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Confounded III: It's in our genes

"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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