Srijana Bhandari_ Discussion 7

I believe we learn everything from family. To observe, to love, hate, developing feelings, or any kind of activities starts from where we grew up (Family). It’s not other factors that are going to teach us but who we are, we start to learn (Our Base) is from family. So, I have decided to choose the “Family” as a social institution for my “Gender Analysis of an Institutional Artifact”.

More or less, I believe what I have learned, or how to be treated or act, I have learned from my family. I grew up seeing my mother, grandmother, or my aunt living their life on my father, or grandfather or uncle’s decision. They all were housewives. Females in the family were supposed to cover their heads all the time in front of other males (Not included daughter though). There were thousands of rules for women but not for men in my family. Either it was a small step or big step, rules were only made for women, for example, my grandfather had 4 wives, but the rules were that all the wives were supposed to live together under my grandfather’s order. My mom gave birth to 6 of us which she didn’t want but my father and his parents wanted to have a son so my mother could not hear herself. There was a major restriction for women in my family that because of which I felt there were not themselves. Other minor rules and restrictions for women in the family were that they were not supposed to be speaking out loud, they were not supposed to eat before males in the family finish eating, women were not allowed to go to the kitchen when they have periods. But when it came about men, there was always freedom to do anything, to say anything.

I believe I have always mentioned in all my paper or discussion that the reason I wanted to be like boys despite I was born with girl sex because I learned from my family that boys are male figure is superior, they are allowed to do the stuff as they wished to and no one was really against what they wanted to do. So, I got the concept that males and females are not treated equally from my family only but nowhere else.

I have been asked not to wear shorts since I was in grade 6 because my father believed that it will drive boys attraction, I remember me wearing shorts hiding from my father whenever he used to visit us and if I happen to not aware about it then it uses to be a bigger issue. But my brother was different than what male figure was in my mind. He has proven that not every male is the same. I was in grade 12(my last year in high school), I was offered to participate in International Youth Exchange program in Malaysia but my father denied the permission but my brother supported me, paid my all the expenses and hide from my father for 14 days that I was in a school trip to a different place in Nepal (As he was a school principal) but in reality, I had flown to different countries. The reason where I am is because of my mother and my brother. My brother is 12 years older than me, so he always acted like a father figure to me. I was not restricted to play basketball in high school, I was given the choice to choose my major after my high school and so many other activities that I would not able to do if I had grown up with my father along with his family.

So, choosing a family as a social institution, I would like to talk about the issues of gender equity and gender stereotype.  I would also like to talk about the movie “little women” and its gender stereotype presentation on my  Institutional Artifact Project.