सुना है

सुना है
गाव के उस पार
कुछ लोग आए हैं
कहते हैं
देश को बदलेंगे
पर क्या वह
हमसे भी पूछेंगे
हमें क्या चाहिए
क्या वह
हमें भी कुछ करने देंगे
अपने भविष्य के लिए
क्या वह
हमें भी लिखने देंगे
अपनी कहानी?

सुना है
देश बदल रहा है
पर क्या हम भी बदलेंगे
देश के साथ

- Diary of a Oxymoron

How My School Taught Me To Be A Girl

Gender stereotypes that go on to define individuals start right in school, and must be questioned, says this deeply thoughtful post.

“pull up your socks, wear a longer skirt”

“don’t be so loud, don’t sound too bossy”

“wear a white hairband and oil your hair well”

“cross your legs. (you stupid girl), cross your legs”

“how dare you apply a deodorant again? You are such a stubborn brat”

_________

I went to a very good school in Delhi. And I start here by not being mistaken as one who ridicules the education she got from there. What my school also gave me are memories – of how my being a girl was reinforced day after day by the way I should conduct myself, the activities I should do, the groups I should join and most importantly, the way I should behave and dress.

Since the very beginning, I used to wonder why oiling my hair and putting a white hair band was a more important issue than me coming to school. I mean, common, we all know that there is no scientific proof to showcase how great a student who regularly oils her hair, has pigtails, and socks up till knees, is. But I saw everyday how often our female teachers ridiculed the girls who challenged any of these rules. I have strong images of the events that took place during school days in my head.

Once, I was called out by my teacher after a regular period in the class and yelled at for not sitting with my legs crossed. I was told how I was being a bad girl, inviting boys to lurk on me. I was not just yelled at, but thereafter was always looked upon with suspicious eyes. As a young girl in standard 7, it confused me how my sitting down unknowingly with legs open was a reason for my teacher to judge me as a person.

In another year, I was the class monitor. And often, told to indulge in the things I didn’t like but my class teacher did. One not-so-fine day, she was out there measuring the length of the skirts every girl wore in the class. And with a compass in her hand, opening the seam of the skirts from the bottom, if found not adhering the school/class norms.

I was asked to get hold of my classmate’s arms while my teacher openly un-sewed the seam of her skirt from the bottom in front of a class of 50 students. Scared of being punished, I did as I was told. Ashamed of how it all happened, I still sit down and wonder how the length of skirt, and public humiliation, was a symbol of discipline. How my female teacher never taught the boys to not stare at our legs but told us to hide our skin. How this all was a way of making us better adults.

Meanwhile, as years passed by, I questioned marks as much as I questioned the ways the system worked in the school. Over the years, I saw our teachers giving sore eyes to the girls who were seen talking a lot to the boys. Those who were too outspoken were shunned as rude and undisciplined. I never was a very brilliant, high-scoring student. I never knew why my mathematics teacher always found a way to shun the girls in front of the ‘talented’ mathematics genius boys our school was full of.

She  would often tell my mother how I would never make anything meaningful out of my life because I scored less in mathematics. Never appreciated for the other subjects I was good at. Acceptance in my school for being what you are was always low. A lot of the teachers appreciated the brilliant “rote-heads” who puked everything they were taught verbatim on their exam answer sheets.

A lot many times I sat there wondering why my class teacher would often tell me to be little less outspoken and little more committed to learning. Learning which meant less creativity, innovation, and passion. She never understood that to me, mathematics never gave any excitement.

In my last year at school, I became the head girl – the one responsibility that was only given to the top scoring girls in the school. Leadership, after all, was only linked to those who were either teachers’ favorites or scored high. I never understood why and how this happened but I do remember the smile on that one teacher from my school who always pushed me to pursue my dreams, cherishing my creativity.

When I stood there on the stage, our school principal proudly putting my Head Girl badge on my shirt told me, “You better study well. This badge does not mean you don’t study”. That last year at school I was told again and again, silently and loudly, in front of many, that I was rude, stubborn, with attitude, and bossy – because I had a responsibility to carry. Marks never excited me. They made me sad, because for me, they were how my surroundings defined failures and success.

When I completed my school, I got admission into one of the best colleges in the city. Happy to share this information with my teachers, when I went back, I was told how unlucky and average I was because I didn’t get admitted to any engineering or medical schools like the boys of my class did. “This course is futile for you”, said the mathematics teacher. I smiled, because I realized I was out of this cycle of constantly being reminded that being a girl meant being less.

Along with carrying out cherished memories from the school days, I carried a burden of gender stereotyping. It was not that every girl conformed to the socially acceptable roles that the school defined for them. But the way they were either accepted or rejected created a lot of confusion and imbalance in the minds of many who wished to differ from the norms.

Sex education was never given. Neither were we given any counselling during our adolescent days. Those girls, who talked about it, became the talk of the school. Instead of talking about equality and respect, we were taught to keep our instincts off in the name of conduct. Those girls who had short haircuts were taken to be like boys.

A lot of the reports have suggested that children learn gender from being constant subjects of society’s expectations. I don’t think that putting pressure on children to conform to the traditional expected roles that society has made for them is what will make them better humans.

While the girls were given this, I am sure there were a hundred boys who wanted to cry but never did. Those who wanted to say they appreciated pink, but were ‘demeaned’ and ‘laughed on’ to be girly. ‘Boys will be boys’: we can never know what psychological impact this statement causes on the ego of the boy who turns into a man in few years.

Teaching a girl that shorts are for boys, cross-legs is for girls is not how she has to be taught about femininity. Similarly, teaching a boy that to be loud and sporty means to be masculine is equally wrong. Girls are pretty and quiet and boys are sporty and loud, does not make a good impact on the ‘power dynamics’ that we as children grow up with, into adults in this society.

I know times are changing. I know schools are changing. But I do feel that there is a majority of educational institutions that have conditioned girls and boys to grow up as they are in this present era, patriarchal victims and criminals. What is education? Shouldn’t it be more than mere learning from books and getting marks? Do we promote equality from the start? Gender equality?

I was lucky my college shaped a lot of my present being. But do we have such structures for the rest to re-condition this gender stereotyping they gain in homes and schools? Just food for thought!

This article was first published on womensweb 

The Researcher’s Guide: 10 Ways To Do Better At Field Work

For any researcher in the public, private or social sector, these 10 ways to do better at field work can make a big difference to the quality of your data and insights.

“I have a thousand stories hidden under my shield to share, those told and those untold…”

“I sit here at the chulha, cook for hours, apart from doing the other household tasks”, she said in Hindi, as I penned down every word cautiously in my interview schedule. I had traveled across 3 villages that day, done 25 interviews, and three focus group discussions. I wanted a cup of tea. I wanted to sit down, as my body was giving up in the scorching heat.

The lady from the neighbouring home dragged me to her house for  tea. I sat down with her near the chulha, looking around, sipping my tea, as the many children jumped in and around to get a glimpse of me. I felt like a celebrity even in my most rural-dressed avatar. I realised that even though I took care of dressing and language, I was still a stranger, an alien to them.

I realised that even though I took care of dressing and language, I was still somewhere a stranger, an alien for them.

As I walked down the narrow lane of the village to get to the motorcycle we had been using for traveling around, I couldn’t easily ignore the looks I was getting from the village people. Every look smiled at me, a smile hard to not smile back at. The sweat was getting to me as I draped my dupatta around my head and walked through the dusty, broken streets, with kids running after me. I loved it but my body was giving up. I grabbed a cookie from my bag and piled up my sugar count just to keep the body functional. There I was, doing what excited me the most in my Ph.D – my fieldwork.

It has been more than 7 years of my life since I have been hopping on to different lands, talking and listening to people I might not have ever met in my life, otherwise. I have loved it, hated it, felt exhausted, felt deprived, felt selfish, felt privileged, along with many tearing emotions that have crossed my heart and mind during this process.

Every moment that I have spent in my field has been an experience to cherish and learn from. I have emerged much stronger and informed, aware and amazed at the immense knowledge pool that exists in this world, to immerse myself in. And of those many lessons that I have learnt, there are a few of them, which as a researcher I find very crucial to be shared; crucial because they might be the tipping point for data collection, and for a soul to collect the right memories.

My 10 point list on how to approach field work

Though I am no pro at the field, my field experiences have taught me a lot of pointers and places where many  researchers go wrong. So, here is a 10-pointer list (though the list is never ending) that might change the way researchers approach a field.

1. Speak less, listen more

When I work with women, I realize that before I start throwing my questions, I have to spend a little time listening to them – to their stories, to their bits and pieces, to their dilemmas, to their anxieties – there is much more than just stories there. The key point to be remembered here is that we are here to learn from them first and then help fill the gaps if required.

They are the source and we are here for learning. If a researcher reinforces this time and again, he/she will never go wrong. They will be more open, more friendly and you might dig up some very deep, realistic information that might not be possible otherwise. Be polite, not preachy!

2. Communicate your purpose well

One of the many ways researchers fail is when they don’t pre-inform  the purpose of their visit clearly to their field sample (I hate calling people sample/subject!) When we are out conducting a survey or taking an interview, we often forget that our first responsibility is to be honest with them about our purpose.

Very often I have been asked questions like, “We hope you won’t ask about contraception”, “Who is paying you for this?”, “Did you come from the government?” and so on. So my first task  is to clarify who I am, why I am there, and what I will do with this information. Once that is done, they choose to answer or not, and depending on that, I take it forward.

3. Say No when you need to

“Here, have some water”, she said and I took the glass from her hand, and kept it beside me. It is  common courtesy to offer water to visitors. And I am not asking you to trouble your system and drink water whenever offered to you. But we often forget that when we say no, we create an image in their head that we find them inferior.

While working with slums and in villages in India, this has been my biggest challenge. I have graduated from a NO  to taking the glass and even sipping it though to later repent when I’m down with stomach troubles. But the challenge here is to do this right. Never drink from a mineral water bottle in front of them. Never refuse. Ask for tea (it’s boiled and a much better option). The important lesson is to not mess with your system as you are there on an agenda but more importantly to not dishearten them or be offensive. We are there as a part of a research army and often, unintentionally, we mess it up for the rest of the soldiers.

4. Get your language right

Traveling and working in India and abroad, you realize that one of the biggest challenges  is language. You can’t know them all. And so, before you enter the field, get a hold of a few related words,  or a few phrases in that language. As somebody who does this every time, I can vouch that it’s the best way to instantly form a rapport. They see that the you are taking initiative.

A hundred women have chuckled at me in the villages of Tamil Nadu as I spoke in Tamil, and in Haryana, as I sported the little Haryanvi I know. From Maithili in Bihar to Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, little phrases have helped me gather effective data. After all, even when you work along with a translator, you can’t always merge in. And so, language empathy is a must for acceptance. Don’t converse in front of them in English or any other alien language amongst each other as that creates a wall difficult to break.

5. Stay locally

For me, the whole idea of fieldwork is to immerse myself into the life there to gather and observe the details and learn from them. So, most of the times my agenda is to find a place to live as locally as possible. In fact, many a times I stay with a family in the field. The experience that eating, sleeping, and living with them gives goes way beyond merely going and observing for a day or two.

Time constraints are a major thing but sharing a meal might make it one of the most memorable learning and data collection experiences for you. For instance, my trip to Tamil Nadu – where I stayed with a family in the village for ten days changed the way I saw data collection – as much more than mere information gathering in an hour or so. Sit with them. Not on a chair. Eat from the plate. Not from a packet. Walk around with them. Everything helps you get closer and realistic towards your goal.

6. Don’t lose focus, but be flexible

On the field, time is key. Everyone goes on a scheduled agenda with do’s and don’ts, to-dos and time frames. And as a researcher we have to always keep reminding ourselves to not lose track of the work goals we set for ourselves. But as we do that, we have to be flexible. Keep spaces open for things that might go wrong.

When one is on field one ends up listening to things that might not be a part of the interview schedule or agenda of research but might give you an insight much deeper than usual. So, flexibility in your schedule might help in learning some things for life. An extra day might take you a long way.

7. Be empathetic, not sympathetic

Often, I realize how blessed I am with the right education, freedom, and choices to do what I want, when I meet people who are struggling for the basics. But I always remember that I should try to never sympathise. The idea of fieldwork is to create empathy in you (beyond data collection) rather than sympathy.

We are all one. Living and sharing their experiences should not be a day task you do. In order to understand deeper issues, challenges and struggles, especially when working on sensitive issues like prostitution, contraception and sexual health, empathy goes a long way.

8. No fake promises

As one of the most crucial pointers of the lot, one of the many ways researchers fail is that they end up making promises to the people knowing that they will not be meeting them, ever. What we forget is that we leave a road closed for many others who might come after us.

Once a woman asked me  to give her some money in exchange for the interview, I politely told her why I couldn’t do that. Another woman had asked me to take her along to the city; I was sweet enough to make her understand why that can’t be done. It is the moral duty of every social work researcher and field worker to understand that we cannot use people for our selfish reasons.

We need to be thankful for them to be helping us and we need to be clear in being honest and avoiding any fake promises. “No, I might not come back ever, though I would love to someday” might just be honest and humble enough to help them understand.

9. Smile, often

The barriers in communication are often created through body language. One of the many things that I think work on field is a smile. Every time I face a challenge, I smile. Every time people say no, I smile and try to work it out. Every time I am told something offensive, I smile to calm down the anger in the person.

They have their inhibitions to change, their barriers to new things, their anger of life not working out. And during that process, asking them to listen to us, help us, or share their stories is asking a little bit more than they can easily give.

People have their challenges and struggles. They have their inhibitions to change, their barriers to new things, their anger of life not working out. And during that process, asking them to listen to us, help us, or share their stories is asking a little bit more than they can easily give. Smiling helps break a lot of barriers. It’s tried, tested, and works every single time.

10. Dress right 

One of the major places where most of us go wrong is entering the field dressed in an attire that creates the first barrier for the people with whom we plan to interact. We are aliens for them coming from the city they might never get to see, the city they have heard only stories about. And so, dressing in the local way is important to merge in the crowd and make them feel we are one of them. Throw away your branded shades, shed those bags and become one of them. Trust me, you will feel the difference in the way rapport turns easier. It’s the first level of impression, after all.

While there are a thousand lessons that I have learnt from books in college to real life on field, the above 10 tips summarize a lot of the ways we as researchers might go wrong. Next time you are on your field, think of these 10!

Everyone has their own set of experiences but many times, sharing these might help others to deal with situations effectively. Worked with people? Share your stories here in the comments section! Would love to hear them!

This article was originally published at womens web by the author. 

Unpaid Care Work : Are Women Getting A Raw Deal?

If you spend time cleaning, cooking, washing, and taking care of your family, do you deserve recognition? Why women believe their role as care-givers is pre-destined, and why this must stop.

I vividly remember an uncle of mine telling me how his wife does nothing, while he brings the bread to the house. He was implying that the daily chores had no value to add to his smooth-functioning existence. And this was a young, educated man, raised in a city.

A typical scenario in an Indian home includes at least one female member of the house doing the daily chores, breaking her back, and still being called a Housewife (which is considered equivalent to having no job). This scenario, is much worse in rural areas where the number of family members to take care of, and the number of household tasks multiply immensely.

The situation of rural women who are unable to open their mouths cannot be imagined. On one of the field trips to Bihar (one of the most backward states in India), I came across a family of 8 members with one woman in the productive, young age group taking care of all of the rest. Her daily chores included taking care of her 5 children, husband, his parents, and the animals of the house. With poverty on one hand, and her cooking, washing, bathing, care-taking cycle on the other, she was made to believe that this is the reason why she exists.

To me, this extreme burden with no appreciation or accountability on the part of society sounded brutal. Not only did it violate her body but  it had also created mental stress in her, giving rise to multiple health problems (without a care-giver for herself!). Worse still, she was  beaten up quite often by her husband. Needless to say, her productivity is challenged every day, like that of many other women. With little food to eat, little energy to carry out these chores, the children ended up being neglected many a time, leading to poorly developed adults later on.

To me, this extreme burden with no appreciation or accountability on the part of society sounded brutal.

What happens to the benefits the Government provides them with, like free food and health care,  or adult education ? She pointed out, “When I am at home, I am always busy doing different tasks. When do you expect me to go outside to the health care center to get myself examined? That is only done when the situation is out of hands. This is my role as a woman. I have to be the nurturer of the house and so, at the end, I don’t find time to think of myself.” One woman and multiple children often lead to ignorance with respect to education, health & sanitation, and even building civic values. Thereby, she might just bring up her daughter in the same way, with the same values: this is my fate!

It’s a vicious circle.

This is a common sight. For women like her don’t know what to do except take it as their fate. It is even more painful when nobody acknowledges the care activities, let alone provide them with right kind of resources to function smoothly. The rights of caregivers are symbiotically intertwined with rights of care receivers. For me, I think the Government providing funds and resources is one aspect but simply providing access of care givers (who are mostly women) to resources should not be an indicator of  their use of these resources too.

“This is my role as a woman. I have to be the nurturer of the house and so, at the end, I don’t find time to think of myself.”

What is required is that the society starts a) accepting unpaid care work as a form of work, b) helping to provide a support structure for the woman who is doing the back-breaking tasks and c) converting access to usage of services. While it is easier said than done, I think what we truly require along with Government efforts is a Behaviour Change Campaign.

Right now, rural women (urban too, atleast in India) face two kinds of problems with respect to their daily care chores:

a) They don’t know that its not their prescribed job but a gendered role that was given ages ago and has been going on as a tradition, and;

b) the people around, the care receivers, don’t understand the concept of how if these starting points don’t exist, their own productivity is hampered. Acceptance and acknowledgement by their peers is a crucial aspect of defining empowerment with respect to unpaid care work.

I have thought of this many a times. In fact, I have been a party to many debates where I have been the only one arguing, making people understand how its not a biological role for women, but a choice that they make, for which they need to be valued. Behaviour Change Campaigns are very crucial.

And so, when I think of how to raise this issue as a major “Human Rights” issue in the country, here is what I think could help at the community level: Media Advocacy, Using Edutainment Strategy (Education through Entertainment) via soap operas, Talk shows, positive reinforcements through movies, re-scripting the way we see women in homes, are a few steps. We still have a lot of communities who enjoy access to folk music, folk dance, nautanki (local theatre) and so, using these to reach the unreachable local women in order to make them aware is crucial. The process has to be smooth in order to avoid rebellion from the community and so, I have seen that local community media is the best way of taking the message forward. In this the immense pool of ICT Tools: Internet, SMS technology etc can help create huge momentum with the help of  Opinion Leaders. At the local level, the opinion leaders like Panchayats (Local governance bodies) with Women heads can be a crucial starting point to take the message forward. Training of community workers to see this aspect and then take it forward can be very helpful.

Behaviour Change Campaigns are very crucial.

In my personal experience, soap operas with educational messages work, and storytelling and reinforcing positive examples  among the community is vital. If people around her start valuing her presence, the process of her participating in decision making, education of children, her own growth and development, health facilities etc will smoothen up.

Policy advocacy is important, but that has to come along with a change in tradition and age-old customs and defined roles of women as care givers. I have seen how policies in India remain as paper documents that don’t percolate down to the most crucial level of the country, the household.

My heart waits to see a house in a village in India where the man helps a woman in the kitchen, where the grandparents do more than just sitting and sipping hukka (tobacco) and where a woman goes to a doctor when she doesn’t feel well. That my dear friends, would be the starting point of change.

What is needed for you to take note of this? Just a question:

Are you valuing the unpaid care work around you?

This article was originally published at womens web by the author. 

Action & Reaction: How would a woman react if she is the victim?

“I was around 20 years old, young and still in college. Starting to make up a career in Development Sector. The reason being the very passion towards people, equality and humanity, I knew I had chosen a path that would make me happy from my core. Little did I know, that there are predators waiting for girls like me to fall in the web of seduction? Little did I know that the career I was selecting for the reason that it was “all about humanity”, was in real as dirty as it can get.” she said. And all I had was questions in my head as I saw her tears roll down her red cheeks.  All I had were hazy images of men looking at my breasts as I spoke to them instead of talking to my face. All I had were the hazy voices in my ears on the many remarks I had heard walking down the lanes of villages in India. I realized, how every woman is at the same point, how everyone is scared to react and fight back.

The Tehelka debate and the presence of Sexual Harassment at work place has raised some very critical questions for all of us.  It is not something new. It has been happening. Hush-Hush as it may be, what the Tehelka issue has done is brought it into the open. Nobody can run away from the fact that it is not just the Media sector where this is happening. But I am not here talking about the issue. I believe it is important for us to discuss why and how has this act affected the victim, and many more victims who have gone through the same situation time and again, only that they never gathered the courage to come and speak out in public.

The victim here, even being a journalist is finding it tough to survive the acquisitions and the torture after the original torturous act (RAPE). Her family is being threatened to step back, her emails are being circulated all over and her identity is out, so is her character being questioned. This reminds me of a movie dialogue where they said that a rape victim is raped multiple times at the court as she fights for her rights. That being a reality in India, social repercussions of her coming out and fighting for her rights are making her life miserable. Also, shunning many other women to speak up against the tortures happening with them, though promoting a few too initially. We have to accept the fact that here the victim is an educated women who knows her rights. Which is a rare thing in India where many a women have no clue about what they are not entitled to go through (read: Domestic Violence, Marital Rape etc). We also have to accept to the fact that reason why this case is so widely being discussed is because it involves a high profile Media Professional who has a history of reporting rights and wrongs. That being said, my question to myself is, will this be done if it is a case of a young dalit girl being abused by her employer in a village area? No right? How many times have we heard about a case from a local area in similar way? It’s a rare possibility for it to even come out as a news report in a newspaper column. And however irrational my debate here might sound, to me every woman is equal and needs protection and safety net developed, environment conducive enough for her to stand up for her rights.

On one hand while this is happening, on the other hand, we as a world are talking about 16 days of Activism for Violence Against Women (VAW).  The slogans “Color your world Orange” and “Stand for the cause of Violence Against Women” are all over everywhere. To me however, they make little sense, as it is only saying and no action. There are laws, there are systems, there are NGOs-National Commission for Women-UN etc. And while all these systems exist in India, the only place where we fail is our social structure. The fact that it would be a social disgust if a woman comes out and shares how she was violated, how her body was targeted makes it impossible for any commission, any NGO to function properly. Little done than said? The end result: ineffective and failed systems and policies.

Fast track courts and FIRs happen at a later stage i.e. once a woman has filed a case. What to me is a question is the point where a woman has to decide weather or not she will file the case or speak up? And that is the point where she thinks about the repercussions on her family, on her own future. And that is the point where I know that maximum women give up and happily live with the fact that there is no point fighting for it. She would fake a smile, be scared to travel yet do it, look at every colleague and employer with suspicion while she dresses to avoid any direct attack on her (because society thinks its to do with dressing).

And while I discuss this, lets go back to where we started. The story of it happening in Development Sector tells us how Action isn’t present even in the place where much is being talked about it. If a place that talks about action is a ground for such activities to happen, how do you expect a woman to react? How do you expect a woman to fight back? What will she do if the very people who are supposed to be helping her fight back are the ones doing the crime? When is it that enough is enough?

With all this and many more thoughts in my head, I sleep to wake up with hope that things would be better. But will they be if we don’t start the process at home itself? Will policies be effective if our judicial system fails to recognize the severity of the crime, the prevelance and so something strong about it rather than making the victim’s character societally raped by many a multiple times? Will it happen unless families of the criminal stop protecting them from it? Will it happen until we start doing what we preach & teach to all?

Be the change? Yes, very inspirational. But how far can one survive? Do we have positive stories to learn from? I am as clueless as any woman but I know that if things have to change, this is the time. Or its never going to happen. Support the victims around you, save yourself from becoming one, fight for every woman who faces this because it’s a Global cause and not just “her”story.