Keeping up with UP: Men and women can be both breadwinners and cooks at home

To change mindsets, make textbooks gender neutral, demand academicians. Calling her Durga is not enough

Latest statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) showed that the total reported cases of crime against women stood at 445,256 in 2022. Disturbingly, if not surprisingly, it included cases of cruelty by husbands or relatives at 140,019, assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty at 83,344 and kidnapping and abduction at 85,310. Given India’s social mores, stigma and lack of awareness, thousands of cases would be unreported. The states topping the list were Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The challenge is to change feudal or entitled mindsets from the nascent stage. (Representational image)

The challenge is to change feudal or entitled mindsets from the nascent stage. Children, even now, read textbooks, which show women cooking at home and men, the sole breadwinner of the family, going to work. Or for that matter, girls participating in dance functions and boys in sport; or when girls form the reception committee in schools and colleges while boys display their prowess in science projects.

Governments have failed to change the general belief that men are superior even though the woman is worshipped as Durga and Lakshmi and is glorified by the use of terms like “Nari-Shakti.” As a woman activist says, “Call her (women) Durga but give her dignity too. Her public thrashing by even cops is no more a rare sight.”

Rakesh Chandra from Lucknow University (LU) recently shared the news about Kerala with high literacy rates introducing gender neutral representation in schools, showing both men and women involved in cooking and kitchen chores, which, he said, would help in sensitising young minds about gender equality.

Roop Rekkha Verma, a gender equality activist who headed the philosophy department in Lucknow University, carried out research on school textbooks for about 15 years. Verma says that she achieved some success when officers, during the Akhilesh Yadav regime took note of the changes she was suggesting in the textbooks until Class 5. The suggested changes were in the context of gender neutrality and a scientific and secular approach in life. However, by the time the changes could be introduced in the textbooks, the government changed. “’All my hard work has been wasted as the suggestions have been in cold storage since the 2017 change of power,” Verma said.

Today, when the BJP-led government at the Centre as well as the states are revising textbooks, they could perhaps also review the portrayal of women in school textbooks.

Piush Antony, Lucknow-based social policy specialist at Unicef, said they had submitted to the state government a text-by-text analysis along with alternate content including a chapter on how women also contributed to the making of the Indian Constitution in the book Khushi and Aman. Unicef is planning to submit it again to the government. She gave an example of a chapter Lost Spring in which boys were shown as active learners and future breadwinners while girls were absent or confined to domestic spaces. Similarly, a chapter in a Hindi text book for class 11 highlighted the disappointment with daughters compared to sons, reinforcing preference for sons.

Lucknow university has also conducted several studies on textbooks, curriculum and pedagogical practices in government primary schools.

“We looked at the appropriateness of language representation and mention of boys and girls in textbooks from Class 1 to 5 besides images, pictures and stereotyping of boys and girls,” said Rakesh Chandra former director, Women Studies, LU. Few of the studies were done in collaboration with Unicef. The team covered the classroom practices of teachers including on the widely observed practice of separate seating boys and girls.

“The books mentioned kings and male scientists, politicians and other greats but rarely did they mention the achievements of women in these. Traits of aggression were also shown in men and of nurturing in women . After our studies were shared with DPEP director Vrinda Swaroop, several workshops were held and some changes were made where women helped children with school assignments, men helping bathe babies. The accounts of Serena Williams and others were also included,” Chandra said.

Urvashi Sawhney, director of Study Hall Foundation, a Lucknow-based NGO, been a part of teams, which scanned textbooks to make them gender equal by changing discriminatory language and gender stereotypical examples and pictures. “While school authorities and teachers do not have the authority to change textbooks, we, as private schools, have the freedom to interpret them as we wish and to add and subtract the content as we wish and we do it liberally,” Sawhney said.

Sonia Teotia, feminist and mental health advocate says, “Careful scrutiny of school text books reveal internalised misogyny, orthodox and patriarchal mindsets. It is a crucial need of the hour that the school text books assert and advocate for the right to education and equal respect of all genders, their need to learn basic life skills and household chores, equal access to work opportunities to start with.”