Gender bias is a mindset issue, not an ‘older generation’ thing
A boy and a girl play. My friend says her grandfather recently told her that as the firstborn, she does not count because she is a girl.
What you need to know:
- I watched my childhood friend's relationship with her grandfather crumble after he declared she "doesn't count" as a firstborn because she's a girl.
- Through this incident, I realised how gender biases transcend generations, challenging my initial assumption that such prejudices were merely about age or lack of exposure.
Recently, a childhood friend and I got caught up in a long phone conversation that wound up being a reminder of the gender stereotypes that still afflict big pockets of our society.
Growing up, my friend often heard theories labelling her paternal grandfather as a chauvinist. Some relatives claimed her aunts missed out on education because their father did not support educating girls. However, with him, she could not independently verify these ‘allegations’ because she hardly spent time.
It's true that her paternal aunts did not attend school, but she struggled to connect that tragedy with her grandfather, who seemed amiable. That was until a recent visit. During their conversation, he told her that, as the firstborn, she did not count because she was a girl. He said this directly to her face. He then promoted her younger brother to the status of firstborn. Naturally, my friend, a dutiful firstborn, was hurt by his words. She raised the issue with her father, who took it up.
A few days after that unsavoury encounter, my friend says her grandfather called her to borrow money. Obviously still reeling from the hurt of being sidelined and facing the reality that her grandfather may truly be a chauvinist as she had heard, she told him to call their firstborn and ask him for the money. My friend’s reasoning was that if she did not count to him with regard to her birthright, there is no reason she should be helpful to him in any other way.
The year is 2025; can we agree to put away unnecessary retrogressive cultural biases?
My friend’s relationship with her grandfather has been dented in a way that may never fully recover. I was going to say maybe the older generation did not have as much exposure as we do now regarding gender, until I remembered two things. One, there are men, way older than my friend’s grandfather, who do not bias their children based on their gender. Two, I also happen to know younger men who are practicing bigots. So no, it is not an age or generation thing. It is a mindset issue.
I think the goal of this piece today is to say, let us be careful about the ways that we invoke gender in our conversations. Your words could be the reason someone loses faith in their capabilities, or even the beginning of self-doubt that could mar lives significantly.
Several years ago while watching the film adaptation of Winnie Mandela’s biography (starring Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard), a younger cousin who was in the living room with me, tapped me and worriedly asked, “What is wrong with girls?”
The question seemed to have flown into the room from a place I did not know or could not trace. I asked her why she thinks anything is wrong with girls.
My question to her was to help me understand the context, and also give me time to gather my thoughts. She pointed at the movie. I had paused it to listen to her. Until that point, I had not realised that she too, was watching the film – I had assumed she was on her phone.
The scene, which had got her anxious, was the one where the character playing Winnie tells Nelson’s character during a date: “I was a disappointment. My father wanted a boy. And I was the sixth daughter.”
I had a crash course with my then 10-year-old cousin about the unfounded gender biases in our society. That was also the day I realised that explicit content is not the only thing we should be worried about younger people consuming on TV and books.
Sometimes what really messes them up is the lack of proper synthesis of the information. After our conversation, I couldn’t help but wonder what my cousin would have concluded was wrong with girls if she did not trust me enough to ask that question.
I still do not know the medicine for gender biases or bigotry. The most I can say is let us think more critically about how we relate with cultural biases, and what really we should be passing on to the up-and-coming generations.
The writer is the Research & Impact Editor, NMG ([email protected]).