Women often find themselves up against gender bias in various aspects of their lives, from workplaces to social settings. Despite the country’s progress in many areas, women still face unequal treatment and stereotypes that make it difficult for them to grow and achieve success. Wondering where and how women face such bias? Well, the place never matters. Women are overlooked during promotions and sometimes they are not even acknowledged. So our team at Hauterrfly shared one of those incidents when they felt gender discrimination. It’s alarming and this needs to change!
Gender Bias Struggles
Janvi Manchanda, Associate Editor
Despite being a woman in power, I struggle to deal with men in power because gender bias still exists. I was once at a party where I was representing my publication and as I was leaving, an actor kissed me on the lips as I was saying bye to him and some of my friends. All I wanted to do was turn around and slap him for his behaviour. I watched him grin at me but felt so powerless at that moment. I couldn’t do anything because we were surrounded by the who’s who of the media and PR industry. My reaction could’ve resulted in me being tagged as someone who creates drama for “no reason”. And it would’ve reflected badly on my publication. So, my only choice was to let it slide.
Jasveen Kaur Sawhney, Senior Features Writer
As women, we often struggle with dodging hints and creepy gestures by men in power. Be it your boss at a workplace, a senior at university or an elderly family member, we’ve often seen the abuse of power by men. Women tend to zip up their mouths against men at higher positions, who hold the power to hire or fire them. I feel most of us are either tutored to stay shut in matters of harassment of all kinds, just because he’s the CEO, the boss, the senior or an elderly family member.
Pragya Dubey, Entertainment Writer
I am a hard-working, career-oriented kid in my house who is trying to build her name and identity as an entertainment journalist. However, whenever I sit with the elderly male members of my family, I feel my work is not being acknowledged enough as compared to the boys of the house. The elders are hardly interested in knowing about my job or struggles and milestones but are more attentive towards those who are chosen to be engineers or something. While I don’t bother myself much with this because I understand that there is still an unspoken patriarchy which reflects from their behaviour, I only hope that there will be a day when women’s work will also get the due appreciation.
Sakshi Singh, Beauty Writer
One thing that my mother has instilled in me is to treat everyone with respect irrespective of who they are and hence I kind of did expect it from everyone. Sadly this expectation from the world was recently shattered when I was travelling to UP via train when the train attendant chose to ignore me and my mother when he introduced himself to the other people. And by other people I mean two men who were sitting opposite from us. It was at this moment that I felt so disrespected and hurt that my existence as a woman didn’t even matter. Even though we were in the same coach, paying the same amount was still yet being ignored when it came to being served. I felt so embarrassed that I chose to stay shut I did not want to fight and ask the attendant to treat us the same.
Meghna Rajpal, Junior Features Writer
Since everyone inherits some toxic traits from their parents, I inherited my love for politics from my father. Being keen on debating about everything and anything, I sat with the male members of my family as they discussed the current government. While listening to it, I naturally had a lot of things I wanted to share and then at the perfect moment, I did. But to my surprise, most of them were shocked and didn’t acknowledge my opinions. They casually tried ignoring it until I raised my voice in the next opinion but changed the topic as they didn’t want me speaking up. I guess my space was in the kitchen serving them water and not sitting with them and discussing the water problems in our city.
From the pre-independence era to the so-called “post-independence freedom,” it’s like déjà vu for women – same old story, different cover. The judging game is now masked as sarcasm, but hey, it’s all just a “joke,” right? Women still find themselves walking on the same tightrope of societal expectations and double standards. So, while men play their sarcastic game, we women are waiting for the day when equality wouldn’t just be a punchline but a reality worth laughing about. Because feminism is a joke right?
Also Read: 5 Things Women Feel Guilty About But They Shouldn’t. Stop Being So Apologetic, Girl!