….because there are more girls!!!

Today, passing by temple I saw crowd, nothing was new to that, every Tuesday people come there to please Sai baba :)  I taken that crowd for granted as normal person does. After reaching at nearby ‘kitli’ (tea stall), I attempted to strike a conversation with gang of boys sitting there. I asked simple question to them, why do they come to temple? And in light mood two of them answered, because on Tuesday there good number of girls comes to temple!!!! This response actually forced me to think lot many things about gender relations in society and culture. It also enabled to give answer to one of my friend who was irritated by discrimination of boys in several aspects of social life.

One of my friend was irritated by discrimination happening to boys during festive time of Navratri (for those who don’t know- Navratri is traditional festival of Nine Nights, celebrated in mainly in Gujarat where girls and boys does traditional dance for whole night ) where guys are highly charged for passes and girls are allowed almost free. There are many such situations where state, market and society favors fair gender most as compared to other one.

The roots of such discrimination lies in culture itself where some spaces are exclusively created for particular gender, like males are excluded from certain marriage ceremonies. On other side, female are excluded from certain ceremonies like cremation ceremonies. These are the spaces created by culture which completely excludes other gender groups like third gender (Hijra in India), gays or lesbians.  Our culture doesn’t even give space to such groups.

Culture directly don’t excludes or includes people, its interest of state, market and society which formulate laws, values and norms in culture. For instance, Festival of Navratri is not only limited to cultural aspects but is blended with economic and political interests.  Market people are very much aware about psyche of society like where there will more girls, boys will get attracted and these boys will be ready to pay as much as it can be demanded just to dance with girls for whole night!!! This strategy has created disparities.

It is we, the people who surrenders to such strategies of market for the sake of ‘worldly pleasure’. It’s we who create and observe such discrimination. Culture is formed by our shared thoughts, but instead of sharing we have started accepting thoughts and strategies of market and because of this we face imbalance (what is called gender discrimination). Market is meant for profit, at any point it won’t compromise with its ideology, it’s up to us how much we are able to understand keen patterns of market (& its profit intension) and how much we are able to frame newer cultural forms with minimal disparities in society.