Sexism Is More Common Than You Think & It Starts In Schools

Despite seeing a significant improvement in the gross enrollment rate (GER)—a measure to determine student enrollment across primary, secondary and higher secondary schools, with GER for girls being at par with boys across educational levels, there is the persisting problem of sexism at schools.

Sexism is gender-based discrimination that occurs to maintain power differences between groups. This deep-rooted mentality doesn’t manifest overnight. It takes years of learning and conditioning for it to become all pervasive. And schools happen to be breeding grounds for casual sexism and even serious offenses like sexual harassment. An institution where children learn to build themselves become a haven of incidents such as the case of the ‘Bois Locker Room’.

But this form of prejudice is experienced from the same sex too when female teachers proudly rebuke girls for their skirt’s length, the colour of their hair, and simple things like how they sit. Since internalised misogyny is sadly a common occurence too. Here are some personal accounts of when women experienced sexism at schools:

Shubhangi Derhgawen

The 24-year-old Shubhangi Derhgawen distinctly remembers the instructional details given for uniforms in the school almanacs, which had traditionalistic views for how girls had to be dressed. “Girl students had to have their hair tied perfectly in braids with ribbons, the length of the skirt had to be knee-length and their socks had to be rolled up to cover their calves,” she said.

Derhgawen went to her mother to ask whether their generation experienced such things too, to which she laughingly replied that this had been indoctrinated since generations.

“Teachers would stand in the corridors and publicly measure the length of your skirt and she would open the folds of the skirt with her scale, humiliating the girls who were present there and sending a strong message that any girl who did not abide by the rules would face public embarrassment,” said Derhghawen. “One of the times, the teachers had a meeting and the head of the department threatened us that they would switch the uniforms to salwar kameez if we continued to wear short skirts.”

She added that untied hair was deemed as a distraction for boys. “They would ask you about who you were trying to impress.” Implying that, open hair attracted boys and it was the responsibility of the girl to conform.

She distinctly remembers that during eighth grade, her mother liked to put kajal on her, which was also weaponised against her, and became a question about her character. “There was no amount of sensitivity as teachers would make you stand up in front of the whole class and pin-point these things,” she said.

These moral lectures happened on a day-to-day basis with a girl’s modesty and dignity depending on how they looked and how they were dressed.

Being in a co-ed school it is but natural to interact with the other sex. “However, if you were getting friendly with a male classmate they would ask the parents to get involved. And if a teacher figured out that two people were dating then all hell would break loose,” she said. In such a scenario, the girls would get cornered more and lectured about how they were spoiling their future as if they were doing something abnormal, while boys were seen to be doing an age-appropriate act.

After a certain point of time in senior grades one develops a rapport with teachers, however this did not prevent them from engaging in old-school banter with students about who they were dating. “Once a teacher commented that I was a ‘player’ and she could see me in the corridor with a new male student everyday,” said Derhgawen. “Her face showed the disgust she had towards me, and she was extremely demeaning towards me.”

She internalised all the slut-shaming she faced and for a long time kept it inside her, thinking it to be a normal way girls were treated. “I made an internal check-list on my behaviour where I did not want to be perceived as ‘slutty’,” she said. Washroom doors were places where the sexist language penetrated as graffiti. “Phone numbers of girls were penned down and shared if they were considered a ‘bimbo’ or a ‘prostitute’ in any way.” There was no sensitisation or conversation around it. It hid in plain sight.

Moreover, she highlighted how the paradigm of beauty was used to judge who would be the protagonist in school functions. “More than your skill set, if you were conventionally good-looking you would be chosen to perform pivotal roles. Having dark skin I felt ashamed when the dance teachers pointed out that my skin colour was the sole reason I was not apt for a role.”

Finally in college she was exposed to feminist readings and professors who liberated her to claim her space and be the person she wished to be. “But the formative years of my life impacted me greatly as I was constantly curating a ‘perfect’, ‘well-maintained’, and ‘disciplined’ self-image,” she added. “There was so much brushed under the carpet and remains unaddressed till date.”

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Lavanya*

Lavanya* experienced sexism in various stages of her school life. One of the most prominent accounts was during class eight when all the girls in the grade were called to the auditorium on a sudden notice to talk about menstruation. “This is usually the age when periods start and the teachers held a meeting specifically for female students to be educated about it. However, it was such a hush-hush topic and we were told to not discuss the details of this with male students,” she said.

She remembers that this piqued the curiosity of male students and girls hid in their bags sanitary napkins in wrapped packets. “Whenever a girl stained her skirt, a bunch of girls would encircle her and try to remove it with a whitener.” A simple reproductive process became a taboo because of the initial teachings.

There was no end to sexism as she notes that even in twelfth grade a teacher tried to teach her a lesson on modesty. “The teacher called all the female students and asked us for a handkerchief. I handed mine and she rubbed off my lipgloss with it in front of others. I did not get a chance to retaliate and went silent,” she said.

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Aanya Wig

“I was termed not-such a good girl because of so-called transgressions I committed like the colour of my clips, the nail paint on my fingers, the way that I looked and who I interacted with, I was loud, my handwriting was not clean, and these things were a part of how I was described as a person,” said Aanya Wig.

She was well-recognised in the MUN circuit and had all the capabilities to become the secretary-general of the club, but was denied the position because of her gender that did not permit her to take leadership positions. “The boy who was given that position had spent lesser time than me participating and being a part of the club,” she said.

“I was dating someone who was older than me and the teachers intervened. They asked my friends to come to the cubicle and inquired about our relationship. One of the teachers asked me to not use the staircase that went to senior grades,” said Wig. Moreover, there would be so much gossip around who was hooking up with whom with female students bearing the brunt of getting their character assasinated.

While climbing the stairs, the teachers would look under their skirts to know whether they were wearing cycling shorts or not. “It was downright sexual harassment and irked me,” she said.

She believes schools should make it compulsory to have gender-sensitisation training and sex education for all students, teachers, and parents, which is currently abysmal in the Indian ecosystem.

*Name changed upon request for confidentiality

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