Some Impression of Gender in India

One Out of Ten

“Look around, Cyrus. How many women do you see?” My friend P asked me as we finished our flower market visit near old town Hyderabad. The old town is one of the most crowded areas in Hyderabad, the silicon valley of India. Still, I only counted to 12, which was about 1/10 the number of people around me. “Most women stayed at home and don’t come out to work….some are not allowed to come out to work.” I later learned this from my manager at Umeed, a women empowerment social enterprise in Hyderabad, as she explained why they started the organization. “We first noticed the problem of women not working when we were teaching children during the Teach For India fellowship program. One day we noticed that kids are not coming to school because they have gone out to work and make money for the family. The weird thing is that the mother did not go out to work. After talking to them, we realized that working outside the house is rarely an option for women in a traditional household. That is the job of the men.”

Wedding Vows

“What are they saying to each other,” I asked my friend V as the bride and the groom walked around the fire seven times and exchanged their vows. We were sitting at the wedding of my manager from Umeed. He didn’nt translate all 7 vows but I remembered the first one he told me: “The guy is saying something like ‘I shall protect and provide for the family,’ and the girl (my manager), is saying something like, ‘I will be responsible for the household management.’ “I wonder how she feels when she says something like that.” “Haha, it’s just tradition.” I later looked up all seven vows. Most of them were the groom promising something and the brides promising to support that something. I felt a disconnect between what I knew about my manager, an entrepreneur fighting against gender inequality, and what I heard in the vows.

Couchsurfing

I had always thought that Indians find foreigners interesting as they always approach and greet me with curious eyes and friendly smiles, until S, a woman I met during my couchsurf in Jaipur, told me that, “I think they are too ‘interested in’ foreign women.” Over our trips, S had made the same comment at least 10 times, which goes, “I think he (our host) is interested in me. These Indian men are always so desperate for girls. When they offer to host you on Couchsurfing, it feels like they are inviting you to sleep with them.”

I used to be confident when I told people, “Oh yeah, India is super safe. You can just walk around and travel by yourself.” But after talking to my girl friends and exchanging our experiences with getting around in India, I became more reserved with my comment. Now I would usually add, “But if you are a girl, I think it would be better if you have a guy friend traveling with you.”

Fun Fact

A guy and a girl cannot get together in the same room in a hotel unless they are related or married.

Umeed means “Hope”

I was on the motorcycle with a local guide while the 4 other team members crammed into the back of a small car. We were just leaving a Madrasa near Old City, Hyderabad. I didn’t get into the car with them in part because it was already packed, and in part because it wasn’t “appropriate” for a 20-year-old guy to cram into a tiny space with so many girls — I was the only guy in the team of 10 people interning at the women empowerment organization. As we weaved through the winding alleys towards my boss minivan on the main street, my scooter driver stopped by a corner and told the guy sitting there something in Telugu. Twenty seconds later, the guy handed him a bag of a flower, which he handed to me with a smile and a “for you.” I was not sure which of my privileges was at play, but I felt very privileged — to be able to ride in the open air instead of squeezing my face off in a tiny car and to get flowers.

It was one of the trips we made when I was working with Umeed. Umeed carries out programs that aim to help women become financially independent through craftwork and career training. In the beginning, it was hard to believe how challenging the situation was. We heard stories about the participants from the previous batch. “One time, we got a call from an angry husband,” my manager said, “he was yelling over the phone, saying ‘what did you do to her? Why does she start talking (back) now?’ I was so scared for the girl but also so proud of her.” My boss also told me about her being harassed by a participant’s husband because he thought Umeed was “brainwashing” her. “We always need the buy-in from the husband or even the mother-in-law for the women to join our program.” Sometimes the women wouldn’t come back after a few weeks or would come black-and-blue. It was impossible for me to relate to a situation like that.

But my boss reminded me that “Umeed means ‘hope’!” Throughout my time with Umeed, I learned that they have seen successes with past participants. The woman whose husband thought she was “turned” had eventually decided to leave their toxic marriage. Umeed has also connected to government officials who were willing to connect them with the community that might need assistance. “It was not easy to get the women out of the situation, but when we see their excited face when they went to IKEA for the first time or when they get pizza for the first time, we know that we can keep going.”

Although my internship was interrupted due to the pandemics, we moved our work online and managed to finish our project in an unexpected but still meaningful way. Half a year later, my boss shared some good news. Despite the pandemics, another batch of women had finished the program and was ready to graduate! When the situation seems stark, I realized I sometimes get cold feet. After all, how do I solve a systemic problem that has haunted a society for decades and even longer? But working with Umeed taught me that empathy should not stop at understanding the pain of the underprivileged. Empathy should also help us see hope in the situation and in the people we support. My friend A once told me when she was talking about fighting climate change — even though we are still far from the ideal world, and perhaps we won’t ever see the new world with our own eyes, I would not stop trying to do something to make it work. After all, Umeed is not just for the women we are trying to help but also for the people who work day and night to help.

Moms and Teachers

“I feel more confident after today’s event because I know that I am capable of this.” A teacher spoke up during the debrief/ feedback session; her voice so convincing and powerful. How rare is it for a teacher to get excited about her own growth, and how empowering is it to see an Indian woman speak up so proudly and confidently? Everyone echoed with the teacher and continued to speak about their takeaways. The room was filled with excitement about the success of the first public education meeting in the community. 102 parents — mainly mothers — had shown up to collaborate with the teachers to envision a future for their kids together.

I was in awe sitting in a circle with Abhijit, whom I met at my boss’s wedding, and instantly connected with our passion for social issues and sustainability, the school’s principal, and 22 teachers. I see that Abhijit has built up trust within the team and given the members confidence and knowledge to take initiatives and be responsible for their own community. How did you guys build this up in only 6 months? “The circle is the key!” He explained. The circle represents the wisdom of ancient Indian communities. Everyone has a voice, gets to question others, and gets challenged by others before coming to a unanimous conclusion. No one is left behind. “When you give everyone the same voice and show them that no one’s feelings and thoughts should go unaddressed, they start to learn the importance of conversations and feel respected and comfortable when they express themselves. That’s how trust came about.”

At the end of the meeting, he left one questions with the teachers — “now that we are at the end of phase one of the change, you can either continue to phase two, which would require more time and effort and intensive preparation for the next 12 months, or we can call it a day here and feel happy about what we have achieved.” “Are you worried that they will back out and this project would not go anywhere?” I asked after the meeting. “If they really don’t want to do this, then I cannot force them because this is their fight and they have to become independent,” he said assertively and neutrally. From day one, he gave them the right tool and right mindset to fight this fight by themselves and for themselves.

As I was leaving and waiting for our Uber to pick us up, I look back at the school. It was only one small building, but it has contained so much hope and energy that could build up the students’ and the community’s future. I smiled and felt totally reenergized as I hopped in the car and tried to remember everything that had happened by heart.

Question

A few months later, a friend asked me a question (technically two)that I think everyone should try to answer — “What does it mean to be a woman, and what does it mean to be a man?”