Friendly reminder: sexual harassment is non-consensual interaction, flirtation or friendship (The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, 2019).

You know why #metoo came as a surprise to everyone? Because people learned that all women, yes 50% of the world’s population has been sexual harassed. But what is scarier is that, our stories of sexual harassment are not of episodes that happened 5 or 10 years ago, but from last week, yesterday or the other day.

So the ‘other day’:

An 18-year-old outstation student confides while almost tearing up, “I don’t feel safe in Delhi. You know, the other day, a close friend of almost 7 years tried to kiss me. He apologized and said he was drunk, but…..”. But, because, he was drunk so his behavior is excusable and I if was drunk, I should have known better.

A friend broke up with her boyfriend, but he continued to bombard her with messages and then settles with, “you must have found someone else, I will not bother you anymore” Because men respect the wishes of other men they don’t know (bro code), than the wishes of women they profess to love.

I opened my ‘other’ folder on Facebook, amongst deplorable messages of ‘frandsheep, bobs and vagene’ lay, “you should politely or even rudely just ask me to stop or maybe write a not interested kinda message”. Because ignoring the messages of a stranger for 2 months isn’t clear enough.

A student shared an example of kindness, “I said no to a man and he didn’t pursue me any further”.

A friend shared about problematic behavior of a person who habitually makes many women in un-equal power relationships at work feel uncomfortable with his comments about: ‘clothes, body-type, and personal relationships’ you name it. “Why aren’t you married? This saree doesn’t look that great on you. Have you deleted your Watsapp? I can’t seem to send you any messages (at inappropriate hours).” Everybody is aware of the problem, but nobody wants to call him out on it. Because, ‘he means no harm’, ‘why are you over-reacting’, ‘you don’t want to be called the troublemaker’, ‘ooh ho, itni serious kyu ho jaati ho tum?”

Oh yes, women were sexually harassed the other day. On streets, schools, colleges, homes, and workplaces. Just another day. Have a good one!

I often wonder… if families came to learn of how common child sexual abuse is, would they stop moral shaming women, “for their own good”? A student shared that she was sexually abused while growing up, when she shared this with her parents as an adult she realised that her parents found it more comfortable to rationalize the abuse by shaming her adult being, her clothes, her friends, her late night parties.

As adults we can’t protect a child from predators and yet we have the audacity to suggest that women can save themselves from getting raped or assaulted by: “not going out after dark, by not dressing as a slut, by not behaving as a slut, by not smoking or drinking or abusing, by not been seen or heard. Or simply by not existing”

Talk to your children today. You’d be surprised with the stories children-turned-adults have to share. And just maybe you’d understand #metoo is not made up fad, it’s real. Always has been.

#breakthesilence

Study has found that 1/5th of millennials aren’t sure if they’ve ever heard of the Holocaust. This makes me wonder, how do millennials perceive war since most of us have only seen wars in movies, video games and history text books?

The average age of Indian population is 29 years, the same as me today. I was 10 years old when Kargil war took place between India and Pakistan. There were no smart phones, mobile phones were owned by very few people, connecting to the internet took forever on a dial up format, TV had limited number of channels, and fewer news channels. I cannot remember much, but this one memory stands out: Captain Vikram Batra, Barkha Dutt, and yeh dil maange more. Barkha Dutta interviewed Captain Batra and on being asked about the heroic recapture of peak 5140 from Pakistani invaders his reply was, “yeh dil maange more”. It became a popular battle slogan and war cry. However, only a few days later, news came that Captain Vikram Batra was martyred trying to recapture another peak but not before saving the life of another soldier. He did not allow other soldiers to go, and told them ‘tumhare biwi bachche hain’.

It was quite a surreal experience for me as a child I remember. Bollywood movies showed that the villain is defeated and dies in the end. Then how did this happen? How is it that a young man, a hero to the nation who was on our TV screens just a few days back was no more?

I don’t think I understand wars any better today. Is war the ultimate price we pay for peace? Or is peace the ultimate price we pay for wars?

Engineering is considered to be a male dominated field. More so, mechanical engineering. What is this love-hate relationship that women have with machines?

I’ll speak for me. I for one most annoyed by machines. Always have been. They make me jittery. Goes well with the stereotypes we have of women, you know how “we suck at Maths and Machines”. Is it a woman thing or a human thing? Maybe it’s a woman thing because we’re told it’s a woman thing.
So (on Women’s Day) mom brings me the washing machine manual and tells me that washing machine isn’t working I go like, uhh urban-clap? She stares me down and next thing we know it’s woman vs. machine. 
We referred to manual, we opened up pipes and switched off buttons and 15 minutes later, voila the machines works!!! Does that make me more comfortable with machines? Not sure. But yeah feels like an achievement, because gender prescribes that women should wash clothes, but always count on men when the machines fail.

Happy women’s day ladies. Wear them machines down 😃

My beauty parlour lady is a badass. 
Lady: “Madam I’m from Andhra hamaare yaha dowry ka bahut hota hai.”
Me: “so find a guy who won’t ask for dowry.”
Lady: “madam dhooda but sab ladke ek jaise hote hai. Jab pataana hota hai toh kutte ki tarah aage peeche bhaagte hai. Ek baar pat jaayo toh bhaagte hai.”
Me: “what happened?”
Lady: “6 saal hogaye hai, kehta hai shaadi nahi karega. Ma-baap se darta hai. He would marry where his parents get dowry. Army main hai mujhe laga accha ladka army waala hai. Isko pehle nahi pata that apne maa-baap ke baare main. Ab naatak karta hai. I told him ki ek ladki ke liye ma-baap se baat nahi karega, desh ke liye kya ladega darrpok saala.”

Classrooms have the power of healing. I’ve always known this. It’s not only cathartic for students but also instructors.

In class, in context of discussing ageing and womanhood I mentioned an anecdote of my life. The gist of which was, as a young kid upon realizing my grandmother couldn’t read and write, I was extremely keen on teaching her the “wonders of reading”. But she would always maintain, “ab main agle janam jaake hi sikhungi” ( I will learn to read and write in next birth now) and this was a full 15 years before she actually passed away. An amusing memory that made the concept of ageing in women as a social role quite clear to many students.

When I mentioned her at first, it was simply because this was the most easily available example in my mind for the concept at hand, but when I finished, I realised I’m an adult standing in a classroom reliving the memory of my grandmother.

If she was here today, I know she would have been happy to hear that she was remembered in my classes. For a woman who couldn’t read and write, her granddaughter educating a bunch of women by narrating her example would have been a proud moment, or so me thinks.

Classroom experiences matter, for everyone. We need to give education more credit than we do.

A student shared on Farewell day (Graduation day), “aapki classes ke baad maine mummy-papa se ladaai kar li. Har jagah mujhe Feminism dikhta hai”. (I’ve fought with mom and dad after attending your classes. I see feminism everywhere).

I get why people may feel feminism “breaks” families but truth be said, families that rest on male privilege and female oppression are broken already.

It’s never going to get easy to be a feminist, but it’s a journey worth pursuing. My education has never been more meaningful. Reminds me of a quote I read somewhere, “breakdowns often precede breakthroughs.”

PS. Also, I wish I could say I was prepared for that, I wasn’t.

#Femnismcozwhynot

I did an interesting psychological experiment couple of years back. Me and some of my students created a bogus task in which there were about 20 photographs of individuals randomly selected from Google Images. Underneath each photograph were two fictional statements, the participants of the experiment were (falsely) told that one of the statements was true for the person in the picture and that the experiment was going to assess their ‘people-reading skills’ (a bogus term created by us). We divided people in two groups, one group received 19/20 correct responses, i.e. irrespective of the statement chosen people in this group were told 19 out of 20 times that they had chosen the ‘correct’ statement implying excellent ‘people-reading skills’. Conversely, people in the second group were told 19/20 times that they had chosen ‘wrong’ statement implying very poor ‘people-reading skills’. In the end both groups were asked to rate the validity of the test. Expectantly people who were given very high scores rated the test to be an ‘excellent’ tool for checking ‘people-reading skills’, whereas people in the second group rated the test to be ‘poor’ measure. What we learnt is, any system can appear to be successful if the system makes you feel good about yourself, irrespective of reality. We are self-serving reality distorting creatures.

Let’s take the example of education system, this year over 18000 students scored above 95% in class 12th CBSE Boards examination, this year also saw highest rate for unemployment in the last 45 years (6.5%) in India. There is no denying that there is no one simple explanation for this conundrum, but do try this one. How do we keep an individual from knowing education system is broken? Tell them their child scored 19/20= 95% in an exam that is more coveted for middle class Indians than is fair-skin and opulent marriages. Reminds me of a crude joke a friend shared: IQ of the teacher is inversely proportional to the marks s/he gives. Take a moment to think. Will these 18000 people get them into a college, course, job of their choice and aptitude? Will these high scorers be able to solve the crises gripping our country: pollution, overpopulation, gender injustice, restraint of free speech? Maybe. Maybe not.

As an educationist, I can say this with some confidence, there is no space in higher education to accommodate all people above 95%, in most universities in India. Not to mention, we’re creating a generation of people with delusional ideas about their competencies and knowledge. But that’s absolutely fine for people in power, ignorance of masses is bliss.

PS. A psychologist has found that if you’re reading this blog then you’re likely to be smarter that 95% of the population. #worthashot