Lead..Activity

Fellows of Deshpande fellowship program Cohort II conducted sensitization workshop on gender at 'Samarpan School of Social Work, Sahitya Bhawan, Dharwad' on 15 February 2009.
On 15 February we (Chandru, Beerlinga, Davalsaheb and Ajay) reached Samarpan College at 9:50. All students were ready for the session so we started session at 10:15 am. First students welcomed us and then we introduced with all students.
Ajay started session with the sentence ‘what is gender’? Most of the students replied that gender defines male and women and it is sex. In proceeding this session it was asked students that whose face comes into mind and why? When we listen the word like- Home maker, Child care, manager, pilot, Prime Minister, president, driver, money earning, and soldier etc. According to designation and word they define following-
Driver- Men-> stamina, observation, intelligence, roots, alertness, skills, physically strong,
Taking care of child- women-> love and affection, nourishment, feel the needs, more responsibility, first teacher, non verbal communication
Earning- Men-> capacity, knowledge, strong physically and mentally, hard worker,
Looking after home- Women –> patience, perfect for home, supportive more time in home, mainting kitchen, guide, HM
Decision making for carrier- Men -> (head of the family, culture, experience, patriarchy family, guide the family, educate, economic power, source,
Prime Minister-Men -> (policy maker, direct representative, head of the cabinet, mass leader, law maker, responsible)
President- Men-> (leader, innovator, mass leader, authority, head of the nation, well wisher, international, representative
Manager- Men-> (skills, brilliant, managing people, administrator, leader, good planner, decision maker, guide, advisor, facilitator)
Police /Soldier- Men -> (powerful, stronger, courageous, intelligent)
There we discussed on each role of men and women. During this discussion some questions were raised that Women are more responsible for discrimination between boys and girls, they are the first teacher, they spend more time with kids, and women are more responsible for all house work. Men are giving opportunity to the women but they are not ready to take. Women do not have that much strength to deal in society. Men are stronger than women etc. For satiating all these queries--------
Ajay continued this session with power point presentation on 'socialization of Gender’. After defining the definition of gender and difference in gender and sex. This presentation was based on the process of socialization in human life and how a boy and a girl are treated in the society, how all stake holders of the society support and encourage discrimination against a girl/women directly or indirectly. During the presentation there was used one play on how we are promoting discrimination against a boy and a girl and this play was performed by student voluntary as part of this work shop. How our identification as a men or as women relates to the particular things that we use in our daily life it was shown. In the last part of this workshop we discussed on gender tree. It was showing that what are the things like social values, our behavior are deepen in the society like a root of a tree and in stem social institutions- family, education, media etc promotes these values to spread and at last in the farm of result that indicates in a tree as fruits and leaves shows discrimination against women and violence against women.
Learning:
Session was interactive, participatory and debatable some time.
First listening to the students and then replying logically was good method.
In all regions/states most of the situations are same related to men's behavior with women.