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It’s been 76 years since India attained its independence. We can do whatever we want and don’t need to follow someone’s orders;  WE ARE FREE !

This hard earned freedom was something all the people under the British Raj fought for together. They laid down their lives so that the future generation would never suffer the way they did . But if you look down at your feet, you’ll notice a chain wrapped around your ankle. Everyone around you is tied down by the very same chain. Something we always felt was there but never dared checking out or tried getting rid of. Our guilty conscience makes us try to forget about this bondage, but every year our freedom fighters return to us, trying to wake us up from this drugged sleep that we have all been lulled into (thanks to the very outdated screw stuck in our heads).

We never were able to read their signals, but today, I guess we just did! Gender inequality and stereotyping, the chain and the screw, have been keeping our country from progressing to its full potential for decades. When someone in front of us is suffocating from this shackle, we stay silent, ,not wanting to get into complications of any kind. How many times have you been advised to stay silent while someone else in front of you is fighting against these evils? I bet many times. Ever wondered how many times must have we shamed our freedom fighters’ teachings on unity? They are some of the social evils that have been taunting the human race for a very long time. Many have lost their lives to it, dreams have been crushed, yet it is still accepted!

Parents, well acquainted with these stereotypes but lost in their worry of keeping their children away from such troubles of standing up against such evils, train and treat their kids in such a way that they grow up as humans with morals based on the society’s liking. Aren’t we disappointing our ancestors? For example, when a girl is born, her crib is decorated pink with flowers and butterflies; as she grows up, they buy her pink frilly frocks and dolls to play with. But When a boy is born, his crib is decorated blue. They buy him trucks, cars, action figures, or dinosaur toys.

With such treatments, aren’t the parents turning their kids into the classic boys and girls that society wants them to be? Aren’t the parents, knowing fully well the consequences of such child training, contributing towards corrupting future generations minds with such stereotypes? Aren’t they, in the end, investing in their child’s own torture when, in the first place, they did all of this to protect them? Aren’t they ruining their child’s future life all for the sake of their own momentary peace? Whenever we think of gender discrimination, we always think of the female alone, but what about the male? Society not only expects females but also males to act in a certain way. For example, boys are supposed to be rough and tough. They are supposed to go out and earn money for their family; they are not supposed to play with dolls, or cry, or even put on makeup in the context, ” You’re a boy ,not a girl! ” . Any mischief he does, is accepted everywhere, saying, ‘Boys are boys’, whereas Girls are supposed to be gentle, calm, composed, have long hair, look lean and thin, play with dolls, and not supposed to speak up. If they were to go out and work, they are still expected to take care of their kids and do all the household chores while it’s ok for the men to skip all the household duties just because ” They are men!” .

You must have never noticed, but did you ever count how many times in stories the girl is the damsel in distress, while the boy is the hero of the day? If a boy or girl disobeys these unjust laws then they are taunted and criticized by the people around them. They not only have to face social hardships but also struggle in their daily lives. How did we come to such a stage that we knowingly fuel the fire of discrimination? Why has crying become a sign of weakness and sensitivity? Why do we make women feel like a burden when she is responsible for our lives? How have we become so oblivious to discrimination that even if we have already faced it and know how horrible it is to be stereotyped, we still follow this invisible law? These differences were created due to the division of labour.

In the primitive times, the work was divided based on the physical abilities of both men and women. Men were given the job of hunting food for the tribe and women had the job of gathering herbs and other necessary items. During this process, both males and females were treated equally. But as time progressed, males started dominating society, while the significance of women started waning. As time progressed, work was divided through this pattern, leading to Gender stereotypes of males and females subconsciously in the minds of the society and over time these stereotypes became more and more rigid. Thus , the strength of our screw grew.

Today, these stereotypes are so intensely engraved in society that we unconsciously and consciously influence each other based on these stereotypes, even though many of us know how these stereotypes harm both genders. The government has been doing its part to discourage stereotypes by framing laws and organising events to support and protect oppressed people from this evil. These steps have made a lot of difference in our society, but not enough to banish stereotypes from our minds.

All we, the people of India, can do for each other is to be aware and spread awareness of the harm of stereotyping to everyone around us and discourage anyone who does it. We cannot progress to the fullest extent when half of our population is crushed by these views of both genders. Freedom is our birthright. This is another battle that we have to fight, but not with weapons or through protests, but through words, through compassion, through love, through empathy, and last but not the least ,with unity like our freedom fighters had. So this year, instead of simply saying that we respect and love our freedom fighters for what they have done for us. Let us take on this fight together. Help each other to take up this battle and fight against these shackles of ours that have kept us to the ground for so long. 

It’s about time we break into the skies.

Jai hind!