Society & Stereotyping of Women

Gender is the way a society differentiates between men and women and their roles or place in the society. Stereotype is a fixed idea or image that many people associate to a particular type of person or thing, which is often not true in reality. Gender stereotypes are assumptions about characteristics, differences or roles based on gender. By making assumptions based on gender and generalizing these assumptions, we perpetuate gender stereotype.

The age old practice of looking at differences, rather than similarities have resulted in assigning certain roles to men and women as their salient duty, and are now being seen as compulsive criteria to get approval from the society. The process of gendering begins as soon as a child is born, as can be seen from the way parents accessorize room for the baby. If it's a boy, the colour will be blue, toys will be guns and cars and if it's a girl, the colour will be pink and she would get dolls and tiny kitchen sets. The gender roles in our society has been strengthened with the patriarchal system.

In a marriage, even educated urban families assume a woman to be the house manager and take care of kids. The husband has to be the breadwinner and the head of the family. When situation demands that either one of the spouses need to sacrifice the job, by default it has to be the woman. Even women back up this notion because "women are naturally better at managing a house" and so should quit working if need arises. Individual choices apart, there are ambitious women who do not wish to give up their professional lives and are pressurized with balancing work, household chores and kids. This apart, a woman is supposed to be subservient, submissive and quiet. To be safe, she is advised not to go out and to cover herself up. Has generations of practicing this made our society safer for women? Assault on women has been happening and will keep happening. It's not women, but the society that needs to change.

Locking up a woman in the house is not the solution, the solution lies in creating respect for women in the society, among men and among women themselves. This respect has to come from within us and the first step is to stop stereotyping, stop telling our men and women how they are meant to be because they are a "man" or a "woman", teach them to respect the other gender and see them as equals. This is a big change, a change in habits formed over generations, but every change has a small start. Let's make that small start now.