Posts Tagged ‘Gender’
“Where Will Boys Play?”
This question has been doing rounds in one neighbourhood for past couple of months. There are three important words used in the above question which can place this local insignificant issue in bigger global context. Human attitude is best manifested at micro level and holds mirror to the culture of a place.
Here is a small background from where this question and debate started. Above picture shows a small green patch in an apartment complex – ‘Landscaped Garden’, an important trump card and showcase of the housing project from its very inception. The other facilities include club house (open for all residents and their children) with modern gym, play room (with chess, carrom, pool, table tennis, and also basket ball, volley ball court on the roof), a community hall with banquet facility for social functions and a swimming pool. Another important fact is that this green patch with jogging track is a common space for some 500 residents!
So, there is already an answer to ‘where’ of the above question. There are enough options for the boys to play, but their choice is the game of cricket (similar to baseball) with a hard ball that can break window panes and damage cars. So natural demand is to open up this restricted ‘Landscaped garden’ (where only barefoot toddlers, joggers, residents are allowed for soaking in sun and fresh air). With nearly 200 families already residing and many with children, this move will surely turn the green lawn into dusty playground. Added threats of damage to window panes and cars will remain unsolved. It would be wiser move to encourage ‘boys’ to play other games which are available. But that is not going to happen. Why?
First of all it is human instinct to want to ‘use’ all available land that they own. This attitude of ownership and right to destroy has lead planet to climate change and global warming. We have cut forest, trees for human dwellings and enterprise. Now in spite of choked lungs in the crowded city we don’t like to think deeper and make that small extra effort to save the green. Ironically, it is also true that all builders and architects are being forced to accommodate green space in their plans, precisely for environmental concerns. There is an active green bench in all courts of the lands. Saving planet from perils of climate change and global warming is top priority of UN, Obama and all world leaders. Big changes are being implemented to cut carbon emission. But majority of residents want to be one large happy family oblivious to all harsh realities. Moreover the arguments say that greenery can be restored and green grass and plants amount to very little oxygen. Wish one could restore greenery around the globe so easily!
On Conflict, Gender and Rethinking the Battlefield
Conflict. While I do not think that letting select issues just “fly under the radar” will solve any problems I get a feeling that fighting across well-worn battlefields will only obscure the ultimate goals of reducing the need for conflict at all. I am responding creatively here to a previous post about the predominance and apparently endless ascendency of Man and masculinity at the cost of Woman. I agree that there is a certain undeniable centrality and power that has been assumed by the male in relation to the female in culture, history, media, politics and so on. However – I feel that the battle is being fought over ground so wretched with despair and the intellectual corpses of so many great thinkers that it has come to resemble a kind of Somme battlefield of muddy and endless carnage and destruction. I frame this as a separate discussion than that of the analysis and uncovering of the many ways in which men do exploit, dominate and abuse women – the argument as demonstrated here is about what may be underlying issues to this gender imbalance.
