Gender Interviews: Yashwant Parmar

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Yashwant Parmar

Yashwant Parmar

Sasha Sobol: What are your definitions of "man" and woman"?

Yashwant Parmar: Basic physiology I guess.

SS: Are there any gender roles that you think should be there and are there any that you wish did not exist?

YP: I feel like there shouldn't be any gender roles 'cause there's no reason that you would have those. I guess back when society was divided by gender roles, they were there. But they don't really seem to serve any practical purpose anymore. Well, they never really did.

SS: Do you conform to society's expectations gender-wise?

YP: Eh... ish. Like I don't wear skirts and stuff but I don't particularly try to. I don't go out of my way to break them either.

SS: Is there anything that you do that might not be usually associated with your gender?

YP: Not really. I mean, I stitched a stuffed penguin once for a friend's birthday. But I have some friends who watch My Little Pony and stuff, which is interesting, but I'm not watching that.

SS: The next question is about two different situations and I'm going to ask you what you think about them. The first one is that a lot of the time when it's socially acceptable for a man to expose his chest, a woman has to cover hers. There are laws in some places that prohibit women from showing their chests in public. The second situation is that in formal wear in particular, women are allowed to show their arms, legs, and cleavage and men don't have any options and they're expected to wea a suit and even wearing shorts would not be appropriate.

YP: For the whole not exposing chest thing, women have breasts, men don't. So I guess it kind of makes sense to an extent.But when it comes to clothing, I don't know, that's just gender roles, really. There are a lot of places, a lot of schools across the country that are trying to pass laws and school codes about what girls can't wear at the schools. Which, again is really strange because they're trying to ban things like yoga pants but not trying to ban things like short shorts. It's just really random 'cause they're trying to say that's too distracting for the guys, which doesn't really make much sense whatsoever cause if you have a high school full of hormone crazed teenage guys, it's not going to matter.

SS: Sometimes women and girls are encouraged to embrace their masculine side, but feminine men and boys are looked down upon by society and it kind of seems like femininity is valued as less than masculinity. why do you think that is?

YP: I guess it's just gender roles again. How historically men have been dominant in society, so that's just I guess carrying over. Though I feel like that's becoming less relevant as time goes on 'cause I have a friend who watches My Little Pony and he bakes and stuff and he nits a lot does a lot of stitching, but no one really has an issue with that anymore. Well, mostly. Among highschoolers. Adults probably differently, I don't know. Haven't really seen anyone have an issue with him doing that. I don't know, it's interesting.

SS: Do you think the whole thing with femininity being valued less than masculinity has anything to do with discrimination in the workplace?

YP: I don't know if that's directly related. Maybe, but I feel like that's just normal gender discriminations just continuing over because a woman makes something like 77 cents for every dollar a man makes or something like that. So, it's just carrying over, I guess.

SS: Do you think it's important to make the world a more welcoming place for gender nonconforming people? And if so, how do you think this can be done?

YP: I don't know if there's something you can be doing actively, but I feel like as time goes on, it is becoming more accepting. Just as, I guess, society progresses. It just moves on from like the 50s and 70's. There's some people who are trying to take us back there. So I feel like as time goes on, it's already kind of being dealt with. I feel like it's something that needs to be done 'cause gender roles don't really have any logical backing at this point.

SS: Is there anything else you would like to add?

YP: I don't know, not really. Nothing I can think of.

SS: Thank you.

Note: This interview was done in person.

Check This Out

Below are some things I looked at that are related to gender roles, gender identity, discriminations, etc. that might be interesting.

Defining/Understanding gender:

I included the following sources to give the audience an overview of what gender is. It's important to have an idea of what we're talking about before actually discussing it. This information relates directly to my first question (defining "man" and "woman"), as well as the last question, which is about making the world a more welcoming place for gender nonconforming people. Although I never mentioned anything about trans* issues in my questions, one of the things I was looking for when I asked these two questions was the extent to which the interviewee is aware of trans* issues. Below are some sources that relate to gender, mostly from a trans* point of view.

Gender Spectrum's article "Understanding Gender" provides an overview of the basic concept of sex versus gender and some basic terminology related to gender
Planned Parenthood has a FAQ page about gender identity, which also provides an overview of gender. Another source worth looking at is their FAQ page about trans* issues.
TransWhat.org is a very helpful website for people who are willing to learn about trans* issues and to be allies to trans* people. In particular, their Allyship: first steps page is a great list of things to do/be aware of around trans* people. This source relates to my last question.
Finally, the Genderbread Person is a great infographic that explains sex, gender, presentation, and attraction is an easy-to-follow manner.

Gender roles, Masclinity and Femininity, and Sexism:

I guess these issues are really the bulk of my project. I brought up gender roles in almost all of my questions one way or another. I also briefly mentioned sexism in the question about the value of femininity and masculinity, although that question is mostly getting at a double standard that exists when it comes to breaking the "gender rules/roles/laws/stereotypes." Here are several specific examples that I looked at:

In this Huffington Post article, Jackie Morgan uses the example of her daughter who plays football to point out that society has a double standard when it comes to approving or dissapproving gender atypical behavoir in children. This article is an axample of how gender roles hurt men and boys.
In this article on scientopia.org, which is a place for people to write about science, scicurious writes about her experience in academia. Specifically, she talks about how men in academia can pull off a very casual outfit and they would still be treated like scientists and professionals, but women are expected to dress nicely (as she puts it, clothes that are considered casual for men are a lot more casual than clothes that are considered casual for women). Her concern is that if she dresses as casually as the men, she is not going to be taken seriously.
This study shows that there is sexism and gender-based discrimination in scientific fields. In the study, 127 professors in biology, chemistry, and physics (men and women) were split into two groups and asked to evaluate several [fake] student applications for a lab manager position. Both groups of scientists received the same applications, but each application was submitted under a male name to one group and under a female name to the other. Both male and female scientists evaluated the "female applicants" lower in competence than the "male applicants" and also suggested a lower salary for the "female applicants."
This is a blog entry in which a female writer reveals that she was forced to use the pen name James in order to provide for her family. According to James Chartrand, which is how she prefers to be called, she got a higher pay and more praise under the pen name than under her real name, which is the reason why she only writes as James. This story is yet another proof that gender-based discrimination in the workplace is real.
Moving on to a less serious and more controversial topic, here is the FAQ page from the Topfree Equal Rights Association, whose goal is to ensure that women in the US and Canada are not penalized for being topfree/topless wherever men can be topfree/topless without legal consequences. Here, they counter some of the arguments made against equality when it comes to topfreedom (the right to be topless).
Building off of the topfree/topless discussion, I looked at this episode of The Stream, where they interview Inna Shevchenko, leader of women's rights the activist group Femen that uses topless protests to bring attention to women's rights issues. In the episode, there is a great discussion of what feminism is and isn't for different people. This source is relevant and important because it explores feminism. I define feminism as the advocacy of equal rights for all genders. This definition is very much relevant to all of my questions dealing with equality, the double standard, and acceptance.

Acknoledgements

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Sunday, May 19, 2013

Yashwant Parmar