Recently I heard from a few male friends that they couldn't crack an engineering exam but a few girls who scored even 10 marks lesser than they cracked the exam due to the reservation of seats for female candidates. Their plight is very justified since half of the seats in any government conducted exam are already reserved for category students. Now in the remaining half, further division of seats is truly heartbreaking since there's a lot more pressure on male candidates for finding government jobs than girls (thanks to our patriarchal society.)
But the question arises, are women technically less intelligent than men? For sure there are a lesser number of women than men in prestigious institutions like the IITs, IIMs, etc., but on the basis of this one statistic, can we pass the judgement on the gender's intellect?
The Human Resources departments of several Indian state governments played the gamble of introducing reservation of seats in a few educational and services exams with the hope of a rise in life standards and education of women. The risk (which is apparently irreversible) went well in most of the states in India and the number of women in government colleges and offices has been increasing since then. A few of my family acquaintances who believed high school education for girls was 'enough' are now encouraging their daughters and sisters to earn a Bachelors and even a Masters degrees to land in government and private jobs.
But coming back to the point, are women less intelligent than men when it comes to cracking competitive exams?
Believing in the fact that brilliance is not gender-bias and that it is attained by practice and experience (and partly transferred by genes) I have noted down a few reasons for the same. While some of these points may seem 'lame excuses' to a few readers, these do have a deep impact overall.
To begin with, the ratio of male to female population in India is 1000:931, which is self-explanatory. Technically, there will always be one woman less than the number of men ( I don't feel like imagining the extra 0.31 of a woman's body. That's just creepy.) This might not appear as a strong reason in a classroom of 100 or even 1000, but in a nation of 1.31 billion people, the statistic is huge in itself, and worrying too.
Second is the patriarchy residing in our society. Many parents prefer saving money for their daughter's wedding than to spend on her education. If you peep in an IITJEE coaching class, the ratio of boys to girls in the classroom would be nearly 10:1, which gets forwarded to top engineering institutions of the country. You cannot expect the 13th player of a cricket team to score a century when s/he isn't allowed to play the match. Sure the number of girls in engineering colleges, especially in core branches like Civil and Mechanical engineering is increasing every year, it would take a lot of psychological and social effort to equate the ratio.
Social boundaries and taboos are a spiderweb and the biggest obstacle to the massive success of women in educational and professional fields. This begins with putting a woman's honour in her vagina. The 'return home before dark' policy has been killing potential working hours of women since a long time. My college hostel doors used to get closed at 8.30 pm while the lecture in my coaching class ended up at 9 pm (9.20 pm, mostly.) Every evening, I and my several hostel mates had to leave the lecture at 8.15 pm and rush to our hostel while boys could stay out 24*7 since they weren't born with the genitalia that 'preserves' their honour and respect.
Yes, exams can be even cracked without going to coaching classes, but there's no point of taking risks at this stage of life. And it's really not about cracking some exam; this is indirectly a way of telling women that if you don't want to be molested or raped, stop wandering around after sunset and trap yourself in your home to stay protected (!) We've been teaching girls to ignore eve-teasing and molestation in public places instead of taking a stand against it. Why? Because if you protest it, people would call you characterless (since you're speaking to a guy) and then nobody would marry you (of course.) We send her 12-year-old brother along to the nearby grocery store in order to 'protect' her even if she is a college student. While studying in class, apart from concentrating on the lecture, her mind keeps wandering from one thought to another; whether her bra strap is well hidden under her shirt or if the professor would give her fewer marks because he saw her talking to two guys earlier that day. All this subconsciously makes both the genders assume that men are more powerful and intelligent than women.
But the most important and disturbing reason is the future security given to women: the backup of marriage and becoming a homemaker. Since their childhood, people have been subconsciously telling their daughters (taking examples of others as well) that there is no need to worry if you fail in building a substantial career. We would buy you an IAS husband with our life savings and then you can happily produce his children and accompany him to his office parties because that's the reason why you basically exist for.
Before anyone raises an eye, I'd make it very clear that I'm not against the concept of homemakers (housewives.) If a married couple is okay with the husband earning money and the wife taking care of the house, I or anybody else has no right to judge. But what stops most women from giving their 100% efforts in career building in the backup of marriage. It is true that a backup plan never gives a cent percent success since there's always a psychological relief; something the men in our society aren't blessed with. Since deep down women know that marriage can solve many of their career related problems, they fail to put tremendous efforts, completely opposite to men. And all of this happens without them even realising the same.
The good thing is, there has been a tremendous increment of women in 'non-conventional' fields, like defence, entrepreneurship, construction, cinema, and what not! In fact, equalisation of men and women in fields like medical services, software engineering, sports, etc. has already been achieved. Ubdoubtedly, the broadmindedness in the future years would wipe off all the questions on female intelligence and open doors to a better world.
Image sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
But the question arises, are women technically less intelligent than men? For sure there are a lesser number of women than men in prestigious institutions like the IITs, IIMs, etc., but on the basis of this one statistic, can we pass the judgement on the gender's intellect?
The Human Resources departments of several Indian state governments played the gamble of introducing reservation of seats in a few educational and services exams with the hope of a rise in life standards and education of women. The risk (which is apparently irreversible) went well in most of the states in India and the number of women in government colleges and offices has been increasing since then. A few of my family acquaintances who believed high school education for girls was 'enough' are now encouraging their daughters and sisters to earn a Bachelors and even a Masters degrees to land in government and private jobs.
But coming back to the point, are women less intelligent than men when it comes to cracking competitive exams?
Believing in the fact that brilliance is not gender-bias and that it is attained by practice and experience (and partly transferred by genes) I have noted down a few reasons for the same. While some of these points may seem 'lame excuses' to a few readers, these do have a deep impact overall.
To begin with, the ratio of male to female population in India is 1000:931, which is self-explanatory. Technically, there will always be one woman less than the number of men ( I don't feel like imagining the extra 0.31 of a woman's body. That's just creepy.) This might not appear as a strong reason in a classroom of 100 or even 1000, but in a nation of 1.31 billion people, the statistic is huge in itself, and worrying too.
Second is the patriarchy residing in our society. Many parents prefer saving money for their daughter's wedding than to spend on her education. If you peep in an IITJEE coaching class, the ratio of boys to girls in the classroom would be nearly 10:1, which gets forwarded to top engineering institutions of the country. You cannot expect the 13th player of a cricket team to score a century when s/he isn't allowed to play the match. Sure the number of girls in engineering colleges, especially in core branches like Civil and Mechanical engineering is increasing every year, it would take a lot of psychological and social effort to equate the ratio.
Social boundaries and taboos are a spiderweb and the biggest obstacle to the massive success of women in educational and professional fields. This begins with putting a woman's honour in her vagina. The 'return home before dark' policy has been killing potential working hours of women since a long time. My college hostel doors used to get closed at 8.30 pm while the lecture in my coaching class ended up at 9 pm (9.20 pm, mostly.) Every evening, I and my several hostel mates had to leave the lecture at 8.15 pm and rush to our hostel while boys could stay out 24*7 since they weren't born with the genitalia that 'preserves' their honour and respect.
Yes, exams can be even cracked without going to coaching classes, but there's no point of taking risks at this stage of life. And it's really not about cracking some exam; this is indirectly a way of telling women that if you don't want to be molested or raped, stop wandering around after sunset and trap yourself in your home to stay protected (!) We've been teaching girls to ignore eve-teasing and molestation in public places instead of taking a stand against it. Why? Because if you protest it, people would call you characterless (since you're speaking to a guy) and then nobody would marry you (of course.) We send her 12-year-old brother along to the nearby grocery store in order to 'protect' her even if she is a college student. While studying in class, apart from concentrating on the lecture, her mind keeps wandering from one thought to another; whether her bra strap is well hidden under her shirt or if the professor would give her fewer marks because he saw her talking to two guys earlier that day. All this subconsciously makes both the genders assume that men are more powerful and intelligent than women.
But the most important and disturbing reason is the future security given to women: the backup of marriage and becoming a homemaker. Since their childhood, people have been subconsciously telling their daughters (taking examples of others as well) that there is no need to worry if you fail in building a substantial career. We would buy you an IAS husband with our life savings and then you can happily produce his children and accompany him to his office parties because that's the reason why you basically exist for.
Before anyone raises an eye, I'd make it very clear that I'm not against the concept of homemakers (housewives.) If a married couple is okay with the husband earning money and the wife taking care of the house, I or anybody else has no right to judge. But what stops most women from giving their 100% efforts in career building in the backup of marriage. It is true that a backup plan never gives a cent percent success since there's always a psychological relief; something the men in our society aren't blessed with. Since deep down women know that marriage can solve many of their career related problems, they fail to put tremendous efforts, completely opposite to men. And all of this happens without them even realising the same.
The good thing is, there has been a tremendous increment of women in 'non-conventional' fields, like defence, entrepreneurship, construction, cinema, and what not! In fact, equalisation of men and women in fields like medical services, software engineering, sports, etc. has already been achieved. Ubdoubtedly, the broadmindedness in the future years would wipe off all the questions on female intelligence and open doors to a better world.
Image sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
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