The ‘NORMALIZED’ Sexism of the 21st century era.
I have been using Instagram for the past 4–5 years and using this social networking site gave me an insight into different people’s mentality by viewing their stories or reading their post’s captions. Although there has been some sort of reduction in the ideology of sexism, this ideology stills prevails to a great extent and it’s a shame for the whole society. I have seen many young men posting pictures of their girlfriends on Instagram stories with lines written as “We are safe, she hasn’t crashed it yet”.
People have been making fun of the driving skills of the whole female gender for many decades and this continues even today, thus sexualizing this activity to a particular gender and limiting this job to men only. This ain’t a joke but it is a sexist comment, now people would say that I am overreacting to a light heart joke but the reality is that such kinds of jokes are never passed onto the male gender. This comment is not only limited to sexism but women driving a car is still taboo in many parts of society. I believe driving a car has nothing to do with someone’s gender but it’s just a matter of concentration and practice and if a woman can tolerate the shit of the men and society and still concentrate on her career, she can definitely drive a damn car. In some parts of the society women are expected to be dependent and be insecure rather than to be independent and to reach their desired destination without the help of any “MAN”.
In my school life, I had always seen boys bullying other boys who didn’t have a beard by calling them ‘Gay’ and using other obnoxious terms, we live in a society where the beard is considered a symbol of manliness, considering aggression as “Normal” among men, considering misogynistic behaviour and male chauvinism a matter of pride. This is not what makes a person a “MAN”. A person’s responsibility, sympathy and empathy towards society, how he adorns his partner and respects other women in the society truly makes them a “Man”.
I would like to add further, trying to tease a man by calling him gay is not an insult for any man but it’s an insult for the whole LGBTQ+ community. Our society is so ironic that at one point we celebrate “Pride Month” and on the other hand, we use it as a symbol of insult. Being gay is “Normal”, it’s not a matter of insult.
If we have had taught our boys that to cry when feeling overwhelmed rather than to abuse alcohol, by telling them it’s okay to seek help and protection not just from their mothers but from their wives and girlfriends (it’s not necessary to always be protective and guard your girl!), that it’s not okay to have a fragile ego, to talk about life problems, that it was okay to be soft and compassionate, to cry while watching a film, to choose family over career( why always making women sacrifice their career for the sake of family), that it was okay to talk about depression, Our society would have been a much better place to live!!!
We live in a society where many people still sexualize careers, passions, hobbies. From celebrating the news that the government permitted girls to join NDA and to serve in the Indian army to a girl from the remote part of India fighting with her parents to become an IAS officer rather than getting married and raising children. From talking about depression among men after the death of actor Shushant Singh Rajput to making fun of men who aspire to become fashion designers, makeup artists, dancers or fashion bloggers(not everyone makes fun of such things but still there are some segments of the society which definitely does!!), not just getting mocked down but also not getting support from the family which is even worse than getting mocked by the whole society, Our society is as hypocritic as it was 20–30 years ago!!
We were and we are still living for the society and its social standards set for men and women rather than living for ourselves and to find the peace we actually deserve rather than getting eaten up from inside. But we can’t blame the whole society because we are all part of the society and the change in the society will come from the day we would start changing ourselves. From talking about sexism and toxicity of the society to actually following up the things would slowly but definitely bring some change.
Thank you…
