SKILLS ARE GENDERLESS

Many people categorize skills as a thing limited to a certain gender only. Most of those people consist upon the population of mild or older age. Our grandparents and parents specially in the region of Asia and south east Asia are of the mindset where they cannot afford their eyes to see their son washing dishes or even pulling himself to fetch a glass of water.

Aging has changed my mindset that I was born with. I have come a conclusion that skills are genderless and one should not limit himself or herself to numbered tasks. In Asian society females are taught that their ‘place’ in the house is the kitchen. They are ought to wash dishes and cook meals and ‘serve’ their men, tea. Whilst man on the other side is also pressurized to take the responsibility of ‘whole’ lot of family.  He is the person who is ‘required’ to provide with all the necessities his family needs. A boy from the start is taught with being the man of the house where he has the authority to command and a girl is taught that she should nod her head in the favor of the command that her brother/husband/father is going to say.

Whilst growing up in a brown household it was always understood that kitchen is the girlish part of duty and bringing the household stuff is ‘manly’. Slowly when you get to see other households and also other parts of world, where they treat a skill as a skill and not as gender roles, you start to question your whole system of beliefs. There are certainly gender defined roles but specified by mother nature and not by our ancestors. When a man has to travel and live by his own for the sake of his future, he should have enough basic skills to live by. He should be able to make his own bread and butter and clean his bed. Same is for a woman when she steps into practical life specially carrier oriented woman, she should be able to get out of the house and bring the bags she needs, she should have the confidence to reach out a car mechanic or a carpenter and deal with him herself.

This topic of basic skill learning was also taken under discussion on major informative platforms and during a live show a person from the audience said , “A women should know to to change a tire but she shouldn’t have to change a tire”. That’s what this is all about. There is a basic skill that you need to learn to spend life without being dependent on anyone and when the time comes for you to live by your own then you won’t panic about the girlish or boyish tasks anymore. A partner or sibling is always there for help and those gesture mean a lot when you share the responsibilities and duties but at times when you are required to be by yourself than you should not hesitate, keeping yourself and others at ease.

 

by:  Maheen Khan

Tags: SKILLS ARE GENDER-LESS

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