By Nidhi Kinhal
Lately, we’ve been finding many instances of casual sexism in school textbooks.
Last month, a Delhi University Basic Business Communication textbook said, “Email messages should be like skirts– short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover all the vital points.” In May, a CBSE Economics textbook thought it would be cool to explain national income and unpaid labour with an example of a male employer marrying a female maid servant, who will continue to do the same work without payment. In April, a class 12 textbook declared that they knew the ‘best shape’ of the female body.
But this education starts early, it looks like. Anais Leclere, a 21-year-old French student interning with ActionAid, studied NCERT textbooks for a year, and found that we teach kids stereotyped gender roles through school textbooks from as early as class 2. She analysed Hindi, Maths, English and Environmental Studies textbooks, and found that there was a difference between National Curriculum Framework’s guidelines, and the books. The textbooks portrayed men as the ‘heads of the family’, while women were confined to domestic roles, such cooking and other household activities such as taking care of children. Of course, men are depicted as breadwinners (shoppers, doctors, scientists) and women, relegated to teaching, in saris.
The study also showed that men are appreciated for their accomplishments, but women are glorified for their helpful, nurturing qualities. Expressions like “father’s hard-earned money” make a generalised association between the workforce and men. Like Leclere says, “Gender discrimination is implicitly present in every textbook.”
The analysis doesn’t stop at just the text. Image and visibility is also a powerful way to condition these stereotypes among children. The class 5 English textbook revealed that 56 percent of the illustrations featured only men and boys, and only 20.6 percent of them portrayed women. Even though women are engaged in construction work, they are absent at these sites in NCERT textbooks.
Every time someone spots a gender-biased or sexist depiction in a textbook, there’s always that one defence of how anecdotal observations hardly confirm a general bias. But with Leclere’s study, it seems clear that we’re hell bent on passing the prejudiced, oppressive world we live in, to future generations. Because such persistent stereotypes not only saps motivation, but also nurtures gender stereotypes that have a pronounced effect on children. Whatever happened to egalitarian approach?