Gender sensitisation textbook to open eyes

Hyderabad: The upcoming Gender Sensitisation course being introduced in degree colleges in Telangana from this academic year is unique in many ways. It touches on different topics like Housework: the invisible labour; Preparing for womanhood and growing up male; first lessons in caste; Domestic violence: is home a safe place? The caste face of violence etc. This course’s book, titled Towards a World of Equals, is bilingual with English and Telugu lessons in the same volume.

Experienced teachers and researchers from the English and Foreign Languages University, the University of Hyderabad, Osmania University and Anveshi Research Centre for Women Studies were involved in the book’s preparation.
Ms A. Suneetha, the book’s editor and a senior fellow at Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies said that the subject and its contents were very new. “Unlike other subjects that revolve around definitions and theoretical explanations, Gender Sensitisation is different. You won’t find lessons included in this book anywhere else. These are drawn from experiences and examples from our day-to-day lives,” she said.

When asked about the reasons behind including English and Telugu translations in the same book, Ms Suneetha said that this was done for better understanding of the subject. “For students who have switched to English medium after doing schooling in Telugu, the explanations in English might be difficult to understand. And this is not a subject that a student can simply learn by heart. These are more of examples from our daily lives and hence it was decided to come out with a bilingual book,” she said.

Professor Rama Melkote, a former OU professor who also contributed to the book, has written in the preface that education and education policies must acknowledge the centrality of the gender in the making of citizens and civil society. As new issues and questions emerge regarding sexuality and sexual orientations of women and men, the state and the society must learn to address them in an inclusive way”.