A city NGO is conducting a survey among all children from slums it works with to understand their attitudes towards gender and the role of men and women in society.
The questions relate to situations in their lives and try to find out how this age group, from Classes V to XII, respond.
Some of the questions are whether
- Boys lose respect if they talk about their problems
- Boys need to be tough even if they are very young
- A wife should obey her husband
- Since girls have to get married, should they not be sent for higher education
- A woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together
- Girls like to be teased by boys
The students have to choose among strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree or strongly agree.
“The situations are not uncommon and if gender equality is to be taught to them, we need to know how ‘deep-rooted’ the inequality is in their minds,” said the education administrator of the NGO Calcutta Rescue. The survey will be done among 160 boys and 126 girls from financially deprived families.
Many of these students are used to seeing women as subservient to men. Women do not have a role in family planning, nor are they expected to raise their voice against injustice.
The NGO has a three-year programme and the first survey is to understand how they think now.
Another survey will be conducted mid-way and the third one at the end of three years to assess whether there has been any change in their thinking.
“It is important to understand their mental makeup. If we get an idea of that, it would be easier for us to address them and the training could be more direct,” said Ananya Chatterjee, school administrator at Calcutta Rescue.
“Often, the thought process of these children are a reflection of what they see in their homes and surroundings. They sometimes feel it is natural to behave in a certain way because they are used to seeing that in their homes,” she said.
Kids participate in the survey.
Over the years, however, there has been a change in the attitude of these boys and girls.
Some of the boys are keen on helping their mothers in household chores. Some protest when a girl is teased in their neighbourhood. “This is only the beginning,” said an official of the NGO.
“With this project we want to address this more aggressively and rigorously. We will also measure the change,” the official said. These students will be “the change agents” and through them, their families and neighbours will also be approached to initiate a change, said Chatterjee.
