talk about kids, I’m surprised - it’s the kind of conversation I have with other moms! His wife goes to work from 7.30am and he goes to work from 3.00pm to midnight, when she gets back. He takes on complete caregiving all day, along with supervising the cook and domestic staff. I mention to him that what he’s doing is pretty admirable, and he seems confused about it. She’s my baby, he says. When we talk, he refers to ‘my baby’ all the time, like any new mom would do. When I bring up how tough it must be to balance everything, (a question that moms seem to really respond to with emotion), he says, “You know, I think women complain about things a lot. I do everything that my wife does, and I don’t stress about it. I mean, I’ve got a baby in one hand and I’m getting her food ready with another, and explaining to the cook what a Kashmiri Mirch is, and it’s all fine!”

Conversation 2:

This is a chat conversation with a group of my girlfriends, who are at various stages of life – newly married, some with small kids, some with grown up children. With chagrin, one of them vents about how she was having the ‘you don’t do enough around the house’ fight. In the course of this, she and her husband sat down and listed all the work around the house and who did it. She was most annoyed with the results. “It wasn’t a fight I expected to lose!!” she said. Another one who was recently married chimed in that she had a similar experience. “Actually it’s a perception of inequality that we have.” She summed up.

In the larger context which is overwhelming – where basic issues are so predominant, like female infanticide, menstrual taboos, continuing education of girls, encouraging young women to pursue careers as well as marriage – these pockets of change bring me hope.

I think that maybe the answer is not to talk so much about the victimization of girls, but to also make shining examples of the men who do it all, but don’t consider it anything special.

 

 

 

 

'Maternal Instinct' is a myth.

It's a daring thing to say, but as soon as we all realize that maternal instinct is a myth, it brings parenting to a place of equal opportunities. I'll explain.

Being a 'Mother', 'Ma', or 'Amma' in India has been only a woman's role, and has even been sanctified to the place where everyone now believes that only a mother can truly 'understand'. Even women of today subscribe to this belief, perhaps to protect a domain where they have complete control, or just from the fact that there has been no other point of view aired or accepted.

When a new born baby is put into your arms, despite everything we think we know and are prepared for, the one thing that most women know for sure is the niggling truth that she knows nothing about this little stranger. Then from a force of pure instinct, she knows she must care for it, and protect it. Then she sets about figuring it out. Now  I'm willing to bet that every dad who has been a primary caregiver, or who has been a single father with no family support will tell you that this is the exact same experience they have as well.

It's instinct, for sure, but not maternal. It's more about intuition, and this is a word that we understand now with every smartphone and piece of technology trying to be more and more 'intuitive'. What's intuition? It's the knowing and understanding someone so well that you can predict their behavior and needs.

In caring for a child, this intuition is only fostered by the sheer amount of time you spend with the child. This is why moms have traditionally understood their children better. I give you an example, when my son was an infant, we had sleepless nights, like any other parent. There were nights when he would simply cry. We'd check off everything - he was fed, burped, no fever, clean diapers, not cold, not warm....there was simply no rational reason. All moms get to this point, and then realize that there is nothing to be done except hold the baby, sing songs or make soothing noises and wait it out. Now this is where endurance kicks in because that baby could cry nonstop for three or more hours. Somewhere in those three hours, after getting to a place where you have resisted the strangely real urge to shake the baby, even the most rational person is 'willing' the child to be comforted, and resorting to spiritual recourse. But when the child eventually sleeps, you know. You know that you can always comfort this child, it just needs so much patience and commitment.

That was a long anecdote, but there's a point. In this experience of trying to soothe a nonstop crying colicky baby, most often a dad would give up in 30 minutes, hand over the baby to mom with the argument that maybe nursing was the answer. And so I've heard from several of my friends who are men, "No, he will only sleep when his mom puts him to sleep". or "She keeps crying with me, she wants her mom." Not true. I've seen my husband wait out those three hours, determined to comfort our son, I've seen my father sit up at 3.00am in his bed, prop his grandsons on his lap and wait it out until sunrise, I've seen some husbands pace around the hall through the night carrying the child....They get it. There's no maternal instinct, just determination and commitment. They are rewarded too - an infant builds trust in any adult who can wait them out, and as their trust grows, the all night crying reduces.

Parenthood is a learning experience, and when we women give up our proprietary rights to 'maternal instinct' and knowing it all then it becomes a shared learning experience. We share our theories, our frustrations, we both apply much thought into what is good for the child. Because we are both involved, our understanding of the child is the same. So many times I've seen occasions where the mother has one perception of the child and the father has another, and then it becomes a competition about who is right, and children are master manipulators ready to play the situation. The experience of caregiving is so powerful and rewarding, that choices are then made not based on stereotype, but on individual aspirations of members in the family. A father may want to spend more time at home, so opt for a job that is less demanding, thus also creating the need for his wife to work so that they can manage as a family. A mother may go to work with no preoccupation of who is looking after her child, and find a sense of self outside of her family.

I believe that this is a choice that women must make - in letting go, and including their partners. It's threatening, yes, and not the easiest decision to hold back and not take over complete caregiving. But it's the single most important and best parenting decision I have ever made and had to stand by many times in our son's first few years - to resist the urge to show I know more or better, and simply say when being asked how to look after our son, "I don't know. Maybe we could try this, or that, but really I have no clue."

Experiments in gender equality

My current underlying philosophy of life is around the equality of sexes. It’s opened me up to a different dimension – one where I am suddenly seeing in everyday life the subtle nuances of stereotyping. The more I see of this, the more I come back to the belief that its individualism over generalization that is the truth.

There was a moment last week where I had a person whom I held in really high esteem attribute something I did to “a pretty face and a smile”. Not only was I upset at the references that made to my competence, but also to the competence, ethics and personality of my work colleague, who had helped me on that task – whom I know without a doubt, would do the same for anyone, because he is a good person and willing to help. Not because of a pretty face and a smile.

I've decided to call references to sexism when I get them, because sometimes people just don’t realize how ingrained they are, or have not had reason to challenge their beliefs. At the end, I agreed that a smile did help, but offered a gender neutral alternate – yes, you do get further with a “pretty face and a smile” but I’d like to change that to a sincere heart and a smile, and not limit it to women – anyone gets further with a smile and an effort to connect with someone else.

Calling someone on a discriminatory remark, I've realized, should not seem like an accusation. I've found that people need reason and opportunity to question their assumptions. A non threatening “Why do you think that?”, is more effective in leading to a conversation around the roots of assumption, than a strong, passionate, “What exactly do you mean by that?”. A conversation with a single person who has an influence on you is all that is needed to start the train of thought and give it a different track from its usual route.

I had a similar experience at an interview for a gender diversity role in a large IT company. I knew nothing about the job, but was keen to explore the potential that it offered. The company was not known for its flexible policies, so we got around to talking about this, as one of the key criterion to retaining women later in their careers. He remarked that it was something that was necessary for women. My own son was not past a year then, and my husband plays a very active role in care-giving. I replied that it was necessary for any primary caregiver to have flexibility in order to do justice to being a parent and performing well at a job. To encourage more women to stay at work, it was equally important for working dads to have flexibility. It’s ironic that I turned down the job with some regret because my kid was too young and the travel time was too much.

But hey, I’m no saint. I’m a perpetrator too. My husband called me on a stereotype recently. We were buying a gift for my nephew, and he suggested a car. Without thinking, I said “No, he’s not really a ‘boy’ boy”. Being called on my statement, I realized that all I actually meant that he just wasn't very interested in cars. That’s what I should have said; and I then decided then to make a more conscious effort to focus on the person and who they are as an individual over their gender.  

The neutralization of popular gender stereotype references helps. Choose ‘parent’ over ‘mother’ or ‘father’. A pretty face and a smile to a pleasant personality and a smile. Working parent over working mom. Partner over husband or wife.

My two year old son has very few girls his age in his life. One day at a friend’s house, he referred to her daughter’s toy as ‘his toy’. And when he’s angry with me, he sometimes calls me “you bad boy”. So I began the first step in teaching a child that there are two sexes – girls and boys. I wonder - how far can we take neutralization? As far as not needing a separate pronoun? How do I balance the need to acknowledge the differences with the need to stress that they’re not important? I've got no solution here. Thoughts, anyone?