3 min readNew DelhiNov 9, 2015 12:56 AM IST
First published on: Nov 9, 2015 at 12:56 AM IST
In a landmark judgment in April 2014, the Supreme Court recognised transgenders as the third gender, opening doors for a more gender-inclusive society. Over a year later, with the same aim, two students of Jamia Millia Islamia have formed a first-of-its-kind gender forum in the university called Yalgaar. Their aim is to give a call for equality which seeks to move beyond issues of feminism generally associated with gender forums.
“Understanding feminism is very important and perhaps one of the basics when talking about gender equality, but we didn’t want to limit ourselves to that. We want to promote an inclusive understanding of gender. When one only talks of women’s issues, it creates a hierarchy within genders which we don’t want,” said Shaifila Ladhani, an undergraduate student of Psychology and one of the founding members.
She, along with Hardik Dua, an undergraduate student of Economics, came up with the idea of starting the group. The first meeting was held in mid-October and was attended by 33 volunteers. The topic was the differences between sex and gender and the meaning of feminism. Ladhani said she was surprised to find how little clarity some people had of concepts others considered to be basic.
“There were so many volunteers who had an incorrect understanding of feminism, seeing it only as men-hating women who don’t believe in equality and instead perceive themselves as above men. But through debates and discussions, we… made them understand that even men need feminism as patriarchy typecasts them too,” said Ladhani.
Dua agreed that society stereotypes men, seeing them as queer or gay. He also said men were not difficult to mobilise for such causes.“It’s a perception that people have and one can’t blame them because those are the norms by which they have lived. This is what we want to challenge. When we go out to involve people, it’s not about man or woman, it’s about values. Someone who is orthodox is definitely tough to convince, irrespective of gender,” he said.
Yalgaar’s plan of action is to gender sensitise these 33 volunteers by February 2016 and make them the core team. Then, the group hopes to reach out to every department and make people aware of gender issues by organising seminars and cultural programmes.
For this, the group plans to collaborate with other gender forums. “We are hoping to work with Parivartan (the gender forum of Kirori Mal College, Delhi University) and Breaking Barriers (the LGBTQI campaign of Tagore International School). We are also in talks with the Deans’ Student Welfare office to see if our group can become Jamia’s official gender forum,” said Ladhani.
Share
