In the early nineties, The US had a gender disparity, when it was about individuals who had completed the education of 4 years or more after high school. There was more than a 10 percentage point gap between male and female numbers. Even if you had seen the employment numbers you might have seen a similar kind of a scene. Females have been facing severe consequences of prevailing sexist mindset . So we ameliorated our regulations, Administration and institutions to favour females. This actually worked and the number of females participating increased to an extent that there is disparity even today but the parties have been turned around. Today our institutions are favouring females so much that in certain sectors we see fewer men and don’t know why but this is being celebrated all around. Now the question arises why do we see fewer men?
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced its results in July 2022 for its 12th-grade exam. While the passing percentage of girls was 94.54 per cent, boys were behind by three percentage points at 91.25 per cent. Though this news of boys being behind was celebrated all around the country. I don’t understand why gender equality is only acceptable only when men are left behind. Didn’t it mean to remove differences and provide both genders equal opportunities? There has been great research on how the brain of both this gender develops. The outcome has clearly shown that there is no difference in adults but when it is to adolescents, a girl’s brain develops early than its counterpart. When both genders grow at different ages of life then why are they made to compete at the same age? Even results across nations prove to be evidence of how our institutions disfavour boys and men. This also creates a multiplier effect through a vicious cycle of the Fiasco trap. What calls for is the fact that our educational institutions disfavour boys and men by their default structure. Because earlier females were more exploited because of which we were not able to see this but as now this parity is reducing we can explicitly see it.
An extended version of the Fiasco could be seen in a man’s professional life also. In most of the HEAL(Health, Education, Administration, literacy) jobs, women are at large and in many of them men are near extinction. According to Unified District Information on School Education (U-DISE), survey, Total female teachers outnumbered male Teachers. Even in the US, the percentage of male teachers in total is 28% and this seems to be reducing as fewer men teachers are applying for the role. In India, Recently the number of female teachers outnumbered male teachers. Even in the IIPR-Indian Institute of Psychology and Research, the number of female students is 68%. There has been a constant vicious cycle as fewer males are in certain jobs. Their chances of getting into that job also reduce with every passing moment. More girls are now completing their education and this is been celebrated and this overshadowed the declining numbers of boys applying for graduation. There are no absolute efforts made in order to improve conditions for men.
Judicial systems were formed in order to provide justice to humans but it looks like even they now don’t consider men as human. The Pushkar Singh case didn’t find any social Media hype and got unnoticed in public eyes. Even his suicide note clearly mentioned that his wife was abusing him with a threat of accusing him of false criminal charges. Meanwhile, his wife was not even called for questioning by the police. This is because our law believes that only men can abuse their married partner. According to section 497 of the Indian penal code, consensual intercourse between a man and woman, where woman is the wife of another person. In such a case of adultery, men are the offender and shall of punished because she is always loyal to her husband and it was he who misleaded the woman. The worst it gets with the fact that there is no law in order to provide justice to a raped man because our law believes that men can’t be raped as they have no sexual dignity.
When it comes to realisation, we must understand that gender inequality harms all genders. It is not a subject of female abuse. Additionally, we are required to push up males in the sections where they are at disadvantage. We really need more male teachers because without them a coherent student development is not possible. For all of this, we need a paradigm shift in the individual and societal mentality by asking a simple question why do we see fewer men?
Uncovered Reality 