Bringing up boys

 Each time an atrocity against women happens, which is, unfortunately, rather common, there is an uproar. Candle light marches, sit-in's, 'reclaiming the night' erupt like a volcano. These days, moreover, there is yet another, and valid, demand which can be summarised as 'bring up boys better'.

Indeed it is not enough that girls grow up stronger. Equally important it is that boys better be sensitised, and right from the beginning. Let me give you an ordinary example. These days, boys leave home for further studies, for better prospects. It is for their own good if they can cook, right?

In the post-Franco era, Spain, then considered the left behind dark spot of the liberal-democratic Europe, was trying to revamp itself. As part of this process, there was a look at the textbooks.  The argument was that the textbooks were extremely sexist, the Spanish version of the erstwhile Marathi medium school textbooks of English.

A typical lesson in such a textbook would read as follows. 'This is Gopal's house. Father has just returned home from work. He is relaxing. Mother has made tea for him. She is busy cooking dinner. Leela, Gopal's sister, is helping her. Gopal is playing in the garden'. The argument was that pre-defined gender roles were thus subtly but strongly asserted, and women's work, both in the household and outside, was overlooked and trivialised. A sensitively written textbook then is one of the first steps towards bringing up boys better.

It does matter a lot. Let me give a concrete example from my own classroom. The other day I was explaining profession related vocabulary in my German classroom. 'Hausfrau' means 'housewife'. A smart Alec asked most 'innocently' if 'Hausmann' meant 'house husband'. The whole class tittered. So I gave them an assignment. Each one had to tell the class what would happen if 'mother went on strike'. Thus they realised the value of the unpaid household work.

In 2024 which is almost about to end, there is thus so much need to sensitise sons, to make them realise that women's traditional work and roles are not unimportant. It is not enough that women work in different fields. The base attitude; namely,  women are weepy worthless toys without brains, needs to change, right?

That is indeed the need of the hour. In most all upper middle class well-off houses, children have their own mobiles and their own  rooms. They bang shut the door on your face. Given the information explosion literally at the finger tips, there are huge chances that the wicked world would corrupt in various untold ways. Hence the need to sensitise, especially boys because torridly toxic masculinity marauds them thus!

In my opinion, boys need to be sensitised because traditionally men are not allowed any expression of feelings. Boys have to beat the Brits at the stiff upper lip game. Such suppression of emotions can lead to angry outbursts, may not always result in wonderful 'emotional quotient'. Instead if boys are treated equally, life would be gentler both for men and women, right?

Pratima@These days, gender roles and sexual identities are so fluid that parents must constantly creatively chat with their (mostly only) child as the world's wickedness worsens by the second!