10 Things to Tell Kids Under 10 About Gender Equality

When is the right time to talk about gender equality? Right now. And every single day until it becomes not worth talking about anymore because it has turned into a redundant idea and only perhaps as a historical study about the days when it was not a reality.

Who should talk about it? Everyone who feels it is inherently wrong that half the human population on Earth has, since the beginning of human history, been subjected to second-class citizenship and that we continue to exist in a world where this is taken as the natural order of things.

Who should we talk to about this? Therein lies the rub. Of course we cannot give up on talking to everyone who still remains unaware of and unmoved by the patent injustice that surrounds them but perhaps it is time to focus our energies on younger minds - those who are yet to be conditioned into believing that things are right the way they are and who may yet have hope for growing up to be adults who are treated fairly and know how to treat others fairly.

From personal experience of being someone who feels strongly about issues of gender justice and a mother of two young girls, it is sort of a life mission for me to make sure my children grow up knowing they can be whatever and whoever they choose to be without anyone or anything - and especially not their sex - standing in the way. Here is a set of lessons I have imparted to my kids, for like-minded parents, if you have ever thought about how to talk to your children about gender equality.


- The chocolate wrapper colored pink for girls and blue for boys has exactly the same chocolate inside but with different toys that someone decided is only fit for one or the other. Buy both if you need to - you will enjoy both chocolate and toy just the same but better still DON'T buy something that so blatantly differentiates between boys and girls in such a completely nonsensical manner.

- Boys can like Princess dolls just as much as girls do and girls may prefer the toolset to the baking set and both are just fine. There is no right and wrong about what you choose to play with.

- Superheroes are not always men and Heroines/Princesses are not always helpless. They are certainly not doing the right thing if they just wait around for someone to rescue them from their troubles.  Nothing wrong with asking for help when you can't handle something on your own but that works just as much for boys as girls.

- The Princess and the Pea story? It is a bullshit story that means nothing and shows nothing. Why should a girl be lauded for simply being unable to adjust to circumstances and behaving in the most spoilt way possible? The Frog Prince story? A snobbish girl who goes back on her word and then changes her tune when she realizes the Frog is, in fact, a Prince. Just because a story (or an idea or a custom or cultural practice) is handed down through generations does not make it right.

- It is not okay to make fun of a friend or classmate because their underwear showed or because they forgot to close the bathroom door when they went in to pee, in a hurry (this especially applies to preschoolers). Do ask them WHY they think it is funny when someone has an emergency (which can happen to anyone) and especially if they think it is MORE funny when this happens to a female classmate.

- Haircuts (at that age) are about comfort first, style a far second and being boy or girl not at all. Having short hair does not make a girl a boy and vice versa.

- When grown-ups get married, it is because they want to be together not because it is natural or mandatory for a girl to get married when she reaches a certain age. Also, for a girl to get married DOES not mean she is going out of her own family or suddenly becomes a 'guest' in her own home.

- Cooking. laundry and changing light bulbs are life skills that EVERYONE needs to learn to do on their own. You don't HAVE to learn to cook because you are a girl - you need to because it will help you survive and stay healthy when you start living on your own.  It is about self-reliance, first and foremost.

- Everyone cries when they are hurting. Girls and Boys. Men and Women. There is nothing wrong with saying and expressing how you feel.

-  Nothing - absolutely nothing - can be explained or justified with the words 'because you are a girl' or 'because you are a boy.' (Unless you are discussing bodily changes during puberty.)

It is never too early to start talking to kids - boys as well as girls - about fairness and equality. It is the only way to empower them to speak up when they need to. Whether for themselves or others. 

Some thoughts on the #Keralafloods and #Onam

She cannot take the pressure, they said. Overwhelmed, she is going to destroy everyone and everything around her, they prophesied. The sheer pressure of it all was supposed to rip her apart. And yet, when the inevitable happened, she took it all in, flowing complacently along - not even rising to anticipated levels, slightly more swollen than normal, yes, but not spreading any reign of terror as it was imagined she would. My hero for the moment is the quintessential 'Malayali girl' of the poet's imagination; the 'floral essence of the mountains' - the mighty Periyar!  What an ode to grace under pressure! What a revelation of unknown depths! 

Swollen, muddy and yet calm: The Periyar in Aluva after the opening of shutters of Cheruthoni dam

What a week it has been! Like the rest of the Malayali universe, I too was glued to the news, watching in horrified fascination as mighty swirls of water enveloped a tiny, tiny bridge in a little-heard-of town called Cheruthoni that was suddenly the focus of our existence. We watched six palm trees standing near the bridge topple one by one and the water completely submerge the bridge itself, all the while wondering what would happen when those ferocious waters reached farther down to Ernakulam, the bustling financial capital of the state. And it wasn't just Ernakulam or Idukki. From Kasargode to Thiruvananthapuram, there was untold misery spreading with muddy waters. And as the sun still plays hooky from behind giant walls of clouds, there is a collective sense of relief in the air as everywhere, the water is receding, leaving behind thousands of weary people waiting to pick up the pieces of their lives again. One image that stuck to my mind was of a cooking gas cylinder floating in the rapids before disappearing into a swirl of water. I wondered about the family it belonged to - about the home that fell apart losing bit by bit of its existence to the rising waters...the agony they would have to go through before everything falls in place again. That lone red cylinder represented so much heartbreaking loss! 

Picking up the pieces: Sulekha of Wayanad salvages what she can from the ruins of her home.

Picture Courtesy: https://localnews.manoramaonline.com/wayanad/local-news/2018/08/12/w-special-page-stories-12.html

In the history of the state of Kerala, we have not heard of 24 dams raising their shutters all at the same time. Landslips, mudslides, rivers running amok...every possible disaster that could have happened, happened, spanning the entire length of the state. No district emerged unhurt. Entire homes have disappeared, along with valuable documents and fond memories. Precious lives have been swept away. Roads, bridges in disarray. Entire villages inundated and crops decimated. Pets that will perhaps never be seen again. We have not encountered anything like this in recent memory. There was a time during the last couple of scanty monsoons when I longed for the torrential downpours of our childhood - sighed that our children would never see the beauty of the monsoon as we had. Now I realise one should be careful what one wishes for - what is an idle nostalgic rumination to some of us is a disastrous loss of lives and livelihoods of others! 

One heartening outcome of this entire scenario is a certain pride about the way our Government handled this situation. For once, we felt safe in our leadership; we felt we were in good hands. Information was timely and frequent. Words were matched with actions. As a person whose affiliation to political parties is neutral, I say this with surprised admiration - Pinarayi Vijayan showed himself to be a dependable leader. He showed a kind of leadership that we in India are not only not used to, but don't even think to expect! This Government has set the bar high for the future when it comes to crisis management. Every arm of the administration working in tandem, taking even the Opposition into confidence so that there was less mudslinging and more focus on what was needed to be done. Proud to be a Malayali in present-day Kerala. 

While an entire state was immersed in preparations for impending doom, it was a shameful waste of time and resources when the Police were forced to curtain off views of the rising waters from bridges to prevent self-absorbed maniacs from stalling traffic or worse, getting swept away by the flood waters while they posed for selfies from the railings! That so much effort had to go into saving fools from themselves. both near the dams and the riverbanks is something we really need to introspect about! The simplest thing we can do as individuals is to deprive the depraved of that lusted-after 'like' and perhaps add a comment - #shameonyou! Then there were the alarm mongers and the manufacturers of fake videos and pictures - wasn't the human tragedy playing out all around entertaining enough for you that you had to make it more so with videos of floods in other places from other periods in time, designed to spread ever more panic and pain? Not to mention those who sought to bring in religious bigotry and political one-upmanship into the bargain. Seriously, #shameonyou!

I just read about Hibi Eden MLA canceling the Onam celebrations in his constituency in solidarity with the flood victims. I sincerely hope the State Government will follow suit. And what about us, ordinary folk? Surely we too have an obligation to be part of the process of relief and recovery! 

Every year, for school Onam celebrations, I buy a pair of pattu-pavadas for my daughters - an attire they will wear once to school, a second time on actual Onam day and then never again. This year, why not let them wear the same ones they had last year? So they might have grown a few inches but surely not so dramatically that they can't fit into those pattu-pavadas for one more time (it is only for a few hours in any case). This is the time of year when we all buy those Kasavu Onappudavas that will remain untouched in our cupboards for several years until they are old enough for us to 'give to charity' without any reservations. How about this year we take out last year's finery, give them a good airing and wear them again with pride? How about we get our entire extended families to forgo the tradition of Onam gifting to those among us who really don't need it and channel those resources into the Chief Minister's Relief Fund? So too the funds that go towards Onam feasts and celebrations typically organised by offices, clubs and residents associations and the non-essential shopping we do this season to take advantage of the festive discounts on offer. How about we keep it simple this year, in solidarity with those of our brethren for whom Onam is the farthest thing on their minds right now? Every extra penny will help in putting a smile back on faces left bereft of joy by Nature's fury. 

Dedicated groups of people have done a splendid task of putting together relief material for those still in camps and those who are slowly making their way back home to their shattered homes and broken lives. But as each day passes, the requirement changes. According to Muralee Thummarukudy, Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction in the UN Environment Program, whose posts I keenly follow, money is what is really needed now - to kickstart local economies; to rebuild homes and lives; to return some level of autonomy to those unused to charity. Money is also what the Government needs, to rebuild infrastructure and compensate individuals for the losses suffered. Let us strengthen the hands of our Government so we can all have Onam on our minds once again...perhaps not today, perhaps not this year but sometime in the future when we all have reason to smile again. 

In this eventful year when the Periyar truly revealed the depths of her being to us, can we not open our hearts and minds and celebrate Onam in the true spirit of community and fraternity that it originally stood for? 

Eyes up here, please

I used to be an avid watcher of that old-time (wow! Doesn't it seem truly old-time now?!) sitcom - F.R.I.E.N.D.S. In one episode, Joey asks the girls - 'how do women manage to get anything done? I mean, they are right there!' He was referring of course, to breasts.

This morning, I happened to see the cover of a women's magazine that my mother subscribes to (yes, I am specifying that it is my mother's magazine, not mine) and was quite taken aback. It showed an elegant woman, beautifully attired in a saree, hair cascading carelessly down her shoulders as a baby blissfully lay in her arm, suckling at her bare breast. It is a revolutionary image for Malayalam media - bold, beautiful and arresting. The headline in bold exhorted men to look away and leave women to breastfeed their babies in peace. It was all quite riveting. Until I glanced into the magazine and saw an interview with the cover model. The only words I read were the highlights given in bold: I am not a mother. I am not even married. I felt sick to the core of my stomach. So a magazine that is encouraging women to forget about being stared at as they feed their babies the nutrition that Nature has provided for them could not find a single mother who could model for their cover? If there is no young mother in Kerala who wants to make a point by openly breastfeeding her baby - as legislators have been seen doing in Parliaments in Australia, Brazil and Iceland while simultaneously going about the business of running their countries - what was the point of this feature? Who exactly was the magazine fighting for? 

Brazilian Parliamentarian Manuela D'Avila breastfeeds her child as she raises a point in the National Assembly

Curiously enough, the starting point of their discussion - a mother whose picture of her feeding her baby without covering up was posted on Facebook by her husband - was right there in the inner pages. A genuine mother who genuinely believed in the cause. Stood for it. Campaigned for it. She was not enough to grace the cover? So what really was the genuineness of this cover picture and the loud message below it? Excuse me, Grihalakshmi, but in my mind, you have just lost all credibility and all good intention with this. You grabbed eyeballs. You almost made a point. And then you screwed it up. Because that point at which you decided to push a real mother actually breastfeeding her child into the inner pages and portray a model holding a baby to her bare breast on your cover is where you delved into cheap sensationalism and exploitation. It was doing what advertisers have been doing for decades - grabbing attention by displaying a woman's breast. In a society that does not consider even a breastfeeding mother exempt from unwelcome glances, you blatantly sexualised a mother's breast for publicity.

If I had to answer that question that Joey asked his friends, this is what I would have to say: women are not as concerned about their breasts as men are. We do not carry the burden of life and death in our bras. We do not bear upon our chests any answers to the questions that plague the Universe. We do not think about our breasts as often you do; our fascination with them is not as compelling as it is in your minds and in popular culture. 

The thick paper folder held close to the chest during college days; that dupatta tightly pinned to the kurta on both shoulders; that holding of the palm to the neckline while bending low to pick something off the floor; that constant tugging at the shoulder to ensure your neckline is not going too low and the bra straps are not showing - it is all stuff we are conditioned to do from a young age by our mothers who want to protect us from unwanted attention and worse. Left on our own, I don't think we would ever pay that much attention to them. As a first time mother, there were many challenges, I faced - but the one time I really lost it perhaps was when I was - in all good intentions - reminded to pull up my neckline as I struggled to hold a baby in one arm and a bulging baby bag in the other. See, at that point, the last thing that bothered me was that my cleavage was showing and some insignificant-excuse-for-a-human-being would leer and therefore had to be shielded from the sight of them. Plunging neckline? If you have a problem with it, deal with it, morons! 

I remember seeing a forward on Facebook once - it showed the picture of a girl holding her palm to her kurta's neck as she bent forward to offer coins to a temple offerings box. The caption (in Malayalam) read,"When a girl does this, she upholds the honour of her father, her brothers and her husband." I wanted to throw up, Quite literally. What made it worse was that this skin-crawlingly-cringe-worthy post appeared on my timeline because it had been shared - by a girl! I can only pity the virtuous soul who believes the honour of the men in her family resides in her bosom and the thousands of men who had 'liked' this picture, agreeing likewise (while considering any woman who is not your mother or sister as fair game).

Every woman has a sense of pride in her body. As much as she makes her face look pretty in a manner she believes makes her look her best, so too she dresses her body in a manner that she believes makes her look her best. That is her privilege. And only hers. How much that measures up to anyone else's values/expectations/morals is their problem and theirs alone. No kingdom comes crumbling down at the sight of an exposed bra strap and no mighty God falls at the sight of an exposed cleavage. Time to move the sights up, guys. Morally, physically, attitudinally. 

I remember once in my old workplace, one of my young teammates,  was making vain attempts to pull up what was a structurally gravity-prone neckline. She was obviously self-conscious and distracted until finally, one of her male teammates laughed and said, 'forget it, will you? There is nothing there we haven't already been seeing for the past five years.' I was shocked for an instant (I am still old-school, ok?) until the girl herself laughed and gave up struggling to adjust that truant neckline. We all got back to the business at hand. Which had nothing to do with anyone's cleavage. The point is, life is not always about what lies beneath one's clothes. Sexuality is a private part of your existence that you choose what to do with. And when. And with whom. In every other context - whether a woman is breastfeeding, going about her business, going to school or college, going to a temple or sweeping the courtyard - there is nothing sexual about her or her breasts. At least to her. So leave it at that. And let the breasts be.