Girls Can Do What Girls Can't Do

PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Role Model for our Girls

"Mamma, boys in my class tease us saying, girls don't know anything!" Chill runs down my spine every time I hear this. My daughter is just seven. Where do these gender biases come from? Just to set the backdrop right, let me tell you, she goes to a school of repute in the city. Boy girl ratio in this school is one is to one. The school was founded by a woman, a widow, who was looking for a good school for her own children, in the sixties. No small feat! 

These stereotypes are difficult to dispel. They are in the structure of the society itself, one of those beams that holds up the roof. Our boys need examples that dispel their belief about girls, as much as our girls do, to know their worth.

We do what we can, we tell her to believe in herself. We tell her to analyse such blanket statements and see if there is any merit in it. There are just too many 'whys' for our comfort. It is her peer group that needs to rise up and accept that girls are no different from boys. How can we instil that belief in this generation of innocent minds, who are, quite evidently, already taking advantage this social lacuna?

So here is what Olympic medals did to our little home:

My daughter is scared of the dark, she is scared of ghosts and even some scary pictures in Geronimo Stilton! We never ridicule her for that. We humour her, but to be by her side, as she does her mundane daily activities every evening, is quite a strain on us. We want her to take her time to grow out of her fears. How long? I am not sure but it is bound to end.

Today, as we finished watching PV Sindhu's match against Carolina Marin, adrenaline drenched, frenzied environment lit up our drawing room, mirroring the excitement in the Olympic stadium. Just after the match, my daughter needed help with combating another tryst with the dark. 

"The lights are off in that room, come with me." Her entreaty.

"Did you see PV Sindhu, how brave she is?" I reminded her. 

Believe it or not, she did not think twice, she went straight into the dark, alone. Now that is, in no way short of a miracle! 

It does not end here, very quickly my daughter recalled the girl teasing that happens in her class. She was already connecting the dots! I had a ready response, "My dear, girls are no less than boys. Did you see the muscle of Sakshi Malik, did you see the resilience of PV Sindhu?" 

Salute to India's darlings, PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Dipa Karmakar, Mary Kom, Kiran Shaw Majumdar, Punita Arora, Arundhati Bhattacharya and many many other trend setters. You are all role models for India's girls and Indian women. 

I remember reading a blog on Mycity4kids, which said, girls are not equal to boys, you can't compare apples to oranges. I resonate with that. No one has the right to take away the individuality of either, for any bias, any selfish gain and any ill-conceived notion. As women we mother both girls and boys, we cannot glorify one at the cost of the other. Striking that balance is what our society is yearning for.