Shattered: Single Story, Stereotype, Stigma.

One of the unwritten objective of being on field is to shatter our own self’s single stories, stereotypes and stigmas. Of course some might be conscious of this process, some might not. But, it’s important to take time and reflect on what premeditated stories & ideas we had carried and whether it still remains the same.

I had many such reflections since the maiden month of being a JSW Foundation Fellow. We learn a lot in classroom lectures and in academic literature. But we often miss out on realising its limitations in terms of contextual applicability, temporal and subjective nature. For example, during the training we were introduced to a topic/ concept in gender studies, which speaks on benevolent sexism. The concept calls out many gender specific actions like men offering a woman to carry her luggage, offering to guide a woman in crossing road, etc. as an act of seeing the other gender fragile and dependent. And it goes true in many cases, where a woman/ man does not expect the voluntary help offered. But this idea becomes a single story when you universalise and generalise this concept. The following anecdote substantiates my argument.Once when I was travelling in a local bus, I saw a few women boarding the bus. The bus seats were fully occupied. The men in the bus stood and offered their seats to the women, and they also insisted that I offer my seat to a woman. And in this case the women wanted this gesture and it’s expected from men. In this context, concepts such as benevolent sexism seem irrelevant and immaterial when women here face the brunt of more fundamental issues of suppression and discrimination. So, it’s a privilege for us to discuss and debate on concepts like benevolent sexism in urban elite spaces, but there are more issues at priority for people in different spaces, say rural areas. Apart from these, there were many experiences when a single story got broken, during interaction with school children, attending gram sabha meetings, etc.

Similarly, we carry a lot of opinions before experiencing something first hand. These options are influenced by the notions of general media and people around. Most often, this notion gets shattered when you get to experience things on ground. One such idea which I had carried was about the image of villages in general. When I stepped in the field, it was a shock to see a completely different image of what I had imagined. The Village dynamics were completely different from many other regions of Tamil Nadu. There weren’t any case dimensions, I was monotonous. The financial dimensions were also very different when compared to other regions of the state. I studied social work in my graduation, I had the opportunity to visit many villages in Tamil Nadu and beyond. So, with my little experience I was subconsciously over confident of my opinions and ideas. But the learning here is to stay grounded and accept that everything is bound to be different and cannot be completely generalised. And real experience is releasing this fact of everything is unique in itself and exploring the uniqueness is the learning.

And finally we all do carry some or the other stigmas. Although it’s near to impossible for anyone to be Stigma free, it’s a process in making a little better than before. So, this endeavour of fellowship has offered me such opportunities to reflect, retrospect and realise my stigmas. This holds true for self stigma as well, and that’s the major part in fact!!!