When I was eight, I got a B in a Math test and looked visibly upset. A boy sitting next to me said, “It’s okay, you’re a girl.” It made me so angry. It wasn’t just my classmates who thought that way – our teachers had a role to play too. Once, I told my teacher I wanted to be a pilot and she turned around and said, “You know, it’s tough for girls to be pilots.” I was amazed that she’d said that.
Addressing gender biases in classrooms is a global challenge. TIME suggests that teachers spend up to two thirds of their time talking to male students; they are also more likely to interrupt girls but allow boys to talk over them. The study also says that teachers tend to merely acknowledge girls but praise and encourage boys.
The good news is that some schools in India have recognised this problem and are working to tackle the issue.
How Our Homes Reinforce Gender Stereotypes
Schools play an important role in shaping young people’s mindsets and creating expectations of what the future may have in store. Unfortunately, our schools set different expectations for boys and girls. These beliefs are then reinforced at the student’s home creating a strong foundation for gender stereotypes and patriarchy.
TVS Academy, a school in Hosur, is in a region that has high rates of female infanticide, and safety of women is a concern. The principal, Srividya Mouli, realised that they cannot turn a blind eye to gender inequity and started working with her students.
TVS conducts workshops with students from grade 4 onwards where they look at issues on gender and their ripple effects in their homes and societies. They question advertisements, story books, etc., that depict gender stereotypes and discuss the privileges certain genders have. These workshops include role-plays where students enact different household chores and discuss them.
Mouli related an incident where a student was asked to wash her and her brother’s socks everyday while her brother didn’t have to lift one finger. The school encouraged her to speak up in a way that parents would understand. She went home and told them that for college, both her brother and she would be in hostels where they would have to do their own laundry so it would be important for her brother to learn how to do his laundry now. From that day onwards, her brother started washing his own socks.
The Avasara Academy in Pune is an all-girls school set up with the aim to create women role models. The cofounder, Roopa Purushothaman, an economist, studied why certain countries do better than the others economically and found that some countries did better because of higher participation by women in the labour force and higher percentages of women in leadership positions. This led to the start of Avasara Academy.
The school admits students from all over Pune that were previously enrolled in government and low income private schools to equip them for a lifetime of leadership and skills for community work. The Head of School and cofounder, Joseph Cubas, speaks about how the vision is for the girls to find their own success in India without losing sight of where they come from. The expectation is that they will return to their community and create change. Joseph is also looking at measuring changes in mindsets around girl’s education and gender equity by interviewing people in the bastis where the girls come from, on what they think of their neighbour’s daughter getting quality education.
The Role Schools Can Play in Bridging the Gender Gap
While schools like TVS and Avasara are changing mindsets around gender, some schools address physical aspects of gender difference through curriculum and sports. The Bombay Cambridge Gurukul group introduced a programme called Personal Safety Education (PSE) that was supported by an NGO called Arpan. This programme starts in grade 1 and encourages students to love and respect their bodies. The school also talks to students about male and female body parts through this curriculum at a very young age which removes awkwardness while growing up. BCG encourages co-ed teams for sports, games and other events. This helps the students to naturally develop a sense of acknowledgment and respect for each other.
If our children continue to grow up while being told that men and women are supposed to behave in certain ways, there is a sense of norm and entitlement which may lead to violence against women. If we do not address these stereotypes in schools now, this viscous cycle will continue for generations. Simple interventions at the school level can help break gender stereotypes, overcome differences and give everyone an opportunity to live up to their potential.
(Shevika Mishra works with Ashoka's Changemaker Schools program. Changemaker Schools are a community of schools that are working to prepare children for the 21st century by prioritising skills such Empathy, Creative Problem solving, Teamwork and Leadership.)