The Case for Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Indian Schools
For those of us with some level of awareness or sensitivity towards the concept of gender identity being a social construct that goes beyond sex, gender norms and roles and fluidity aren’t alien notions. One might be assigned a certain sex at birth, but their gender is a much more performative aspect of their identity. Every single day of our lives, we PERFORM our gender, hence the use of the term “gender roles.” The fact that there are certain “normative” kinds of behaviour, according to one’s gender identity often proves to be problematic. At a very basic level, people might even be born sexually ambiguous, and have gender reaffirming surgery performed at birth, thus continuing to be confused about the question of their gender identity growing up. Even people who aren’t born sexually ambiguous, can grow up to identify as gender non-binary (not conforming to a male/female binary) or transgender (transitioning into the opposite gender identity of the sex they were born into) The problem that most societies continue to face in contemporary times is that of not being able to see beyond binaries of male/female. Interestingly, many indigenous communities, such as Native American nations, have always embraced the notion of gender fluidity. In fact, the idea of placing gender within a rigid structure of binary opposites has been borrowed from the Euro-west, because even Indian mythology makes mention of the character of Shikhandi, who was born female but transitioned into a male identity, or the figure of the ardha-naari, who is gender non-binary.
Yet, awareness regarding gender fluidity is abysmal in our country, EVEN amongst those who qualify as literate. The fact that literacy doesn’t automatically translate to “education” is hardly novel any longer, but what is also true is that over the past decade and a half, there have been organizations and institutions in the country, that have acknowledged the dire need for comprehensive sex education and gender sensitization. Most countries in the world, even places like the United States, wherein sex education is actually included within the school curriculum have a very narrow, lopsided approach to the same, which hardly even covers issues such as safe sex practices or contraception, let alone deconstruct gender norms and binaries. The focus of most of these programs is on emphasizing the need for abstinence, which obviously only further stigmatizes the conversation around sex.
The idea of of sex education and gender sensitisation is multi-fold. On the one hand, talking about safe sex practices and increased contraceptive education would equip youngsters to avoid risks of unwanted pregnancies or contracting STIs. What this also does, is break the taboo around sex as something that’s sinful or dirty. Simultaneously, questioning gender roles and attempting to debunk rigid binaries of male and female and giving people the vocabulary to embrace things such as fluidity is likely to destigmatize ideas such as being transgender and/or androgynous. People suffering from gender dysphoria, or even those who realize that they aren’t heterosexual often have a difficult time transitioning from childhood to adulthood through adolescence. The difficulty doesn’t solely stem from the confusion entailed by the situation itself, but even more so due to feeling isolated from people around them and the fear of stigma and humiliation. Even the Transgender Persons (Protection) Act of 2019 did precious little to address systemic biases and inequalities faces by the Indian trans community.
This is where sensitisation at the very preliminary level of school education has a massive role to play. An article published in The Quint in 2018 reported that India accounted for about 11% of the world’s teenage pregnancy cases. Citing a National Family Health Survey, the article mentioned how nearly 27% of girls in India get married before their 18th birthday. The dearth of sensitization and awareness regarding family planning automatically translates to women being deprived of the opportunity to make informed choices with regards to their own bodies and reproductive health. Even a natural physiological process like menstruation is stigmatized to such an extent that women don’t feel free talking to men around them about it, as seen in the award winning documentary Period. End of Sentence. In fact, this sense of shame and stigma, is something that we kept hearing about, throughout a series of focus group discussions our organization recently conducted, around Calcutta. However, the aforementioned film as well as our own experiences, bear testimony to the incredible potential for galvanizing change at the grassroots level, through concerted efforts at engagement for increased sensitization. To actually affect such change, this process of awareness creation needs to be placed within a cohesive structural framework. The most effective means of doing this systemically is by integrating it within the educational curriculum. A brief glimpse at European countries would show that places like Italy and Switzerland tend to have fewer than 4 teen births per thousand babies born. Countries like Norway and Iceland rank the highest in most global gender parity indices. Not only do most of these countries have accessible education and quality public health infrastructure, but they have also made strides in developing comprehensive sex education programs and sensitizing its population.
While some might argue that for a developing economy which is struggling with issues such as unemployment and public health crises, gender sensitization would be a secondary concern. The issue with this rationalization is that it assumes that social, economic, and political growth are mutually exclusive and not hinged on equality. It also ignores the gender parity and mental health component of a country’s human development index. The more we can normalize gender fluidity, the more likely it is for gender non-binary and transgender individuals to have equal access to opportunities. Improvement in average mental health is also only likely to boost a country’s performance index. Knowledge about safe sex practices and contraception, as mentioned earlier, is that much more likely to contribute to reduced risk of disease, as well as vicious cycles of poverty and unwanted pregnancies. And of course, as Ambedkar had once said, and I paraphrase, the progress of a community can be measured by the degree of progress its women have achieved.
How we talk about gender, discard gender roles in everyday lives, or advocate safe sex practices, plays an instrumental role in how our larger community engages with these issues. Organizations like the YP Foundation as well as our own, have been working in our country, while our government continues to believe that sex education should be banned. There are schools that have even implemented the policy of gender neutral uniforms. Not only is it inclusive but also makes life a lot more convenient for female students who are mostly required to wear skirts. As institutions of ideological interpellation, as Althuzer puts it, both the school and the family play a pivotal role in this regard, and it’s time for us to pay closer attention to these roles.
Authored by : Puja Basu, who is a postgraduate student of English literature at Jadavpur University. Her academic interests include cultures of protest and resistance, postcolonial theory and literature, indigenous literature, media and cultural studies, and gender studies.
