The Gender Perception

As a teenager, life teaches me new things everyday, every moment. I might seem naive to write this but there are several times I have had encountered it and I seek answers. I'd gladly take any answer with a better justification for an adolescent to understand. I shall not use the names in order to keep their identities as safe as houses. It’s a fragile topic and people may have their own views, this “article” depicts mine.

To start with, I do have many female friends, in school and outside school as well. I've always been told by people or brought up to understand that it's nothing to be ashamed of when you do make friends with someone of opposite sex. But the situations invariably seem paradoxical, as we grow older. Most of us would have been attending in a coed school and dealt with simple cases of being teased and made fun of. It’s something which everyone faces, and yet we live with it. But what happens when those who are older, more mature and experienced does something like this, if not the same? People tend to think there is something wrong if a girl and boy are seen together. It comes naturally to people; the mindset is glued that way. 


Come to think of it, I would like to narrate my experience to you- It was the last day of school, the last practical examination of class 10^th and then we had our “board” examinations conducted in another school. Two of my friends were quite upset and were sitting at a distance from everybody else. Like any other true friend, it was my duty to cheer them up. So I did, I was sitting there with two of them trying to console and assuage them from their sorrow. As it happened, a teacher saw me with them and called for me to ask what I was doing with them. Although I never found her to be there where she had asked me to meet her, my conscience asked me what made her think so? It’s invariable in India as far as I've experienced, any friend of opposite gender at this stage of our live is thought to be as “girlfriends” or “boyfriends”. Girls suffer a lot because of this. I've seen it. Since girls are seen as the softer and vulnerable ones, they are often deprived of their enjoyment and experience of living life. It’s true, when people don’t get what they want, and get desperate, it’s an irreversible situation of them getting into things which is not morally accepted amongst the society. Why a robber does indulge in robbery? Is it because he gets pleasure out of it? Or is it the need that drives him to do so? According to me, I think it’s the latter. I know it’s a mere insecurity amongst parents to let freedom get to their daughters but when you don’t even let that bit of it which everyone needs do you make the situation any good? I've seen people still distinguishing between genders, families giving more privileges to their male child rather than female. This is where the irony lies, boys tend to get more carried away with the freedom given to them. I am not saying everyone is like that, but the general tendency of boys is always like that and I’ve seen it. But more to the topic, why do people have such mentality? Why such a cynical point of view? At one end people say that there should be more understanding between both genders and make coed schools and at the other, create the barriers of such thoughts and distance them from each other in the same schools which you made for students to understand each other better and create a sense of collective belonging. There are lines which aren't meant to be crossed and people don’t usually do it, but at this point of our lives when we should have a better communication and understanding, people with such thoughts still are a bane. I don’t wish to create a controversy nor do I pretend to know everything and be the bigger man, I just want to quench my thirst of inquisitiveness. If I have enraged or given a soreness to someone’s feeling, I thank you to bear the grudge against me, I wish nothing, but to give people something to think about.