Dear Qari...

Are we casually sexist?

Dear Qari,

As I sit here and muse about how to start telling you this thing that has been bothering me of late, there is a certain incident which happened long ago that comes to mind.

It's the day when the parents are supposed to to come to school and review our quarterly exam papers. A day which a student really looks forward to, if the marks (or grades) have exceeded expectations. The parents are happy and they might even buy the student a present, on the way back. On the other hand, if they are below expectations, then this is the most dreadful day (academically) in a student's life.

As far as I was concerned, the expectations were always of the highest bar and anything below being the top student is always a disappointment. The fact that we already know, that we have underperformed and have a separate day to make a spectacle out of it, is indeed depressing. Now that I am older, I feel like this particular day should be treated as if one is going to meet with a doctor, the teacher being the doctor and we students being the patients who require diagnosis and appropriate medications to cure our academic ailments.

On this particular day, I am hanging my head in shame as I have achieved a lowly second place in the entire class, just five marks short of a rather academically flamboyant, otherwise soft-spoken young lady.

We (my parents and I) have reviewed our papers and make the heavy walk to the class teacher's table.

"Oh, he's a wonderful student, but if he just reduces talking in class and pays more attention, I am sure he'll be able to do better."- The standard statement to every parent whose child is doing pretty well in the class but have not met the parent's expectations.

We walk away from the teacher after a short discussion, most of which includes how I am irresponsible, waste a lot of time and apparently am so lazy that I don't even bother to study my academic lessons properly. It is during such times that I feel like retorting with a smart ass reply along the lines of  "If I'm so lazy, how am I second in the class just a few marks lower than the first ranker?" But I know better to keep my mouth shut.

I know that this incident seems completely random, childish even, but I'm getting to the point.

"Even a girl is getting more marks than you? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

This statement comes from my parent, not immediately after school, but later at night when I, after an exhausting session of homework and study, sit at the dinner table, taking the first bite of food.

It is this statement that has haunted my mind lately and has been bothering me for some time.

It implies that I should be ashamed of scoring lower marks than, not a fellow classmate who, god knows put in a lot of work for her achievements, rather a mere girl.

The weaker sex!

The, dare I say, subservient!

Of course, the statement is not meant to humiliate the other person rather it is to motivate me, the boy.

The stronger sex!

The dominant!

Another such incident comes to my mind. This is not out of personal experience but something I have observed over time.

A woman is given a specific task to do of which the parameters and targets are exactly the same as that given to a man. The man completes it but the women is unable to achieve the intended result and thereby has left the task unfinished. Having said that, she has covered almost everything but just at the end, she was unable to complete it. The superior looks at the scenario. He understands that the woman has put in a lot of effort in to the task but he wants it finished. He asks the woman to leave for the day, congratulating her on a job well done.

"For a woman, you have done a spectacular job. I'll complete the rest somehow. You can leave for the day," he says.

Now, my dear Qari, is the superior being compassionate or is he limiting the capabilities of the woman, who with some more encouragement, could have exceeded her own abilities and found out, much to her delightful surprise, she is quite capable than she initially thought?

Are we, in the name of being compassionate and caring, stunting the development of our fellow human beings? In the day and age where gender equality is being increasingly implemented, are there some inequalities even in those equalities?

An example being, for two vacant jobs in an organization, hiring a woman and a man might be considered as the organization promoting gender equality. But in the division of labour or rather assignment of duties and demanding accountability, are we still trapped in our patriarchal pasts. 

I am pleased to tell you that in the workplaces that I have had the opportunities to observe, I can see that the assignment of duties and demand of accountability is based on the position of the individual, rather than the gender. However, there is still a stench of our roots where, when a man has performed lesser than a woman, he is reprimanded in the same context as I was, while sitting at my dinner table, all those years ago.

In the view of motivating a male individual, why does one have to downsize the achievements of a fellow female? I fear that by doing this, we are instilling in our society the completely erroneous viewpoint that men are indeed better than women. If a woman has done better than a man, then it must mean that he, the man, hasn't toiled hard enough. If he tries pushing himself, to his utmost potential, he will definitely do better than a woman for a woman's potential is never ever as equal as to that of a man.

Am I a fool to ramble about this? Is this something that I should take for granted? Should I accept that even if our society, which has been and still is immensely sexist,    grows to an extent were blatant sexism doesn't exist will still be confined to the shackles of being casually sexist?

What do you think, my dear Qari?