I was reading The Guardian today and saw an
article that resonated with me- letters addressed to Sir/Sirs when the person whom you are addressing the letter to is a female. I get plenty of letters- requests for post-doc positions, for internships, for project positions. Most of them are addressed to Dear Sir. Some times I just delete the letter. After all it is address to Dear Sir and I am not that. Some times-especially if the writer is a female- I write back pointing that I am a female and absolutely offended at being addressed as Dear Sir. Some times, as it happened with our Assistant Registrar who addressed a letter to all the faculty members as Dear Sir, I went over and asked him from what angle do I look like Dear sir? He and I laughed and now he addresses all such letters as Dear Faculty Members.
Gender biases are deeply ingrained in us and it is difficult for people- of both sexes- to see women at positions that were traditionally held by men.
In India we also have the tradition of greeting the guest of honor with bouquets. Of course, the women are the ones who have to give out the bouquets. Women are also assigned the job of finalizing the menu in many meetings. They tried it in our school till they figured out that none of the younger female faculty is willing to take up that job. Now they do not ask us.
Apart from gender biases, there are others. Caste, religion, intellectual...the list is endless.
Today I had to go to ICCR for a symposium. As the International Students Advisor this is the only meeting that I am supposed to attend and this year ICCR decided to hold a 2-day conference to deliberate on how to attract foreign students to India. The guest of honor was the MHRD minister-Smriti Irani. She has been reviled and most of the intellectuals dismiss her. After all she is not college-educated and she has been an actress. What does she know of education.
As she walked into the hall, most of the people stood up. I did not because I am still angry at the way the government played out the February 9 issue and the sedition charges they slapped on our students. JNU has now become (in)famous.
The event started and the first thing was lighting the lamp. When she came forward to light the lamp I noticed that she was barefoot. She lighted the lamp, went back to her seat, and her body movement showed that she was wearing her footwear.
Then she was called forth to deliver the keynote address. We all noticed that others had bits of paper to consult and in fact the President of ICCR read out his address, but Smriti Irani came forward and delivered a speech without any assistance. She stuck to the point, was not melodramatic as she was in the parliament, talked about the government initiatives, and had the statistics. I do take exception to the fact that every initiative is going to IITs and the universities are not being consulted but that is an aside. She did point out that the Government is going to bring out University ranking list on April 4th and we will know where JNU stands.
The event got over, there was a photosession, and I was standing on the pavement when she left in her car. She was seated next to the driver and her secretary was seated behind. Growing up in Delhi, amongst the bureaucrats, I do know the conventions. You sit behind the driver, with your nose held high. Never ever do you sit next to the driver as though he and you were equals.
I still do not like her performance in the parliament, and I still do have my own reservations, but it also made me ask whether I am also playing out to the bias. This time of an intellectual snob. Possibly it is time for me to see her as a grey character rather than a black one.
