Your mouth and Society's Gender Biases

“Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.”- Betty White

Back in December 2012, much of the nation's educated urban class youth took to protesting in reaction to the brutal rape of Nirbhaya. As educated and smart and gender neutral supporters of gender rights, we all live in a patriarchal society, making it difficult for us to truly escape gender bias even in our own lingo.

The above quote is a perfect example of this. Friends tell each be courageous, though not always in a serious manner and hence the quote, 'Grow some balls'. Understandably when this is said no-one means any gender bias, but when such a line is being used, the speakers must understand where it is coming from. Grow some balls might as well mean man up, or be a man or to be courageous is to be a man. Once again, understandably the speaker does not mean this gender bias when they say this, but a long time ago this was where the meaning was being derived from. 

The same goes when a person uses the term 'pussy'. The term is usually to call some one a coward. Understandably when the person uses this term there is no gender bias intended, but long ago this term was derived from the idea that girls were weak and cowardly.  

These are only two such example and such lingo is present in our vocabulary and though we do not mean any gender bias when we say it, lingo reflects the biases of our society which we inevitably, adopted because heck society is just too great to resist. 

If we hope to live in a gender neutral society in the future, we need to clean up our lingo too. We need to shed out all things that stem from a patriarchal view.
Sure we can evolve the meaning. The word 'fuck' has evolved and transcended all sorts of meaning and no longer just means sex. 

But understand, we have to shed off gender biases which humans have been developing since we were cave people and to not shed some of those linguist terms that have some background in gender biases is just risky. 

Note: It is understood that balls refers to the male genitalia and pussy refers to the female genitalia.  

Kill the Railway Minister

The shocking increase in prices of railway tickets as promoted me to write this post.
Ministers act when only their backs for political reasons are against the wall. Otherwise, they are content with bickering among themselves.
The reason for the rise in railway prices is many, among the chief causes is the rising fiscal debt in the economy which is not a good thing in the long run, plus the rising demand of international loaning agencies to pay back the loans, which means international pressure. Another reason floated around, is the increases in prices to counter looses incurred by subsid pricing.
These rises are just blatant with no really benefits to the consumer, us.
Go back to last year, 2012 when Dinesh Trivedi was the Railway Minister and he proposed the railway budget in March 2012. Though he did increase railway fares, he planned to introduced more safety measure, improve services and create a better travelling experience for the public. Heck, he decided to do away with open defecation in trains and install organic tanks to collect the waste.
The result, every politician abandoned him, including his own party, Trinamool Congress. He was immediately removed for his decision. Politically speaking, what he did was considered political suicide by the his peers , because railway prices are rarely increased and the aam aadmi would be hurt.
So yes, he was removed.

A year later, the prices have been increased because the Government's back is against the wall. No promises of any kind have been made.

Interestingly while all other national and international issues are being question and covered in the mainstream media, such a issue which hits every Indian is not even being discussed or question.

Heck, when I googled the question 'Why has the railway increased prices India?'
There was no google prompt.
Maybe people are just not bothered about this.

Juvenile Death Clamour

Two of the suspects caught in the Jyoti Sing Pandey are under eighteen and hence can only be persecuted in by the Juvenile laws, which do not result in sever punishment, but instead leads to the juvenile being put in remand homes.

Since the arrest of these two juvenile suspects there has been growing clamour for the death sentence to be used against the juvenile suspects. Rumours have even floated that the government would take such action. 

I strongly object to any such positive action towards these clamours. 

Given that rape as worse as it is worse than death. The post-rape psychological trauma is beyond death. Perhaps it can be argued that death penalty will act as a deterrent, but in no country has approved death penalty for a juvenile and no country developed or developing or non-developing has rape stopped. Rape is about power. But that's not my point.

Juvenile law applies to those below eighteen who are not only accused in rape cases, but murder, thievery, molestation, fraud, and any thing that is illegal. 

 The argument for juvenile law is that the person is not fully mature enough to make the right decision and is strongly influnced by those around him/her. Hence the juvenile law shows leniency and sends juveniles not to jail, but remand homes (which in reality are terrible in India)

It is absurd to think of involving juvenile with death penalty. What needs to be done is amending the juvenile law, and lowering it to a lower age, perhaps sixteen. India is a developing country and with the media enriched world we live in, children tend to mature much faster.
Still that obviously does not fix the problem when one finds fourteen year old's or eleven year old's.
The answer is never simple.
Clamouring for a Juvenile death penalty is not the answer, in any way.