There has been a lot of talk about changing the mindset in our patriarchy leaden society, families though there is no clear indication as to how this could be done.
Two points of actions that can be initiated in indvidual homes come to mind :
a) Parents (especially mothers through their conditioned instinct and awareness about the patriarchy in action, but fathers no less if only because they provide the theoretical underpinning of patriarchy) should not discriminate, in the real sense, between the boys and the girls. Have you ever seen mothers asking boys to try doing normal household chores (say, helping the mother in the kitchen or taking care of a younger sibling instead of going to school or preparing for a competition) which a girl child is routinely expected to learn and excel ? This also includes the discrimination about norms of gender-appropriate behaviour. Of course significant discrimination about food, nutrition, medical attention and education - sometimes subtle, sometimes open - exists and must be eradicated. This will require the parents to fight their own acquired prejudices handed down through family and strengthened by cultural stereotypes promoted in both real society and in the entertainment world.
b) Parents must teach their children to accept NO for an answer as a part of the civilised behaviour. And this is not just about the material goodies that they need for their satisfaction. Perhaps it is time the parents bite the bullet and actively educate their children in a calibrated manner about sex, at least as the latter move through their unstable adolescent years. The parents, having the best interests of their children, can be expected to impart reliable information in a matter of fact manner. This should not be left alone to outside agencies like schools. In particular they must also teach the children about the delinquent and sexually deviant behaviour and how society looks upon and how they punish those who inflict such cruel hurt on girls or even small children. This will require a major effort on the part of the parents in removing their own mental block and making the trade off between the prized innocence of childhood against an appropriately organized training and mental preparation in respect of an everpresent threat to their children’s safety. There can be no two opinion about the need to impart, simultaneously, rigorous physical and self-defense training.
Mindset is a devious thing. Most if not all of us imbibe this from our family environment which gets ingrained much before we are equipped to confront it rationally. This also works in an insidious manner through the interstices of a mind given to lazy generalizations, accepting received wisdom and parroting the same without realizing the import of what we are saying. The deep-seated mindset also often causes a divergence between our professed liberal opinion and a not-so rational and anything-but enlightened behaviour, results in our acceding to retrograde suggestions, proposals, requests made by friends, relatives, allows people who by virtue of being in superior or respected position to remain an unquestioned authority for us. If we seriously intend to fight the backlash of the patriarchal mindset we need to root the vestiges of the same within ourselves. The purveyors of false Bharatiya cultural construct and its claptraps would not have been able to withstand our withering gaze if we had chosen to sport one.
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