The Last Cookie

Are girls less equal than boys, asks this article which casually raises this disturbing and fully consequential question in the context of number parity between the genders in well, the IITs. While the speculations do arrive at accurate insights presented eloquently at the least (and the comments are thoroughly enjoyable too), the article does not even attempt to describe the reality outside of academic and intellectual reasoning which makes it that much more cryptic a message for people who really need to read it - those who are aspiring for this kind of education - for themselves, or for their children. First of all, that only IIT’s are considered premier institutes is a problem. There is no representation of diversity in education in our minds let alone students. Why aren’t there articles wondering what’s up with guys not making it to certain DU/JNU places in more numbers? Not-technical equaling to stupid and second-rate is so passe. Are you really going to pit one thing as easy/difficult against another in times when the ground reality is too few admirable opportunities for too many seekers?  In fact, why aren’t their articles wondering how many men and women areappearingfor diverse exams and the lopsided hegemony thriving in these myopic, jingoism-fueled ambitions? Or if it’s to be about IITs, how many women appear or from those that appear, the % that feels confident of not just the exam but of the career that lies beyond it compared to the same with young boys? Oh well. To go back to the point at hand, the age at which we make our first significant education choices, pressure from family and convention makes all the difference because our system really does not empower us to figure out much for ourselves. It’s amazing that it still sees sense in making kids choose between science and humanities instead of allowing them to study a gamut of subjects. Now limiting the scope of this argument to fit the original premise and taking our role-model-y “science” students, a lot of guys are unnecessarily pressured to crack IIT (even if they don’t wanna do engineering in the first place) and a lot of girls are pressured to get into medicine ( a field for girls they say cuz they’re ‘natural’ caregivers, zzzzz). I’ve studied in a modern, ambitious school in a metro that had compulsory technical skills classes for guys and compulsory cooking and home classes for girls in 12th grade (which included critical training on raising babies during the first 3 years AND we had different exams to be graded on these)- in this day and age, and the parents (mine and some of yours) saw nothing wrong with it. Now, taking IIT in particular, the average Indian parent is going to get an anxiety attack at a girl that age wanting to go to say, Kota for a year or two (at the idea of doing that if not so much the purpose behind the idea and some themselves relocate to Kota if girls really insist and refuse to consider alternatives). The average parent of a girl would also not care to listen to her if she ignores her boards for iit-prep no matter how focused she is. the same thing from a boy is often given in as “his own decision” and from a girl is “misplaced ambition that will result in neither” because if you ever wanna see parents being apprehensive of their children’s ambitions - must meet parents of Indian girls. Of course they’d like it if she cracks the exam, but these day-to-day negotiations are taxing and stressful for everyone that age regardless of gender and the average girl is not freed from them even at the post-grad stage which is wayyy into the future. Also, while taking a drop to prepare is not an option for a *lot* of kids across the country, for girls it’s an even bigger problem. Even supposedly “modern” parents can’t handle girls taking sabbaticals because in their heads she’s getting wrinkles and screwing her wedding prospects with a kota-trained, 3rd attempt IIT cracking, IIMA tshirt sporting ibanker. And this is the ugliest threat that girls deal with. So many of them are consumed in strategizing their plans around the looming possibility that they’ll be married off before they even get to work for themselves (or get pressured during the sabbatical cuz for many folks a woman sitting at home is a shipment waiting to be dispatched and are often married in the interim period with the promise that post-marriage it’ll all happen) that they never consider anything a second attempt and run with whatever comes there way ‘cuz that ‘shortage of time’ is hammered in their heads. If the reader (if any) is imagining “small town girls” as I say this, think again. This could be your own house or neighbourhood in whatever upscale town you belong to. In fact I wish entrance exams and the likes really did have something to do with inherent gender strengths and genetic make-up so that at least “scientifically” speaking, we could justify our stupidities and pin the hopes for parity on mutant genes and sit back and nurture the status quo. But sadly it’s neither’s capabilities and just a load of  lame cultural conditioning that does not empower the imagination with too much to be independent and aggressive in many regards more critical to living a fruitful life than just a handful of undergrad colleges. If anyone’s stayed this far, thank you for reading. I personally hid my JEE form under a flower pot. I wanted to study Genetics at the time… I was like, totally air-headed like that.

aminatou:

“Because many women, once released from marriage, seem to feel that it would take an act of madness to move back into a setup that involves not only housekeeping in all its manifold time-sucking beauty but also husband-keeping.”

ann, you are so right about this. we know this. DUH AFICIONADO MAGAZINE

“The world of a town in the 1970’s is split along sexual lines. Suburbs are for women, workplaces are for men; kindergartens are for women, professional schools for men; supermarkets are for women, hardware stores for men.”

Since no aspect of life is purely masculine or purely feminine, a world in which the separation of the sexes is extreme, distorts reality, and perpetuates and solidifies the distortions. Science is dominated by a masculine, and often mechanical mentality; foreign diplomacy is governed by war, again the product of the masculine ego. Schools for young children are swayed by the world of women, as are homes. The house has become the domain of woman to such a ridiculous extreme that home builders and developers portray an image of homes which are delicate and perfectly “nice”, like powder rooms. The idea that such a home could be a place where things are made or vegetables grown, with sawdust around the front door, is almost inconceivable.

The pattern or patterns which could resolve these problems are, for the moment, unknown. We can hint at the kinds of buildings and land use and institutions which would bring the problem into balance. But the geometry cannot be understood until certain social facts are realized, and given their full power to influence the environment.

In short, until both men and women are able to mutually influence each part of a town’s life, we shall not know what kinds of physical patterns will best co-exist with this social order.

Therefore:

Make certain that each piece of the environment - each building, open space, neighbourhood, and work community - is made with a blend of both men’s and women’s instincts. Keep this balance of masculine and feminine in mind for every project at every scale, from the kitchen to the steel mill.”

- Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language