Living in a society where we are tagged along with gender as soon as we are pushed out of our mother's sack, makes it impossible for us to think apart from it. We have been conditioned to streamline almost every attribute that belongs to us, under certain criteria. This results in a millennial disease of "Gender-Bias", whose antidote, "Gender-Neutralism" fails to save us from diving into this deep-rooted issue. However, there are minuscule efforts from our end that can assure us of doing our bit to uproot this issue. As this article progresses, I'm sure we all will be aware of our choices and could answer whether they support/promote the bias, in any way.
First of all, we need to stop urging our minds to wander places when we see someone who we feel does not fit under our "gender criteria". We should plea for courtesy and seal our lips when prompted to ask someone of their gender as we do when the topic shifts to body weight. Also, we should try and skip any form of literature and media that focuses on representing gender in stereotypical ways (Eg. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus). What we can practice is the usage of gender-neutral words like Humankind for Mankind, Postal Worker for the Postman, Actor for the actress, etc. This would help us support the fact that anyone can perform a task/job irrespective of their gender identity.
Secondly, we must introspect how we are clenched into this bias through basic choices (eg. what to eat, to wear, etc). We are surrounded by so many irrational and nonsensical theories with respect to gender that we can't help but end up being a victim of it. In the clothing industry, for example, we see a comparatively tighter fit for women with compromised comfort and fewer colors with less fluctuation in trends for men, pointing to bias that manufacturers have been long supporting. Sadly, portions of our food have also been dictated by this bias leaving us in the qualm of over/under-eating. A place where we can achieve the freedom of wearing whatever we want or eating whatsoever quantity of food is distant from reality.
We can round off the number of ways in which we are hostage to these stereotypes that serve us no good purpose. We should try and be more inclusive of choices that people make, without hanging them on the radar of being off-gender choices. Each one of us is worthy of equality par our gender and we should therefore be careful of not letting our choices make a strong case for this vicious bias.
Good topic. Nice presentation👍
ReplyDeleteThank you <3
DeleteReal thought process to act on!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much <3
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