I was attending a program the other day. A bank named global had organized a program on the occasion of their anniversary. A smart lady in a sari was the MC. The program began with her sweet and confident voice capturing everyone’s attention. Suddenly I heard someone behind me murmuring ‘she must be the bank’s receptionist.’
I was furious on hearing such a thing. As the name and designation of the lady was clearly stated in the itinerary sheet handed out to everyone just before the program started. Had he bothered to look at the paper presented to him he would not have said such a thing.
Instead he showed his mentality by simply stating that the only girl present there could be none other than the receptionist. I did not miss the opportunity to see the person who had such pre-convinced idea about one half of the world’s population. Had I not heard his statement I would definitely defined him as a smart bloke in his late twenties.
He was not the only one at fault there. For the name plates on the dice stated the name and designation of the people, which read – chairman, spokesman, etc. I was totally disgusted. The country has gone through a revolution; women have been given special reservation quotas in an effort to encourage their participation in all kinds of vocation. Yet here some of the best brains in the investment sector were failing to come to terms with it. Well practically they weren’t wrong; you see the person sitting behind the tag chairman was a man in fact. But what would have they done had the person been a woman instead. Times are changing and women have been competing (I would not be wrong to say successfully) for the places before thought to be men’s alone.
It’s always better to be prepaid before hand for such things rather than make a fuss about it at the last moment. We can easily replace the sterile word chairman with the gender friendly ‘chairperson’. See how easy it is when you cut off the gender part. Likewise we can replace spokesman with – spokesperson, cameraman with camera-person, batsman with batter for we do have female cricketers immerging in the nation. It’s such a minor issue which takes no more than common sense form us to rectify.
– Pratichya Dulal
