Of conditioning and being a woman - 1

A topic close to my heart. Being one who usually does not believe too much in divisions of society and to some extent rules created by mankind, I do acknowledge the presence of different value and belief systems and am usually willing to live and let live peacefully. However a news item triggered me to write on a topic I usually do not pick up because I think I may be a part of a minuscule minority who believe in it.

Lets face it..we are born with a clean slate...but we have all lived amidst society and have unconsciously picked up various conditionings which we do not even realize we have.

Though the trigger could be delhi govt's desire to ban women from choosing exciting careers like bartending...which I think is as non progressive in thought as a govt can get, but I have experienced more hard hitting or may be heart rendering examples of this in men and women we meet every day.

It could be an Business Head who casually says" Women are not as serious as men, is what I have observed in the team as men tend to stay back late at work" or an HR Head saying " Lets not hire this person, we should look at people who are married and settled with kids in life - they are usually more stable" It could also be a career woman saying - " what has this person done with her life? she is miserable taking care of kids at home and thats her entire life"

There are zillions of similar examples which lead me to believe that the freedom of choice and freedom to make decisions is often not taken by individuals and also not respected by people at large.

It is no wonder that given the conditioning carried by most and more prevalent and dangerous when carried by people in powerful positions which could even be a boss or a parent, lead people to often concede and make short cuts in life. When the fact is that the real growing up of an individual happens when faced with either failures or situations of pain.

I have often observed my own reaction to situations and have been amazed how my emotions or my actions have been governed by conditioning - eg - I usually say - "My spatial orientation is all wonky so driving may be a problem" when the truth is I remember when I bought my car and used to dream to learn how to drive it...i remember my vivid imagination of thinking that the car was just and extension of me and the way to maneuver it was dependent on the thought in my mind. I used to imagine being one with the car...which is what happened once i got used to driving...The fact is that for that last 3 years I have been driving 10 minutes a day on an average so as a result of such less practice, may not be as good at it as if I had stayed back in Mumbai and driven 3 hrs a day...but atleast 5 men and me including 3-4 women have concluded in various conversations that a woman can never drive as well as a man. Ridiculous if you ask me now.

I wonder how many more such conditionings' reside within me...The car one is mostly harmless...but others could be dangerous. I hope to take each one of them evaluate it and then dump it in the garbage can where it belongs if found half - baked.