Gender Issues in Education

About this chapter

Gender Issues in Education opens by drawing the sharp line between sex — a biological, nature-given, constant and non-hierarchical fact (XX vs XY chromosomes, uterus, prostate, voice, menstrual cycle) — and gender — a socio-cultural, society-made, variable, hierarchical and changeable set of roles, expectations and personality traits (boys are bold and bread-winners, girls are mild and home-makers). It then builds the idea of gender discrimination (sexism) — denial of choice to girls and women that begins before birth (female foeticide), runs through neglect of nutrition, schooling, property and work, and ends in atrocities tracked by the National Crime Records Bureau. Causes covered: religion and tradition, Manu Smriti rules of 200 BCE, patriarchy, sex stereotypes, parental upbringing and textbooks. Status indicators are given numerically — 2011 census sex ratio 940 and child sex ratio 914, female literacy 46.4 percent versus male 69 percent in 2000, women doing 2/3 of unpaid manual labour, and the legal marriage age of 18 routinely violated in MP, Rajasthan, AP, Bihar, WB, UP. The chapter closes with the role of teachers in creating a gender-fair classroom for ages 11-14 — gender-neutral language, mixed seating and group work, equal expectations from boys and girls, no gendered jobs, and observance of International Women's Day. CTET Paper 2 tests this through definition items (sex vs gender, equity vs equality), classroom-bias identification, role-of-teacher prescriptions, statistical recall and the National Policy on Education 1986. The four tests — Practice 15, Quiz 15, Hard 15, Mastery 30 — cover all six topic areas at CTET depth.