NCERT Class 7 Civics Gender

Growing up as

Boys and Girls

Being a boy or a girl is an important part of one’s identity. The society we grow up in teaches us what kind of behaviour is acceptable for girls and boys, what boys and girls can or cannot do. We often grow up thinking that these things are exactly the same everywhere. But do all societies look at boys and girls in the same way? We will try and answer this question in this chapter. We will also look at how the different roles assigned to boys and girls prepare them for their future roles as men and women. We will learn that most societies value men and women differently. The roles women play and the work they do are usually valued less than the roles men play and the work they do. This chapter will also examine how inequalities between men and women emerge in the area of work.

Growing up in Samoa in the 1920s

The Samoan Islands are part of a large group of small islands in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean. In the 1920s, according to research reports on Samoan society, children did not go to school. They learnt many things, such as how to take care of children or do household work from older children and from adults. Fishing was a very important activity on the islands. Young people, therefore, learnt to undertake long fishing expeditions. But they learnt these things at different points in their childhood.

As soon as babies could walk, their mothers or other adults no longer looked after them. Older children, often as young as five years old, took over this responsibility. Both boys and girls looked after their younger siblings. But, by the time a boy was about nine years old, he joined the older boys in learning outdoor jobs like fishing and planting coconuts. Girls had to continue looking after small children or do errands for adults till they were teenagers. But, once they became teenagers they had much more freedom. After the age of fourteen or so, girls also went on fishing trips, worked in the plantations, learnt how to weave baskets. Cooking was done in special cooking-houses, where boys were supposed to do most of the work while girls helped with the preparations.

Growing up male in Madhya Pradesh in the 1960s

 The following is adapted from an account of experiences of being in a small town in Madhya Pradesh in the 1960s.

From Class VI onwards, boys and girls went to separate schools. The girls’ school was designed very differently from the boys’ school. They had a central courtyard where they played in total seclusion and safety from the outside world. The boys’ school had no such courtyard and our playground was just a big space attached to the school. Every evening, once school was over, the boys watched as hundreds of school girls crowded the narrow streets. As these girls walked on the streets, they looked so purposeful. This was unlike the boys who used the streets as a place to stand around idling, to play, to try out tricks with their bicycles. For the girls, the street was simply a place to get straight home. The girls always went in groups, perhaps because they also carried fears of being teased or attacked.

After reading the two examples above, we realise that there are many different ways of growing up. Often we think that there is only one way in which children grow up. This is because we are most familiar with our own experiences. If we talk to elders in our family, we will see that their childhoods were probably very different from ours.

We also realise that societies make clear distinctions between boys and girls. This begins from a very young age. We are for example, given different toys to play with. Boys are usually given cars to play with and girls dolls. Both toys can be a lot of fun to play with. Why are girls then given dolls and boys cars? Toys become a way of telling children that they will have different futures when they become men and women. If we think about it, this difference is created in the smallest and most everyday things. How girls must dress, what games boys should play, how girls need to talk softly or boys need to be tough. All these are ways of telling children that they have specific roles to play when they grow up to be men and women. Later in life this affects the subjects we can study or the careers we can choose.

In most societies, including our own, the roles men and women play or the work they do, are not valued equally. Men and women do not have the same status. Let us look at how this difference exists in the work done by men and women.

EXERCISES

1. Are the statements given alongside true or false. Support your answer with the use of an example –

2. Housework is invisible and unpaid work.  

    Housework is physically demanding. 

    Housework is time consuming. 

Write in your own words what is meant by the terms ‘invisible’, ‘physically demanding’, and ‘time consuming’? Give one example of each based on the household tasks undertaken by women in your home.

3. Make a list of toys and games that boys typically play and another for girls. If there is a difference between the two lists, can you think of some reasons why this is so? Does this have any relationship to the roles children have to play as adults?

4. If you have someone working as a domestic help in your house or locality talk to her and find out a little bit more about her life – Who are her family members? Where is her home? How many hours does she work? How much does she get paid? Write a small story based on these details.

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 7 Civics Gender