Gender Sensitization

Article for Middle Space (Appeared in The Hitavada on 13 June 2013)

Gender Sensitization

By Jyoti Patil

The other day my son came home fuming and seething with anger. I was little surprised and started guessing what must have happened to him. I thought it must be some verbal dual with his friends or some problem in settling the deal with some company. I first gave him water so that he came back to his normal mood. When he settled down he started firing volley of questions towards me. Why, why on earth you always talk about gender sensitization? Why do these ladies come out on the streets and create problems for men out there? I objected to it. I enquired what exactly the matter was. Why on earth are you against the ladies in particular? Oh mom, they talk about equality for them, freedom in all spheres. So why not face the situation with equal challenges? Ladies first, reservation for women, 50% reservation in politics, 37% reservation in jobs and  for particular jobs women candidates are preferred, all these examples show that they are already a privileged class and why, why on earth they need more and use these prerogatives to take on the  boys in any way. He continued to vent out his resentment against women in general.

Oh mom, these women have no sense of direction, more so they have no sense of proper driving. RTO should put a ban on women drivers, particularly the two-wheeler drivers. Whenever the regular flow of traffic is interrupted, you surely find a woman driving some two-wheeler in haphazard manner that too without giving side to other commuters. She would have her own pace, own speed variations, her own quaint ideas of direction. She would move aimlessly towards left, then would turn to the right unnecessarily. Others would only wonder which direction she would take next to baffle the people behind her.

I tried to pacify him, Okay, tell me what really happened. My son then opened up and narrated his experience. One lady was driving a car and she was not ready to give side for at least 15 minutes and some vehicles were honking behind her but she was just adamant. With her nonchalant speed she was moving precariously to any side which pleased her. I was helplessly following her as she left no option to overtake her. I felt like asking her who the hell has given you the license to drive (to create ruckus on road). She was simply creating a traffic chaos.

 Even the other day a girl was driving a moped and had the impression in mind that she was flying some helicopter. She zoomed past me just to bang on the rear of a plush car. Whenever the green signal is on, these young butterflies are the first ones to cross the road and move past all the vehicles whether it’s Karizma or Aviator or for that matter a BMW.  They don’t have any direction sense even if they are walking as pedestrians. Traffic police display all the rules time and again to use zebra crossing while crossing the busy squares and watch the traffic lights. Preference should be given to the bigger vehicles. In that way trucks should be given priority to ply on busy roads, then cars and then two wheelers. Pedestrians should always wait for their turn and if they violate this rule their life will be at risk. But these women always think that they are faster and quicker than any other vehicles on road. And the blame falls on that hapless driver, who unluckily becomes victim of their whims and meets with an accident due to unpredictable moves of these women.

The other day when I was crossing the Ambazari T- point, an elderly lady, who noticed me coming and giving horn to stop, she tried to compete with the speed of my Karizma and started running to cross the road first. Thank god, my vehicle has strong breaks; otherwise something might have happened that day.

Another important Traffic rule for pedestrians is that they should always take the right side while vehicle drivers take the left side of the road. More so they should always take the extreme side of the right hand of the road. You can not walk on the middle of the road. But you can see the hefty ladies for evening or morning walk take the left side of the road and that too almost the middle of it. I always feel like singing this song in whispering tone whenever I see a woman crossing or walking on the middle of the road: “Jane wale jara hoshiyar yahaa ke hum hai  thanedar, pichhe pichhe hamare car sawaar….”

I told him that I also belong to the same creed and what he is saying is just the half truth. Most of the time, the boys on the road are reckless. My efforts to defend my point and give him some lessons on gender sensitization only fell on deaf ears. And the conversation ended with him calling me ‘a female chauvinist’, a new topic of discussion.