Catch 22 Conundrum: A Social Constructionist View of Gender Stereotyping in 10th Standard SCERT (Kerala) Malayalam Textbooks

Name of Author : Anu Devadas R D

Abstract: It is a much contested debate that gender stereotyping has a profound and unpropitious impact on our society, resulting in inequality between the sexes, and misconceptions about gender roles as inflexible. The patriarchy makes use of sexual differences to naturalise inequity as a pre-ordained condition of biology and makes women accept the gender roles prescribed by men to become instruments of their own oppression. This biological determinism that women are weaker, less efficient, and her purpose is only for procreation and nurture have to be rejected on the grounds that gender is socially constructed. This ‘socialising process’ in which a female is made woman by repeated citation of her roles and values in different cultural contexts has to be scrutinised. The traditional notion of the fixity of gender roles and an essentialist approach to conform to ‘standard’ practices has to be negated with a feminist understanding of these signs. Education is a powerful agency through which women could strive for emancipation from the clutches of patriarchy and biological essentialism thus invalidating the subordination meted out against women. But if such a discourse promotes gender stereotyping, the agency itself becomes its opposing force, the escape from that vicious circle seems unaffected. When society is evolving and celebrating different subjectivities, and textbooks continue to normalise the patriarchal tendencies, a Catch 22 situation occurs from the standpoint of students. This paper explores how the Malayalam textbooks, prepared and revised in 2019 by the SCERT with the aim to acknowledge the students about the skilful and artistic utilisation of mother-tongue disseminates a subject-matter that promotes gender stereotyping.

Keywords : Gender Roles, Patriarchy, Socialisation, Citation, Performance, Discourse

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