Women form a convivial chat group rich in personal details, higher decibel combative positions are heard from the men’s corner. And this gender divide is about something beyond patriarchy
Is it patriarchy or something deeper? Take your pick, but it’s everywhere.
Patriarchy readily tells us why men and women sit separately in a rural or first-generation urban gathering. But it first wears thin, then snaps helplessly, when it crosses this time zone and is used to explain why genders spontaneously segregate even in modern India’s cocktail circuit. How can one account for this ubiquitous gender divide? Is this all very Indian?
Not quite. It happens everywhere even today, yes, in Europe and America too. Male domination is antiquated, but the segregation of sexes in informal get-togethers is not. Patriarchy is an attractive explanation so long as our attention is on male-female separation and not on the content of conversation. Once we heed the latter, we realise how little we overhear.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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