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Why gender and intersectionality?

Saad Adnan Khan
IT is always interesting to observe and figure out the knowledge production process. How do ideas and lines of thought come into place? Who says it, to whom and where? What kind of effect does that have in public imagination?
Few months back, as I was going through the national curriculum English grammar book of class six, I was unsettled when I read a sentence that said "men are stronger than women," in the chapter on subject verb agreement. Next to it, in another column, two sentences on top of one another said: "Ms. Hamida is a nice woman" and "Kamal is an intelligent man." In the exercise on the next page, two more sentences caught my attention: "He has a lot of (money, moneys)" and "She has bought a pair of (shoe, shoes).'
It was quite funny and ridiculous to see men being portrayed as strong, intelligent and independent people who earn a lot of money, and women as weak, nice people who like to shop. I thought how does the blatant sexism present in these sentences shape the imagination of boys and girls who go to grade six? What kind of wrong impression do they grow up with? And, how can the bluntness of language and production of such gender stereotypes among adolescents be countered?
Gender is like a permanent tattoo that we get when we are born. However, in the context of gender violence; we often miss out talking about gender itself. What does being a man or a woman mean? Many people do not fall in the gender identification of male or female, but belong to a third 'gender.' What does that tell us about how we perceive gender?
Discussions on gender usually revolve around women, often leaving out a thorough exploration of men and masculinity. More than ever, it is men who urgently need an understanding of gender and gender politics. We don't explore how masculinity is expressed in society. Boys are brought up to believe in hegemonic masculinity, which entails being superior to women, occupying more space and being the centre of things. Men are what women are not (or are not allowed to be). This is how oppression comes into being, when men subscribe to gender role that is exclusive, individualistic, dominating and less kind. Men are made to believe (by institutions such as
homes, schools, media and workplaces) that they are better and stronger, and that they must defend their superior status, often through coercion and violence, if needed.
Our understanding of gender and oppression becomes more interesting and complicated when we bring in intersectionality. Through the lens of intersectionality, we can understand how different power differentials or socio-cultural categories such as gender, class, sexuality, age/generation, dis/ability, nationality, mother tongue, religion and so on, 'interact' and produce different kinds of unjust social relations. Violence against women is read as power inequity between man and woman. When we bring in intersectionality, we feel compelled to ask a few other' questions: who are the transgressors? Is it men? Do we refer more to men of a particular class as
transgressors, compared to another class? Can men aggravate gender violence against other men? Can women oppress other women? What kind of oppression is it if a landlady beats her female domestic helper? What kind of oppression is it when sexual orientations and disability are not talked about? What kind of oppression is it if a (biologically bom) man, who does not identify as a man, is stigmatised and excluded by the whole society (men and women)? How does neo-liberal capitalism and state violence deal with gender violence against factory workers and indigenous people? Is #HeForShe really an intersectional and contextual feminist movement?
Intersectionality gives oppression a face. Without discussions on intersectionality, our understanding of violence might remain
incomplete and one-dimensional, which will ultimately benefit no one. Intersectionality is important because it allows us to understand how different kinds of oppressions interact to further intensify gender oppression. We can learn to address other institutions of power and raise dangerous questions that could challenge norms (read oppression) and privileged positions. Exploring power and privileges also helps us understand how certain individuals arrive at certain points in life, while others cannot. We can then politically invest more sensibility and understanding on listening to people and bringing in different voices to create a more egalitarian space -- to challenge and change the way we look at others and also ourselves.
A Unicef report published a few months back says Bangladesh has the highest rate of girl abuse. Among the six recommendations, "bringing about changes in social norms" was mentioned last. Bringing about changes in social norms cannot be a linear course of action. It would mean a rigorous creation of new knowledge that could help us envision ourselves differently. Not so long ago, the government had thought of bringing down the legal age of marriage of both girls and boys in order to tackle sexual abuse of girls (has there been a more contradictory line of thought?). This strategy builds upon existing gender norms and expectations (girls should be married off to stay protected; men are the protectors of girls), and does not challenge masculine' and 'feminine' ideals in society. It is ad-hoc and lazy thinking and does not help us redefine and challenge different oppressions that emerge from the aforementioned power vectors.
Attempts to think about alternative knowledge models, to redefine gender and address oppression, are underway through the initiative of several activists, teachers, social scientists and psychologists in different organisations in Bangladesh. The concern should be about making the approaches of addressing and working around knowledge production and oppression, more intersectional. We need to constantly keep questioning to find out what other voices are being unheard in the process, and thus how we can keep revising and transforming, and take it from there.
The writer Is a researcher at Institute of Educational Development, BRAC University.