"It's in my genes!!!"
How often have we used this as an excuse, especially when we
don’t want to change something, (be stubborn). It’s an easy way out. Genes are
what you are made up of at a micro-micro level and since that’s what you are
born with, there’s no way to change it. We use this as an excuse for overweight
(underweight), for bad hair, even our moodswings and tempers. But do our genes
determine our behavior? We learn, we evolve, when it comes to behaviour, it’s
not cause it is somewhere in our genetic makeup but its cause of the way we
have grown up to be. There is no gene for chauvinism, neither for ego-centrism,
envy, and temper. How we react, respond or behave can be attributed first to
our maturity at that point of time, and secondly our past experience. Just like
we aren’t born with pre-defined destinies, we aren’t born with pre-defined behavior.
A child that grows up seeing quibbles and fights is likely to be short tempered
just as a child that grows up in a peaceful atmosphere is more likely to have a
cooler temperament.
So when we say we are a male-dominated society, its not
cause its in our genes, but its cos we have built that way. A child learns what
it sees. Couple this with the “my dad, my hero” upbringing. So when a boy sees
subjugation of other women by men from his house (his father, brother others in
that order) he tends to believe that this is the way it is meant to be. When a
girl sees the same, she wonders why. As I said before with education comes
awareness, despite of it, the boy believes that subjugation is a commonplace
thing, and by virtue of it being so commonplace it is perfectly normal. The
girl on the other hand learns to question it.
As a part of the bourgeoisie in the 90s both working parents
was a fairly common thing. The attitude towards a girl child had begun to
change especially after they proved their worth in being meal-earners. The
girls were brought up with as much praise and pamper as a boy. Education was
obvious. The 90s saw the rise of women in the working class. These women not
only opened a new road, but gave dreams and hopes to a whole new generation of women.
This new generation was nurtured to be not just working women, but career women
as well.
But a woman still remained the home-maker, the one who cared
and cherished, the one who wove the straws together. This idea is probably
where the paradox sets in.
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