The Police Force That is Gender

Gender policing is a term you’ve probably heard a lot lately, often being thrown around and stringed in here and there. What is it and where does it stem from?

Policing started with the genesis of time; when Adam and Eve surfaced. Together, they were alone in the vast expanse and, naturally, had to fend for themselves since early survival was a challenge. It was crucial that they carved out a decorous allocation of division of work. Hence, Adam was in charge of hunting and protection whereas cooking and gathering fell in Eve’s lap. This setup has till date been so rigorously reinforced, Eve couldn’t have fathomed the repercussions of her seemingly innocent role. This practice has since been elaborated and specified into what we know as gender roles today.

Men and women are delegated tasks best deemed to match their physiology, as was perceived centuries ago. People fail to consider that what once was an essential for survival is hampering the very same phenomena it was invented for. The civilization of humankind has been established long enough to be able to maintain a strong foothold on survival essentials without keeping stringent policing measures around.

What we define as our culture and traditions are merely conveniences that have been set in stone over time; most of which don’t hold true anymore. We’ve become so harsh on policing measures that it has started to inhibit who we are as individuals. Gender has become the most cutting part of our personalities, something which we’re continuously reprimanded to act according to. Our identity, ideas, and values have to be constantly set in line with what sex we were born as.

Children, from the second they are born are policed into behaving either like a girl or a boy. Their minds are conditioned to possess and display traits out of only one of the two pockets labeled feminine or masculine.

Like an annoying family member who will always view you as a child, society forces us into the circle that they have drawn and continuously squeezes us back in no matter how much we’ve outgrown it.

If gender policing has been more prevalent than any other form of discrimination, why is it addressed the least? How can we truly celebrate gender non-conformity if we still choose to live in gender brackets drawn centuries ago?

Policing was an instrument that was seen as being crucial in the past but has rusted over time. Now’s the time to rise up and address the concept of gender and no longer be defined by it. The time has come, but are we ready?

Priyal Thakkar is a fresher at college in Ahmedabad, India. Majoring in Political Science as well as juggling a professional degree from the ICSI Institute as a Company Secretary, Priyal dreams of being a human rights lawyer and working with the UN one day.