Starting Line.

My flight has been delayed by 2 hours, I am sitting at the boarding area staring joblessly at a 2 year old baby rolling himself in the dust of the airport floor. What an age to be in! Bored to death, I decide to read random articles and chance upon this- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/that-boy-in-yellow-nail-polish/1041760/0

I suggest all of you to read it. I love the way she has put forth the idea of cliche and anti-cliche.

Haha, it also reminds me of how we used to dress up Aryan, my nephew, as Radha. Such a cutie he is. Its a long story, I'll tell you some other time.

A lot of things have been happening around. The Delhi Gangrape case is blazing the news and social networking sites. And I can't help but relate the article to the case.

Where does it all start?

Gender stereotypes stem out from a child's social setting and most importantly, upbringing. Boy children are expected to only play with violent superhero toys, or cars, or you know, 'boy' stuff. Girls, are meant to play with barbie dolls and other dolls and other dolls and kitchen sets and basically 'girly stuff'. Boy clothes are blue. Girl clothes are pink. And so are the rest of their belongings, room, bedspread, towel, accessories, even stationery. Fairy tales teach little girls AND little boys that the princess is a weakling, a damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued by the strong prince charming. And in reality, the same little girls and the same little boys fall for this rationale. In a more conservative set up, the sole purpose of a daughter's life is to get married and serve her husband and cook for her in laws, while the boy is to grow up to be the man of the house, and step out of the house to earn a living - these ideas being enforced into a child's mind right from the time he/she are born.

While this trend is the most prevalent in this part of the world, given its patriarchal orientation, we have seen some change over the last few years. Attempts have been made to empower the girl, make her 'strong like a son'. However, like Lalita Iyer mentions in her article, we celebrate it when our girls do boy things and not enough when our boys do girl things. A very common thing we get to hear from parents of a accomplished successful girl is - "Our daughter is our son". On the other hand if the boy decides to take up a 'girl oriented career' (trust me, there are stereotypes related to jobs we are all aware of), he is often ridiculed at. Boys are not meant to cry, sensitive responses from boys are labelled as cowardice. The male ego is not born, it is made to develop.

At a lot homes, examples are set for children, the wives have domestic roles, she is meant to stay home, have babies, look after them. Her 'job' is looking after household chores. She is meant to serve her husband sexually and otherwise if required, not complaining and not asking for anything in return. She is expected to have learnt all of this from her mother. The husband is the provider for the family, he has therefore the right to do whatever he wants, go wherever he wants AND sleep with whoever he wants.

Besides these, there are other societal influences. Alcohol is a boy thing. Visiting temples is a girl thing. Going out is a boy thing. Sitting home is a girl thing. The idea of good and bad is mostly settled by the society and in this part of the world, anything 'good' for boys is bad for the girls.

When the same boy grows up to be a rapist, I wonder why the people get surprised. If you haven't taught a child to be sensitive and respectful of all other people irrespective of their identities, how do you expect them to respect the freedom of a woman?

I urge you to think deeply, the concept of rape is largely associated with power play. Though sometimes, it could be a case of revenge or sheer sexual impulsiveness, mostly it is about gender identities. It is about the man believing that he has more power than the woman. In these cases, rape becomes a platform to assert this notion of power.

In my opinion, rape is psychopathological. It is not normal, but with the kind of edge that men are given over women, the society seems to sanction it. And the society is made of people, like you and me.

There has been a very strong response to the Delhi case. Castrate the rapists, people say. Hang them to death, others assert. The rapists deserve the punishment too. In fact, I believe they deserve to frikkin Rot In Hell. But hanging them is not a solution. It is too easy a punishment. They need to be made to realise the gravity in their deed.

We need to dig deeper. We need to talk about eradicating rape. We need to stop talking about consequences but start talking about the root cause of it.

We need to sensitise people, especially men. Pathology has treatment, and if rape is a case of abnormality, there has to be a solution to remove it. The solution lies amongst us.

This incident left me shaken and crippled with fear. And learning martial arts will not remove this fear, neither will killing the criminals. Stricter laws need to be enforced, policies need to be changed, I agree. But what requires change the most, is the mindset of the people.

When I grow up, I want to have a daughter. And a son. And I am going to teach them to respect each other and the rest of the world irrespective of their gender identities.

The process of changing the society is very slow, the only way I can start is by changing myself. And so can you. And I hope someday change will happen, if not for me or you, for the strong girl fighting for her life at the Delhi hospital today and for hundreds of others who fight this battle everyday. I have this dream.

On an unrelated note, my flight is here, the food they gave me is horrible and I can't wait to get home. 

There is so much more I want to write, and will soon.