Session on Gender Sensitization
Gender equality has been a pressing concern across all the nations. It is necessary to educate the young generation that the gender-based stereotype mentality of certain parts of the society is changing in the corporate world. The students of SCIT 17-19 batch were part of a lecture conducted by Ms. Renuka Mukadam, a consultant at SATHI-CEHAT. She is an external member on the Internal Complaints Committee of various Government and private organizations and conducts workshops on gender sensitization.
The main agenda of this session was highlighting how society has put up a stereotyped attitude regarding the roles to be played by male and female counterparts. In the corporate world, equality and justice play a vital role. Even if we debate that men and women should be provided equal opportunities in every aspect, but the real existence of the scenario is pretty hazy. She showed us a video which explains how a boy was made to hide his tears and forced to take up professional life, and on the other side, a girl was pushed into household chores and, also repeatedly dragged to the domestic work even when she wished to pursue a career and be a working professional. The video was touching and realistic. Then she asked the students regarding the toys each of them was gifted in their childhood. Most of the boys said toy car, toy guns an, cricket bat. A majority of girls said that they were gifted Kitchen set on their birthdays. Her motive behind such questionnaire was to show the society’s mindset behind forcing interests as per the gender. Then she showed us another video over workplace harassment faced by women which was released on International women’s day.
She not only discussed the gender sensitization issue but also notified us regarding various laws formulated for the protection of women facing workplace sexual harassment. She mentioned the various occasions where women can file a sexual harassment case. She even mentioned that the cases once filed are thoroughly checked and scrutinized. Any woman filing a sexual harassment case against the male counterpart just only for the sake of revenge or other ill motives, which doesn’t satisfy the SHWP clause, will not be spared from the prosecution.
The social dynamics are changing. Women are excelling in every domain. From social to stock market, women-power has been predominantly carving their way to the top. But still, there are occasions where we lack to give the respect they need. The progress of a community should be measured by the degree of progress which women have achieved. The information shared was very helpful for the students.
By Jivitesh Das
