Gender Sensitivity and Awareness Workshop

Naina Jha is the Program and Outreach Officer at Patna. She is a PR professional working with Greymatters Communications. She has worked with hospitals, advertising and PR agencies and has been working with ICWA to educate slum kids since 2005. She has also worked as a freelancer with Gender Resource Centre, Patna. She loves working for the uplifting of slum children and gender sensitisation and wishes to make this society a better place to live in. She is a budding writer, avid learner, traveller, and a happy soul. A sociology graduate who holds a masters degree in human resources, she has a few more degrees up her sleeves but most importantly she is a mother to a beatific little angel.

Gender Sensitivity and Awareness Workshop

Naina Jha conducted a Gender Sensitivity and Awareness Workshop for 120 parents at Patna Women’s College on 11th November, 2017. She writes,

“I conducted a workshop for parents and students of the final year of Department of Political Science at Patna Women’s College. I began by giving an introduction about Safecity and its work. Then I asked them what made them feel safe and unsafe as a parent. To this one parent said that if someone had self-confidence then they were safe to which I replied that those who were molested or raped were not devoid of self-confidence, instead their confidence was crushed. Few parents said that when their daughters stayed outside during evenings, a sense of fear came to their mind.

Later, I explained how small things make a difference in this safety strata. For example, if there are proper street lights, chance of crime lessens. On asking what precautions females can take to remain safe, most of them said that girls should be taught self-defense techniques. Then I asked them about their understanding of gender and sex to which most of the parents believed both the concepts to be the same. However, students said that sex is biological and gender is sociological. Then I delved into how socialization plays an important role in genderification of sexes. Further I gave an in-depth explanation about sexual harassment and its types and how they are crimes under the law and how punishment is fixed. Then I asked them to share their stories of harassment. One of the teachers shared how, during her childhood, she was harassed and how the police made fun of her when she went to lodge a complaint. Few of the students shared their stories as well.

Following this, we discussed what could be done to change the status quo. I urged the to treat their sons and daughters equally because even small things make a difference. For example, we ask the younger son to accompany his elder sister. It’s an insignificant thing but somewhere we give boys a sense of superiority and later on it feeds into forming gender power game. One should impart values in both, sons and daughters. Teach them to take stand and you stand with your daughters as a rock solid support when they complain about harassment. Teach your children about consent and why it is important. Towards the end, I introduced the audience to our app and how they could report on it. I wound up the session by saying we needed to wake up and realize and change, to stop gender based violence because it’s not just a woman’s issue, it’s a societal issue and we need to end it by working together.”