UG Freshers’
orientation videos, artists that tell women to roll chapatis, transgender
rights, and Deepika Padukone’s video about choice – the Institute (at least
just as much as the world outside of it) has seen spurts of discussion about
gender over the past few months. While critiques of both patriarchy and
feminism are well abound in today’s discourse, there needs to be a closer look
into its various aspects.
Findings of the
survey
Insight conducted a
survey to gauge people’s opinions about gender inequality in the context of the
campus. The perception of the existence of gender inequality in campus was
roughly similar – a slightly higher proportion of men did, however, feel that
overall, there was gender equality on campus, compared to women. Underneath
this layer of apparent similarity, though, was a fundamental difference of
perception. Many people of both genders tended to feel that the inequality was
biased against their own.
Q) Have you personally witnessed instances of
gender inequality on campus? If so, what was (were) these instance(s)?
M: “Professors giving away extra marks just because a girl comes and asks.
Actually, I only saw one professor doing that.”
F: “Insensitivity in handling sexual or verbal
harassments, like having opinions about the victim, especially among security
guards and hostel officials.”
M: “I have seen not-so-qualified girls (relatively)
getting through interviews during placements just because the company is trying
to maintain or improve its sex ratio. From a company’s point of view, it might
be justified but it sure acts a disadvantage to boys.”
M: “Of course I have! A man having hairless legs is
suddenly looked down upon and asked why he is being ‘girly’. What’s wrong with
him? Gender expression and expectations from both the sexes is something that
people seem to be genuinely confused about.”
F: “It is often
cited that before H14 was constructed, there was a time when male PhD students
had to stay in double occupancy rooms and there was a lot of pressure from
faculty to speed up the construction of H14 so that such pressure could be
alleviated at the earliest, because ‘PhD students should have privacy’.
However, female PhD students have been living in double occupancy rooms for so
long, and yet, the response is, ‘It is good to live in shared rooms because you
can get support from one another’.”
Subjective questions
were also asked to the respondents and many supplemented their views with
examples of gender discrimination that they had seen, heard of, or experienced
in campus. There was a stark difference in the kind of discrimination reported
by men and reported by women. Men felt that there was bias in terms of favours
and selections for projects, positions of responsibility and placements – many
felt that it was easier for women to get jobs and projects because of bias:
either subtle and implicit, or for maintaining a gender ratio in the company in
case of placements. Separate queues and sports facility bookings for women were
also cause of some complaints. Women, on the other hand, had distinctly
different types of complaints overall. Casual sexist remarks on appearance and
dressing and underestimation of girls’ abilities seem to be extremely
commonplace, although tolerated. Security restrictions and infrastructure
issues (especially about room sharing and allocation compared to boys) are also
causes of complaints.
The Open Session and
Women’s Cell
Insight had also
conducted an Open House about Gender Inequality in October 2014 (the full
recording can be found here).
It included Prof. U.A. Yajnik (the former Dean of Student Affairs), Mr. S.S.
Jha (the Chief Security Officer), Prof. T. Kundu (the former Security Head) and
Prof. Suparna Mukherji (former Convener of the Women’s Cell). Various issues
came up in the Open House, including sexist videos and comments on display in
the freshmen orientation, lack of student interaction and safety of women on
campus. There were instances pointed out where students felt that the Quick
Response Team was not sensitized when it came to handling cases of harassment.
The vagueness in the mandate of the Women’s Cell (which has been defined now,
however, as complaints against sexual harassment as stated on the WC website),
and the lack of awareness about the Cell was also brought up. Various
suggestions were made as to how it could be improved, including restructuring
and strengthening pre-existing bodies, and gradual sensitization programs.
In February, the
Women’s Cell was reconstituted by the Director following the end of the
previous tenure of its members. Prof. Neela Nataraj from the Mathematics
department and Prof. Prita Pant from MEMS are the new Conveners for the Women’s
Cell.
Transgender rights
One avenue to
broaden the scope of the discussion about gender from the box of just
men-vs-women, is factoring in the April 2014 Supreme Court judgement about
transgender rights. A transgender person is someone who does not identify with
the gender assigned to them at birth. They may self-identify as men, women or a
third gender and are supposed to be referred to using that gender. Read our
previous article ‘Born a he, now a she’ to know more
about the experiences of an alumna.
The government has
taken up the SC recommendation for more inclusive spaces for transgender people
in institutions through UGC. This includes recommendations like TG-friendly
infrastructure and sensitisation workshops. While the UGC circular has been
received by the Institute and by the relevant authorities within, not much work
has been done on ground with respect to infrastructure. GATE, the entrance exam
for M.Tech candidates, now has an option for third-gender candidates to apply.
Coming back to the
‘gender debate’
While the issues in
the context of the campus are slightly polarized, and that too in a
men-vs-women fashion, it ought to be noted that both men and women face forms
of discrimination on campus. While such discrimination is properly recognised
as inequality in its literal sense, usually the ‘blame’ is put not on the
reason or cause of the discrimination, but on the side that supposedly benefits
through it, causing this polarization. For example, one of the survey
respondents said, “Companies tend to favor girls during the intern process.
Sometimes having ‘two buttons open’ is what counts more than ability or
substance.” It is easy to only blame a girl for using her so-called
‘bandi-influence’ to get a PoR. However, not many people (ignoring the issue of
women’s representation here for simplicity’s sake) seem to recognise the
decision-makers’ incompetency for having made such a decision.
This perception
often also extends to feminism and patriarchy, due to which feminism, instead
of being seen as people – regardless of gender – fighting for equality for
women, is seen as women trying to overpower men. One respondent presents such a
view: “Sexism hurts everyone. But you cannot finish it by reverse-sexism.
Feminism started as a noble cause but has turned into something like
Femi-Nazism.” Similarly, patriarchy isn’t seen as a system consisting of
societal, political and economic structures that favour men, but only as men
discriminating against women.
The underlying
causes of discrimination on the basis of gender can thus be better understood
and tackled by shifting the paradigm away from this intense men-vs-women
approach, because gender and its associated issues are much more intricate than
just that.
This article was
first published on the IIT Bombay student blog, InsIghT IITB, as part of the
print edition, Insight (issue 18.1) and was written by Aditi Kothiyal, Anamika
Agrawal, Drishti Gehlot, Madalsa Singh, Mihir Bhosale and Palka Puri. Please visit the article here for more charts detailing the survey.