Fundamentals of Gender Equality
What you'll learn
- Understand patriarchy as a “system”
- Identify the various institutions in society such as family, community, market, and State that perpetuate patriarchy and how they do it
- Recognize aspects of life that are under patriarchal control
- Understand how patriarchal norms impact boys and girls, and men and women, and create inequalities between them, thus forming the basis for gender-based violence
- Explore how patriarchy and violence against women are intimately linked and how patriarchy is also bad for boys and men
- Explore whether all men benefit from patriarchy and why some women support patriarchy
- Identify patriarchal control in your own lives and see whether you need to make any changes in your attitudes, behavior, choices, and so on
- Understand the negative stereotypes around masculinity and how hegemonic masculinity goes against a peaceful society
- Understand feminism in its true spirit
- Understand the goal of equality and empowerment, and how they can be achieved to realize peace in society
Requirements
- An open mind
- An inquisitiveness about how patriarchy impacts every aspect of life
- An inquisitiveness about how patriarchy forms the root cause of violence within homes and in the world outside, and how this violence can be countered
Description
Are you someone who has wondered why there is so much of gender injustice in every society? Why women are raped and sexually assaulted? Why men, who do not conform to the societal standards of “masculinity” are teased and harassed? Why the society tries to restraint freedom of choice of an individual?
As a woman, have you wondered why restrictions are placed on your mobility? Why you are always advised to look “good” as per some standards given to you? Why your male colleagues earn more than you for the same job that you both do? Why you were pushed into home science subjects when you wanted to study engineering? Why you have little or no control over your income? Why you have little or no ownership of family property?
As a man, do you feel stifled when you are rebuked for showing emotions of love and compassion? Do you always feel it a pressure to protect your sister or get tired of being dropped last after a workplace dinner? Do you find it unfair that you are expected to pay the bill when you go out with a woman friend, or when you and not your sister is forced to become breadearners?
Are you someone who has wondered whether patriarchy always existed or whether human beings created patriarchy? Why is “power” used only to dominate and control? Can power be used to empower?
If one or more of these questions have struck you, then this course will help you find the answers! It will also answer many, many more questions and together you will will be able to construct an empowering and liberating new reality!
_______________________________________________
So, what will you get from this course?
This 5-hour long course is power-packed with a new vision of the world, which we have endeavored to convey through information sharing, and by encouraging reflection and introspection. It is instructed by well-known gender expert, Ms. Kamla Bhasin, who has extensive experience of working with the UN as well as the grassroots on issues of gender and human rights.
You get introduced to the basic concepts of how genderization occurs from the time we are born, how this genderization becomes the basis for gender inequality, and how gender inequality in turn becomes the basis for gender-based violence. The course explores patriarchy as the mindset and as a “system” that is the root cause of gender inequality and gender-based violence. The course also explores how the patriarchal mindset subverts positive humanly qualities, and controls the larger world of states, governments, policies, frameworks, and laws through the doctrine of coercion and greed.
Throughout the course, the instructor encourages reflection and suggests that the current paradigm CAN change if we each become the torch bearers of change.
What will you get in terms of how the course is taught?
The course is taught in lecture-mode with lots of examples and case studies, questions for reflection, interactive quizzes, and activities to help you connect. All activities are available as a separate download for those of you who conduct gender workshops yourselves.
Furthermore, each lesson begins with a statement of what you will cover in that lesson and ends with a reinforcement of what you have learned. There is text on screen to summarize the main points along with graphics and short videos as support media.
What else do you get?
The instructor uses an impersonalized method in her lecture delivery exuding sympathy, warmth, and understanding with a dash of humour! She has endeavoured to make concepts like gender, patriarchy, and masculinity connect to our personal lives and daily experiences, bringing them out from the realm of “somebody else’s” problem. At best, this is a life skill course.
_______________________________________________
However, please remember, this is a basic course on gender and patriarchy; hence each component discussed in this course needs further in-depth inquiry and learning. Therefore, it is likely you will have clarifications and questions. Please do not hesitate to post your questions.
If all this sounds like it will benefit your understanding of the world, your life, and your relationships, then get ready to add this course to your cart and make it a part of your life journey!
_______________________________________________
Content and Overview
This course is divided into five lessons:
Lesson 1: Understanding Gender – In this lesson, you will understand the concept of gender, how genderization takes place in society, how it creates inequalities, and how these inequalities become the basis for gender-based violence. This lesson also covers an important thought – that gender norms can and do change with time and provides an outline of how gender norms can be altered for better human relationships In society.
Lesson 2: Patriarchy – In this lesson, you will understand the patriarchal system that accompanies gender and how they together create inequalities between the male and the female. You will get to understand the social realities and experiences of patriarchy with numerous examples such that you can relate it to your real-life circumstances. Interesting questions such as whether all men benefit from patriarchy and why some women support patriarchy will also get addressed.
Lesson 3: Masculinity – In this lesson, you will deep dive into the understanding of “masculinity,” particularly “hegemonic” masculinity as the mindset responsible for fuelling all sorts of violence in the world today – from domestic violence and rape to wars and environmental destruction. You will also learn what it takes to bring about the paradigm shift as parents, as partners, as a friend to someone, as a colleague to someone else, as a citizen, etc.
Lesson 4: Feminism – In this lesson, you will learn about an “ism,” which at its core envisages a gender equal-world. In this process, you will see many myths around it get dispelled with sound logic. The lesson also contains a case study for you to assess the struggles of men and women against patriarchy in your part of the world. This is available to download.
Lesson 5: Equality & Empowerment – In the concluding lesson, you will learn about the goals of equality and empowerment in the world and why most countries today consider gender equality and women’s empowerment to be essential for the development and well being of families, communities, and nations. You will realize that no nation, society, and family can flourish and be happy if fifty percent of their population, that is, women and girls, are not respected, free, and happy.
Who this course is for:
- This course is for everyone, it is actually a life skill course!
- Anyone who has an interest in exploring how patriarchy has made us what we are
- Anyone who has interest is exploring how patriarchy can be countered
- Parents and teachers
- College and university students
- Young academics
- NGO workers
- Social activists
- Human rights activists
Instructors
Betelvine is a digital forum that provides knowledge and skills to enable people make positive changes in their personal lives as well as in the world around them. Betelvine, driven by subject matter expertise and dedicated content curators, puts the learner at the center of every initiative. All our courses are carefully crafted with lectures, visuals, resources, demonstrations, and practice opportunities.
Kamla Bhasin is a social scientist, activist, poet, and author. She has worked on issues of gender, patriarchy, equality, and human rights at the grassroots, national and international levels, through NGOs and the United Nations for over three decades. She has written a number of simple books, songs, poems, and slogans for activists and children.
She is currently involved with several campaigns against violence, denial of human rights, and for justice, human rights, and peace, and is the South Asia coordinator of the movement, One Billion Rising. She is also ‘Advisor’ to Sangat – A Feminist Network.
Over the years, Ms. Bhasin has facilitated many gender workshops and human rights workshops with women and men from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds. About these workshops, in her own words she says:
“These workshops have been empowering for me as they have been for the participants. This sense of empowerment and energy I get from these workshops has kept me going.”
And, this is Ms. Bhasin first digital learning course in order to reach a global online audience of learning enthusiasts!
Sangat is a Delhi based network of organisations and individuals. Together we dismantle patriarchy. The word 'Sangat', in some South Asian languages means a gathering/community of like-minded people for a good and just cause.
Asian Institute for Human Rights (AIHR) strives to strengthen the theory and practice of human rights activism, facilitate systematic linkages between academics and activists, and contribute to a continuous process of action and reflection. It seeks to bridge the gap in facilitating learning based on a multi-disciplinary approach to human rights theory and practice.
The objectives of AIHR are:
· Respond to challenges arising from changing economic, social, and political contexts
· Facilitate systematic interaction between activists and academics
· Respond to demands by wide ranging actors for human rights training and education
· Facilitate learning of human rights concepts and skills by human rights practitioners
The program areas include: Creating resource materials, strengthening social justice lawyering, strengthening skills for human rights monitoring, facilitating human rights education in collaboration with universities, and providing space to activists to learn from different country contexts.
Some of the publications of AIHR include:
- Checklists on the core international human rights treaties – ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW, CRC, CED, CAT, and CRPD to facilitate review of whether domestic laws in a country are in compliance with the international human rights obligations, 2015
- ‘Law in the Struggle for Dignity and Justice’, 2015
- ‘Understanding the Meaning and Practices of Human Rights Education’, 2015 – a joint publication of Asian Institute for Human Rights and Center for Human Rights Studies
- Handbook on ICCPR, 2013
- ‘Understanding Our Rights: Human Rights’, 2012 – publication in Thai and English
- ‘Clarifying the Links Between Human Rights, Social Justice, Rule of Law: Monograph and Cartoon Book’, 2011
- ‘Challenges in Human Rights Practice, A Dialogue’, February 2010
- ‘Handbook on Monitoring Human Rights Violations’, 2009 – publication in Thai and English
- ‘Handbook on Monitoring Courts and Trials’, 2009 – publication in Thai and English
- ‘Reclaiming Rights in Forests Struggles of Indigenous People in Thailand’, 2008
- Handbook on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), 2008 – publication in Thai and English