Gender stereotypes

IN a welcome initiative, the Supreme Court has unveiled a handbook that aims to help the judges and members of the legal community identify, understand and counteract harmful stereotypes about women in the legal discourse. The ‘Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes’ features a glossary of gender-unjust terms and proposes alternative words and phrases for use in legal documents, including pleadings, orders and judgments. According to the apex court, the compilation identifies common stereotypes about women and demonstrates their inaccuracies and how they can impact the application of the law. The entire exercise is expected to pave the way for a more inclusive, impartial and gender-just legal system.

The alternatives are an eye-opener: ‘sex worker’ instead of ‘hooker’ or ‘prostitute’; ‘street sexual harassment’ rather than ‘eve-teasing’; ‘bastard’ to be replaced by ‘non-marital child’ or ‘a child whose parents were not married’; and ‘homemaker’ instead of ‘housewife’.

Raising the pitch for gender equality, the handbook cites the Constitution — which guarantees equal rights to individuals of all genders — to counter the stereotype that women should be submissive or subordinate to men. It says that men are often conditioned to believe that only women are supposed to do household chores, even though the reality is that people of all genders are equally capable of doing them. In the context of sexual violence, the handbook rightly points out that the assumptions made about a woman’s character on the basis of her choices (e.g., the clothes she wears or the places she frequents) may also impact how her actions and statements are assessed during judicial proceedings. The Supreme Court must be commended for this thoughtful step, whose importance cannot be overemphasised in our predominantly patriarchal society. At the same time, the SC needs to pay greater attention to gender diversity in the higher judiciary, considering the low proportion of women judges in the Supreme Court and high courts.