Learning on Gender & Sexuality?
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Every year, we do a unit on Gender in English with the 7th graders. We discuss roles, stereotypes, patriarchy, and the whole deal. Last year, we started with a commitment that we will challenge ourselves and the biases we carry.
Despite my sincere efforts to keep the unit “fair” to all genders, my students, especially boys, sensed hypocrisy. I wasn't truly fair after all. I carried deep seated biases against men due to my experiences with men in my past – experiences which were predominantly abusive. My boys challenged me – they asked, “you keep talking about how difficult it is to be a woman, to wake up every morning and structure your day to ensure that you don't get raped. Do you know what it is to be a 13 year old boy who is discovering his own sexuality and can't express it because of everything that patriarchy has been and done over centuries? Do you know what it means to get aroused by looking at a classmate and sometimes a teacher and not know what to do about it?”
I realized something that day. I don't have a penis. I am not 13 years old. I have never been a 13 year old boy and I will never feel what they feel. I won't ever know what it is to have your body control your brain for a phase in your life and not have mentors, older brothers, teachers or parents to approach.
This led to a turning point – with my school leader, I approached Reshma Valliappan, an Ashoka fellow herself for help. Resh's entry into my classroom and co teaching with her over the last few months has been nothing short of life changing. The trajectory we were on changed completely. We started where the children were, we honored their questions. We had many, many realizations along the way. We learnt how firmly our girls believed that anything to do with their vagina was bad or dirty. One of our first lessons for the girls was to be able to say vagina without flinching. We understood that we were shortchanging the boys by having only a woman teach them gender. We invited a man to co teach with me and the boys embarked on their own journeys to question the macho requirement that the society poses, to accept needs of their minds and bodies, and learn what to do with them.
I remember one of the sessions at the very end of the unit – boys and girls sitting in mixed groups of 4 and talking to each other – the girls explaining period cramps to the boys and the boys explaining unwanted erections at the wrong time and all of their struggles. There were no giggles, no discomfort.
That vivid memory will always remind me that patriarchy not only affects women, it also affects the men. It creates walls between men and women, and doesn't allow us to engage in dialogue. Teaching in Agni Prithvi shows me everyday that those walls can be broken and we can reach a space where there is equality AND where we honour each others' differences.
