A child is like clay, and our readers opine that they take the shape of how society moulds them. The society in which we live has age-old norms and customs that one is expected to follow, rather than our innate nature. Hence, girls are expected to be girls, and boys, of course, boys. Anything that does not adhere to this is a ‘no-no’. Our readers strongly voice that this should not be the case

How often have we seen people staring at a boy who is crying, or giving a glare to a girl who is riding a sports bike? Isn’t this because of our stereotypical way of thinking where girls and boys are made to think in different/opposite ways? However, the most controversial question that arises is — is it in the nature of people to have different thoughts according to their gender, or is it nurturing that has led to such a disparity in the way we think?

In my opinion, it is the nurturing that brings the disparity. Societal rules, laws and boundaries instead of accepting a human the way s/he is, creates an ideology of how that person should be on the basis of their gender. People are forced to become that ideological person as a result of which such generalisation can be seen in people. For people who don’t care about society, they accept themselves the way they are and as a result of that independence and freedom, we can see a handful of women coming out as stronger bodybuilders than men, and we can see men admiring the colour pink, and this change is beautiful.

— Mahima Poddar

Girls playing with dolls and boys playing with guns are nothing but nurture. From generation to generation, boys have been taught to be brave, while girls are left at home with dolls, decorating them and making them beautiful. When such a concept is passed down, it is obvious for a parent to be afraid when their child is showing behaviour that is opposite to what is expected of him/her. Hence, roles are nurtured rather than natural.

— Tulip Gyawali, Minbhawan

When a boy wears pink or plays with dolls, he might be taken in a different way in society. So, being protective parents, they might want their child to dress up based on their gender, and not by choice. I think this sort of mentality must be amended to discourage gender inequality.

— Sunita Bhattarai

We are not born human but made human, so that the role, responsibility and even personality is shaped thus. We are born with empty minds and later given knowledge through our parents and environment. It means the gender roles are taught to us and it is not by nature. Biological sex is distinguished by nature, whereas gender is by the society where we live.

Our child’s personality totally depends on what we teach them and in which environment s/he grows up. The learning process indicates that our choice is influenced by parents, what you give a child to play with when s/he is young, later developing an interest in that. All the colours and toys are made by human beings and are only things to play with. I think, a mother doesn’t have to worry about her son if he chooses pink as his favourite. These are only stigmatisations. We can change these stigmas by changing our perception.

— Nabin Joshi, Mahendranagar

Gender roles are an artificial creation by our society and thoughts, and not always suited to our real life situations. Ethnic communities spread across Asia, Africa and Latin America have distinct societal norms and customs, languages, socio-cultural practices and also social prejudices that often shape and guide their societal gender customs and practices. Even highly democratic western nations too have many practices based on their socio-cultural traditions that are well suited or acceptable to modern day gender neutral socio-cultural life. It is important for all of us to understand that every human being as an individual has a distinct existence and has the right to live life in his/her own way unless it is harmful and/or destructive to society or other individuals. Hence, we should not emphasise too much on gender bias and norms and make the life of our children difficult and complicated. We should rather allow them to grow and pick their own likings to help them develop their natural personality without strong social and family interference and prejudices; and turn them later into responsible citizens. The plight of transgender/cross dresser children needs to be particularly highlighted as society, both in the east and west, have strong prejudice against them and do not treat them well for their natural choices. Gender roles should be an individual choice and both society and family should stay away from dictating them.

— Saikat Kumar Basu

I think it’s a balance of both. Gender doesn’t necessarily affect our overall personality, but it definitely invites a certain criteria and trend that we feel obliged to follow. Society itself has distinguished certain roles and duties for males and females as by nature there is a huge difference between these two genders. This may be because of biological, developmental and cultural factors. Undoubtedly, men and women are two sides of a coin. Yet these two sexes are uniquely different. At an early age, most of the boys are likely to play with toy guns, whereas girls love playing with dolls, and we people are so habituated to this fact that we find it a little off-track and awkward when a boy gravitates towards dolls and girly stuff. But we need to realise that each and every individual is unique in his/her own way and each has the freedom of choice.

— Binita Devkota

We may have seen in our own society that some men act or have habits like that of a woman, or vice versa. We also know that this not taken as normal. Everyone has his/her own choice and acts according to his/her comfort. If a boy likes pink and dolls and doesn’t show any interest in games played by other boys, this might get his mother worried thinking that this habit of his is not normal. But the interest of that child and what he is comfortable with should be considered here. He probably isn’t trying to be a girl, or act like a girl. He is just who he is. It just happens that many of those things intersect with what people culturally and commonly associate with femininity. He just doesn’t feel comfortable pretending to like things that are associated with masculinity because that just isn’t him. And he probably enjoys hanging around other people who also like what he likes, and in this culture those people are more likely to be females. If there were a bunch of boys who liked what he likes, he probably would hang out with those boys too. People are who they are. Try to behave the same with all. They are just what nature wants them to be.

— Aayusha Dhungana

Yes, it’s correct that our society has the notion that a girl should be playing with dolls instead of guns, and a boy should choose other colours than pink. This is not by nature, it’s about nurture. People have followed different norms like these ones as part of norms. From the time of our forefathers we have learnt how a boy should act, and how a girl should behave and those are being practised till now. What our forefathers taught our elders, they followed them, and they want us to follow the same norms. In our society, we can find that the girls and boys are discriminated due to their gender. If a boy does night shifts, we usually think that he is hard working, but if a girl works at night the same way, she is called a s***. Our society sees a boy to be a leader, a little rough and little rude, whereas we want our girls to be polite and simple. This is how nurturing plays a role in gender discrimination.

— Sandeepa Baral, Pokhara

I feel that gender role is a tradition that has largely affected the social transformation of our country. A girl child who has been barred from picking guns over dolls, despite her wish to choose guns, may cultivate a feeling of apathy towards her parents and brothers. This results in low esteem among the girls due to which their personal and social development is halted. Similarly, I feel that pink colour and dolls must not be reasons for gender discrimination between a boy child and a girl child, and so there is no reason to worry if a boy child says that pink is his favourite colour and picks dolls at toy stores over guns. This is one of the reasons why, unlike, in the western culture where these matters are considered trifling, our country is lagging in gender equity and social development. Hence, I think gender roles cannot be nurtured in any sense, and has become a nature in our country.

— Sujan Subedi, Sinamangal

It is the way society nurtures people that today’s boys and girls are introverts. It’s the society that has given the tag of ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ to the people. They have figured out the attitude of boys and girls in such a manner that they feel ashamed of exploring their inner beauty which resides in them. When a girl asks for a football, her likes are not considered and boosted; rather such likes are pushed to a corner of her heart that dies with her in her society. Our home is our first school and our parents are our first teachers where we, being boys, are taught to like sports and for girls it’s always those cute looking dolls. If we never try to get over our desires we shall never learn our true self. It has and will always be the society that has nurtured us to learn something. It is nurture that has made boys and girls different and whose desires for life have been forced to be bound in certain limitations.

— Anonymous

Stop reading this for a moment and act like a typical girl throwing a ball. Probably, you just bent your elbow too much and gave that imaginary ball a weak throw with a slight jerk of your head. Well, if that’s what you did, then you haven’t seen a girl playing or it’s your nurtured mind that created a stereotypical girly figure. Right from our childhood, we are taught that girls are not good at sports, they want everything in pink, and are too emotional. But these are taboos, not nature. Those children who are too young to understand our teachings and too innocent to judge whether pink is girlish or not, laugh the same way, eat the same the same way, dance alike and play with whatever is in front of them. So, gender-based characteristic differences are just false labels that society has established which are deeply rooted in us. In fact, each and every one of us is unique and no one should be ill-nurtured to think that pink shouldn’t be worn by boys or toy guns aren’t for girls. And boys don’t ruin your life thinking only girls ought to cry; cry your emotions out.

— Sudesha Rimal, Koteshwor

I believe nurture is more dominant than nature in the choosing of dolls or toy guns by the immature ones. No child is born with the knowledge of colours and playthings. The way our parents nurture us is different for boys and girls. When the offspring just begins to learn words, his/her bed is full of teddies and the kinds of teddies differ for a boy and a girl. It has become like a compulsion to let a baby girl play with dolls, and a baby boy to play with guns, but the vice versa is never entertained. Parents do so as they see — no doll for a boy. Also we see parents try to shape their daughters or sons as the perfect model and thus there enters preferences of one colour over another although it’s their time to play and grow. Every guardian loves their children in an unbiased manner, but they set boundaries for minute things like specific colours and toys as per their gender.

— Sankalpa Bhusal, Chitwan

Simply gender roles is a term that defines the behaviour that a person is expected to follow being male or female. For the development of children, nurture and nature play a big role. But in my perspective, nurture plays a big role in the character and behaviour development. The care given to children defines the differences and similarity between children. We all know that children model the behaviour that they see in their environment. A boy child who is living in a family with more number of females, he somehow will have behaviour like that of the females, and vice versa. Like a member of a family is afraid of insects, the boy or girl living in the family feels the same. Mostly they learn things by imitating others’ activities. But their natural physical appearances do not change. Our personality is shaped by the people who we meet and how we are raised. Also the environmental behaviours where we live have an impact on our activities.

— Ekata Poudel, Pokhara

Well we have different varieties of cultures being followed. But, I guess there is one trend that every people of the world follows — dolls to be provided for girls and guns for boys. I protest this because there is no certainty that girls will only want dolls and pink as their favourites. Even I am a girl. So whenever I do some sort of actions like that of boys, I am scolded. In our society, it seems that someone has made a rule that girls should play with dolls only, and everyone must follow it otherwise, it’s a sin. This is not true. If we just don’t care about it and let children be free to pick up whatever they want to choose, this problem will not arise. The only thing I want to clarify here is that we must be modernised as well as civilised which will avoid such a trend in society.

— Deepshikha Gurung, Pokhara

Gender refers to attitudes, feelings and behaviours that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex. Our culture and society behave differently with boys and girls. It is common in society to encourage girls to play with dolls, whereas providing freedom to son. It could be their nature, but also probably it’s the nurture and care of parents who follow what society has defined. Both boys and girls need to be encouraged to do their best according to their talents and should be equally respected. This will play a role in standardising gender roles. Girls are scolded by parents when they play cricket or outdoor games; they are told to play with dolls. Girls can do better if they are given opportunities and encouragement like boys. Therefore our outlook towards children’s interests should be positive.

— Kamal Mani Aryal, Pokhara

I can be wrong but a part of my mind thinks that it is nature indeed. Let’s imagine the world where everyone is like a fire. Our world will surely be destroyed then. Our society is balanced only because we have made someone the fire, while someone else is the water. The same applies here too. Also, physically, boys are specialised for harsh activities like playing football or volleyball under the scorching sun rather than girls who have soft skin though they are able to do so too. I don’t think making girls play with dolls is curtailing their power.

— Prayash Paudel, Pokhara

Of course it’s traditional gender roles which has been playing an important role when it comes to creating a big difference in between males and females in the Nepali society whose result can be seen in the way parents think about their sons and daughters. When it comes to selection of colours, I really don’t think pink is connected only with girls though it’s a favourite among many of them. These days even boys are found preferring pink as the colour of their choice. It’s the same with me because I’m trying to do away with that traditional concept.

— Pratik Shrestha, Buddhanagar, Baneshwor

In my opinion, it is nature because from birth we human beings are bound with social thoughts. Division of likes and dislikes are done on the basis of gender. The coexistence between males and females is not impossible, but is always difficult. The child, whether a boy or girl, will end up being taught many different sets of behaviour and how they should act. Boys and girls both are taught different values, norms, emotions, sports as well as what colours to like. It is almost a large or major issue.

Being a mother is a difficult job. Mothers are always worried, especially when it’s about their children. When their male child starts to like the colours and other stuff liked by girls, mothers are worried and initially blame themselves. This is because our society, religion will not accept such a condition and they see it differently, more so view

it negatively.

Nowadays, education and social awareness on gender roles are spreading. The given statement also creates an issue of gender equality. Gender equality is the state of equal access to resources and opportunities. It also means fairness of treatment of men and women according to their respective needs.

— Sujita Shrestha, Tahachal

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Most of the time we claim that we dress to please ourselves. But then we dress mostly in accordance with who we are meeting, and for what occasion, despite our dislike for that particular attire (style). So, is it important for you to dress for the occasion/person (maybe also out of courtesy), or is it more important to follow your individual taste whatever the occasion or who you may be meeting? Why? Illustrate.

­Send your replies in not more than 200 words by Friday, May 19, 2:00 pm to Features, The Himalayan Times, e-mail: features@thehimalayantimes.com