A volunteer's experience
On a particular Sunday that I had decided to attend, I sat through a gender session, which was facilitated by a team member. The team had mentioned before that the method of conducting these sessions veer away from any top-down approach of dictating what patriarchy, sexuality and gender are. I felt like that particular session deconstructed any hierarchical notion of ‘educators’ and ‘receptors’. There was much to learn from the girls. Their questions and comments were nuanced, and even snazzy. During the discussion on gender, we had addressed the discrimination faced by transgender people like Hijras. One of the girls mentioned that she had heard somewhere that Hijras are married to Gods. We discussed how this was a problematic statement as many of the prejudices that society has against them (ostracizing them from the family unit, discrimination faced in school and workplace, etc) are masked by this seemingly consoling statement that pretends to glorify them. But before we discussed all of that systematically, a question was posed by another girl as an immediate response. “How do you know God exists anyway?” We were all amused, but I was impressed that analyses did not only take the feminist perspective, but theological and existential as well!
During this session, girls got into teams and enacted a drama about any forms of gender discrimination that they face. 2 of the groups highlighted the difference in importance that parents place on the education of boys and girls. For example, when a boy and girl fail in their exams, the parents spend more money on the boy and send him to a better school, while the girl is made to drop out and gets married off. They demonstrated how this un-meritocratic parenting boils down to gender expectations on boys (having to secure a job) and girls (having to get married off).
The facilitator started the ball rolling on analyzing the differences between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. She mentioned that sex is purely biological (determining whether the baby has a vagina or penis) and that ‘gender’ constitutes social constructs. One of the girls then gave an example of how “Pedas” are distributed when a boy is born, while “Jalebis” are distributed when a girl is born. Due to my lack of awareness of North Indian customs, I googled this and found out that “Pedas” are milk-rich compared to “Jalebis”, as the birth of a boy-child meant more pompous celebration. Then the topics of marriage and sex were raised. I observed that not everyone was on the same page, as some of the younger girls did not understand what sex meant. A short discussion of the process of sex started. The facilitator explained that while the sexual intercourse itself was biological, the institution of marriage (which is a social validation on a man and woman having intercourse) isn’t. The expectation that a society places on a woman that she has to marry and produce kids isn’t biological. This led to another discussion on how sex is seen as an element that remained exclusively within the marital sphere and for the sole purpose of procreation. We discussed that sex can be for pleasure too. Another interesting point made was that even the idea of pleasurable sex isn’t bereft of its gender roles. Women are often understood as answering a question or giving their consent, instead of initiating their desire.
Speaking of consent led to another discussion on whether sex work is considered work. One of the girls said that it should be considered work because she puts in effort and earns for her livelihood. Another girl opined that it couldn’t be work because the girl often gets kidnapped and is forced into prostitution. I noticed that in many discussions (outside FAT) revolving the topic of prostitution, someone always brought up the moralistic stance of how it tarnished the purity of womanhood. It was interesting to note how the discussion here was more about the agency of the woman, rather than about the need to ‘safeguard’ her ‘virtue’.
Each day I spend at FAT reminds me that this collective fight is not just against patriarchy, it's against all systems of oppression, including the complicity in my own privilege. A few Sundays ago, two Level 2 girls invited me to their houses. I was touched by their hospitality of course, but what really struck me was how conscious they were of class differences. They asked me whom I lived with, how much I paid for my rent, etc. When I asked one of them what she aspired to become, she said she wanted to become like one of the team members and me. I did not understand what she meant by that initially, and even told her that there is no point in aspiring to be like me as I was only studying in college now and haven’t done anything remarkable. She replied that she wanted to be like us, wear the kind of clothes we do and speak English like us. Do I tell her to have other role models who have actually diligently worked hard and achieved something, or do I keep quiet, listen and just become more aware of the different forces (gender, class, caste) that inform the aspirations of the girls? Do I just acknowledge this intersectionality—the fact that along different axes, we're all both oppressed and oppressors, privileged and disadvantaged, or do I say something that would make her critique her own dreams? During my chats with team members, I realized that the battle was both internal and external: questioning and acknowledging our privileges and disadvantages and also collectively fighting against the forces that would impede the pursuit of equality.
- Maanasa Visweswaran volunteered at our Pune Tech Center for last 3 months in 2017. She has penned down some of her experiences and observations.
