Positive Portrayal of Women

We live in an unequal society. Sometimes the inequalities are overt, sometimes subtle, sometimes real, sometimes imagined. We attempt to correct these inequalities in many ways, some ways are acquiesced to as legitimate (public distribution systems etc) and others are fought against (reservations etc).

In the past few months, I have noticed an expression of male-female inequality in "The Hindu" newspaper. See the attached pictures from the newspaper. They are all part of various education-related articles in the newspaper. The articles themselves talk about various topics like higher education, entrance-exam preparation, career opportunities etc. While the topics themselves are not related to women per se, the newspaper has chosen to portray women in a majority of the pictures.

The pictures are unrepresentative and if an alien were to understand our society via just these clippings, it would assume that men are a minority in India's education system. Some of the pictures are pretty comic too, with the photographer obviously having asked the students to bury their heads in books.

My friends reacted to this in various individual ways including crying foul (along with me), laughing it away saying poor-you-men, explaining it as a systemic correction to centuries of oppression, questioning the adequacy of the data and so on.

While not probing the merit of those interpretations, it seems that this positive portrayal of women is one of the least abrasive methods of affirmative action for the betterment of women. It is entirely possible that these images give a sense of confidence and potential to other women, while not taking away anything tangible from men. At some level, all these images convey that it is "cool" to be a career-woman. And that sense of romanticism associated with work could encourage more number of women to pursue higher education steadfastly.

That media can have a subtle influence on the choices we make in our lives is not new at all. Curbs on on-screen smoking are meant to prevent youngsters from getting influenced by their idols. Freedom of expression is relegated to the back benches in view of these subtle influences.

But now the question is, is this what "The Hindu" intended? We should hope so.