A girl’s parents play a big role in the establishment of her mental attitude towards boys being the superior sex. It is time they instil in her veins her real potential and supremacy over boys. After all, parents are her very first teachers.

It is, I repeat, it is the ‘weaker sex’ attitude our Indian parents keep towards their female children that makes our females weak throughout their life and when they need to be strong and defending, they simply fail and get carried away by the spoon-fed attitude in them that they are weak. It is idiotic to say that as per our culture, women are supposed to be this and that, and men are supposed to be enjoying certain privileges, and they can go to any lengths to get their things done. It is good if things are taking shape according to the need to the times.

See how a female child grows up in an Indian family. From the very day of the birth itself, the female child is looked down upon. Though not evidently, there is a feeling in all parents that the newborn is going to be a liability. Imagine that a baby boy follows after a couple of years. The shift of attitude the parents themselves towards their female child is enough to leave that child vulnerable to aggression, exploitation and deprivation. And the boy, who grows up with extra privileges, happens to develop asocial tendencies that make him feel that it is all right to keep girls and their modesty undermined.

However, the girls grow up with the constant feeding from their parents that girls are to be confined to certain limits and they have to be very careful when they are out, and they are so easily cheated and exploited, so it is better for them to be subservient as to be protected by their male counterparts. This psychological warfare is constantly carried out by their own parents, makes the female kids scared and subservient, and turns them into easy prey. And when a society gets filled with such boys and girls of two different makes and their parents, what we can expect is nothing less than what we get through our media on a daily basis: molestation, rape, eve teasing and otherwise undermining of the modesty of girls and even school kids as young as five year-old. This is deterioration and total collapse of conscience.

Where is the way out? It is in our homes. Today’s nuclear parents must take a different look at their female kids. They have to understand that it is their attitude towards their female kids that is going to make some changes in their lives. It is the parents’ vision, attitude and sensitivity towards their kids’ that determines whether their female kids are going to be accepted or aggressed. If parents could inculcate in their kids a kind of gender parity from the very day of birth itself, there will be changes in the long run.

Naturally, the kids come to hold a confidence that they are what they are and their position and value in the society are going to be determined by their own conscience. The very same conscience will be powerful to keep them in good stead. In such a scenario, we can expect our upcoming society to be a level-playing platform, shared for the mutual and harmonious coexistence of both the sexes, where there won’t be any rapes and molestations, aggressions and exploitations.

Is it too much to ask of our parents to be true to and respect each other and inculcate the respect in their kids too? Is it not the best of all those attributes that we normally associate with all parents? Unfortunately, our domestic ambience itself is a microcosm of a hostile society, where females get sidelined and discriminated against. Therefore, first let us do whatever we can to keep our homes female-friendly. Such families alone can expect a society to be so. Every society gets what it deserves. The same way, every female member of the family gets what the family thinks she should deserve.

It is all easier said than done. In order to facilitate this domestic overhaul, we need to do a few more things.

Firstly, we all should learn to live without cable TV. These channels are the worst media that educate, inform and entertain our kids in the most threatening ways. This ‘mediacation’ is constant and cancerous. Kids soak in whatever they watch on these channels and it becomes a part of their eventual mental disposition.

Secondly, it’s about sex - our villain. It is not a taboo. If parents do not know how to educate their kids about it and who in the world would do it for them? The father should educate his son/s and mother should take care of her daughter/s. Sex is a private affair. But sex education need not be so. It should not be something confidential.

Thirdly, dress code and physical appearance are to be considered. These should respect and compliment each other. Fashion is fine, but it is not to fuse the safer distance that exists between boys and girls. Delight comes from a distance. If the mother expects the world to ask her, “Which college are you studying in,” we cannot expect her daughter to be philosophical with her appearance.

Do we need to let our kids watch the vulgarities and disgusting perversions choreographed by our so-called chocolate heroes and bikini heroines in our commercial films? There are other films worth taking our children to. It will work wonders in the female-male relations if they watch such beautiful films.

Make your family meet, mingle, share and understand on a daily basis. Let there be a feeling that family is a friendly place, where alone better human relations flourish. So, there is urgent need for female-friendly families.