I happened to come across an article saying IIT campus lack girls. It discussed how this problem could be dealt, raising various vicarious issues. Proposals were made to slash down the admission fees by half to encourage the parents, to inspire there daughters to try for the IITs. The problem was scrutinized to the conclusion that in our country there are not enough opportunities for the girls. People do not prefer to send the daughters to the coaching institutes and most of the time they cannot afford to. To discourage the couching practices, emphasis were made to change the pattern of the entrance exam (JEE).
What I felt after reading the article was that these geeks have sworn hard to not analyze the problem for the remedy. I agree that even in the contemporary India women do not find enough alternatives, but this is not the cause for this particular problem. I have been to coaching institute and am quite aware of the economic status and the background of the fellow mates. Most of them were from well to do families which could have afford the fees of their sisters as well, still we never got to see many girls in the institute. The trend of the coaching have emerged form late 90s. IITs and JEE have been into the existence for not less than 40 years, but the lopsided sex ratio has been more or less the same for the entire period. Issue is not that of the discrimination for the opportunities but, of the differences in the aptitude. Aptitude is something which cannot be developed by the crash courses, but requires constant hand on experiences on relevant stuff.
Difference in the aptitude between the males and females in today's youth of our country is the consequences of the difference in the brought up of the children in the Indian families. On the one hand parents claim to be open-minded and educated; at the same time they practice different modes do deal with the male and female child. Small experiences at the child level itself contribute in a big way when the individual weather he or she grows to an adult. Almost all of us have experienced the comment from our parents at the time of quarrel with our sibling, "Don't bother your sis dude; she is a girl after all". When ever mother in the family needs an aid in the kitchen stuff, I don't know why but even if she has the choice to make a call for the son and daughter for the same, she prefers to go for the latter one. This is probably because she had also undergone the similar experience when she was a child. Father in the family will never ask the daughter to fetch a draft from the nearest bank. Probably because he feel how can he expose his sweet heart in the struggling environment, but I don’t know how to enlighten him, that if he will have such attitude towards her, she will definitely lack something. Most of the parents do not have an issues upon spending on there daughters, but the problem with them is that they shield them so much and interfere a lot in there decision making, they forget that sooner or later there ward has to be in the system, it is inevitable.
Problem is not concise to parenting only but, is with the general attitude of every one. I remember an incident when I was in school some 12 years back. I had a dispute with one of my class mate, on the occasion I did not regret to slap her to answer her arrogance, and I have no shame in admitting that I faced the reverberant act of her. We had to face the music of school administration for the punitive act of ours, but the music was different for both of us. I was caned, and had to keep standing in the class for couple of days, but her case was dealt in a different manner. As per the school admin, being a girl and getting into an offensive feud was definitely unusual, she had to face the torturous counseling form the principal. I am not arguing hear that if she would have caned equally she meight have developed similar aptitude as boys do have, but what I want to make out is that, the way she was treated certainly led her to believe that her lines of action has to be very deferent from that of the boys. Point I want to make here is that the system around us in this country perpetually reminds us of being a man or a woman. You are a girl and you are not supposed to do so. I am not arguing here that the dichotomy in the attitude is right or wrong, what I want to make out is that dichotomy surely is the cause of the difference in the aptitude of the grown ups. When I say that the dichotomy in the attitude needs to be removed I donot wish that that we should stop the courtesy showen to wards the females. For example, we should continue to stand up to give seat to a women traveler in bus.
Engineering is a profession where analytical aptitude is required. In order to be proven a good engineer, one needs die hard attitude to search the cause and the fix for the problem. How will this attitude be developed in the daughters when moms call there sons to fix the regulator of the cooking gas cylinder or to change the fuse 100W bulb. Gone are the days when the daughters used to score bad in science or mathematics, and parents were not worried because they had alternate carrier plans for their daughters, and at the same time prefer to scold hard there sons for the similar bad performance. I do agree that now parents are equally worried for their sons and daughters about the class performance, but it would not suffice. Performing well in the school curriculum would not guarantee a break through in the competitive exams. Especially JEE it needs an aptitude as well. If not more than at least 30% of the pupils clearing JEE had scored less than 70% in there higher secondary exams, I being one of them.
