Mr Rakesh is cycling across India to understand ‘gender equality’ in India. As he says “we have stringent laws to stop crime against women, but the crime still happens.’ He is trying to find what social dynamics leads to these crimes and how we look at gender in our society.
His interaction at campus raised few questions
- We never talk about Transgender as one of the gender – they are almost non-existence.
- What about crime against men?
- What makes a person violent?
- Why are we afraid to go out (girl child, parent of girl child?)
- Where does this fear starts and how we also starts create beliefs about girls and boys?
- How do we come out of this belief? Is fight against men the solution or trying to prove ourselves as stronger than men is the solution or accepting what we are is the solution?
- What about other crimes? and other violence?
With him we also visited nearby village. We realized that we just wanted to give our message, listen and understand what they think and why they do? When one of them expressed “I beat my wife” we immediately were “why?”
Well, for some of us it was surprising to realize that how unconsciously we are adding to this gender race, Initially we expressed ‘we do not have any difference’ and in the same breath we shared how we make friends with same gender or say ‘this is for girls and this is for boys’.
Still pondering, “Is it natural to take up what area of work we choose or it is conditioned by the beliefs “this is meant for girls and this for boys?”
Watch videos – Sharing his journey