- Since time immemorial, there has been this widely circulated, articulated, and accepted narrative that females are inferior to males. The narration continues to this day when the universe has undergone a metamorphosis into an unbelievably technology-driven development where females play an equally important role as compared to their counterparts. In the present-day world, females are second to none in participating in equal measures in every veritable field. The military, aviation, and corporate behemoths—all formerly seen as male strongholds—have all been readily vanquished by female dominance. However, some archaic behaviors like patriarchy and discrimination against men still rule the day.
PC: freepik
- As reported extensively with evidence and statistics, girls started dominating boys in the field of education long ago. But naysayers still have something up their sleeve to denigrate the girls by harping on their lack of mastery over a subject like math. It is an enduring myth that girls don’t do well in it, either because of a lack of interest, psychological and social hurdles, or even innate deficits in ability. Except that they do, and this lie has been busted again and again in exams around the world. A global Unicef survey of 83 countries found that adolescent girls scored higher than boys in math proficiency in 38 countries, while boys did better in 34, and there was no significant difference in 11. But in 81 countries, girls did better at reading.
- For the uninitiated, it has been reported that while gender gaps in STEM are widest in Latin America and narrow in the US and Europe, there’s nothing natural about it. Of course, teaching and policy interventions can fix it. Women outnumbered men in engineering in the ex-USSR and ex-Eastern Bloc, and that still holds. In India, women now make up 43% of the STEM education pool, one of the highest globally and steadily rising. It has been a while since girls have surpassed boys in schools throughout the world, as was previously indicated. Some have even gone so far as to claim that adolescents’ brains are neurologically better suited to learning and that social restraints harm everyone.
PC: freepik
- Yet another false narrative has been busted: girls need role models to excel in areas coded for boys, which require literacy rather than numeracy. Indeed, gender bias rears its ugly head with a vengeance in India after school when it comes to work. Social norms burdening women with professional as well as domestic responsibilities are monumental challenges that males are spared. No wonder India’s female labor participation rate is among the lowest in the world for its income levels. Nonetheless, women are steadily ascertaining themselves by overcoming old social pressures and prejudices—in all their obvious and insidious forms—to climb up the professional ladder. Three cheers for women’s power are in order!
