stereotypes – SKR Web

‘We’ for Valentine: Patterns within our Kaleidoscope

February 14, 2022February 14, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

As February dances to its love tune for obvious reasons, have you ever wondered what color and shape is your heart taking this Valentine? Is it the heart that is crimson for you or is there space for other palettes and patterns to take over? Almost like a game of cards with different shapes speaking for themselves, can we allow ourselves to think differently? At its peak, Greek society painted its culture with the colors of comedy and tragedy. Catharsis or not, the impression has been deeply ingrained through generations of audiences from The Odeon to The Globe of Shakespeare to continuously evolving modern means of storytelling. People continue to fall in love overcoming barriers of ethnicity, color, race, religion, class, language, or gender. The structure of that love may have shifted over time, but the roots have remained firm. Across films, music, art, literature, or poetry, the sense of affection has floated with blurred boundaries, but the palettes and designs of love differ with time, but emotions have adamantly stood the test of time.

Humming to Sting’s Shape of my heart (where he compared these shapes with separate identifications), are we ready to put a name to those individual shapes that carry our emotions? What if Cinderella’s masquerade did not wait for the clock to strike at 12? Would she still have got her prince charming? Perhaps if Snow White had not eaten the round red apple, her heart would not have experienced that eternal kiss of life! When we connect romance with the heart, we forget that its hypothetical shape is a mere figment of our imagination. Sorry to burst the bubble! Despite the knowledge, the innumerable amount of content that we see, hear or read, relates to that picture-perfect ‘heart’ shape. There are so many of us who believe in love in different forms. The existence of this one shape of the heart seems to be uniform to all of us. Most of us wear a mask that incessantly identifies with our existing view, constantly suppressing the inner voice questioning its weird, cliched existence. Perhaps we fear the potential loss of human emotions that may end up unfolding the reality.

This Valentine when you think of experiencing or reconfirming your thoughts about emotions, don’t ignore the ones that run wild. All shapes and forms of love in and around us need our focused thoughts. Let them act as lightning bolts, spread like wildfire, and enable us to think out of the box! The game that humans play with each other whether romantically, personally, emotionally is as risky as that game of cards. A spade is not just a spade it acts as a sharp weapon for soldiers unwittingly trapped in the battle of hearts. This Valentine, we can experience ‘clubs’ or we can buy ‘diamonds’, the cards on their own don’t have a value. While it has been associated with decadence, we should not undermine the kind of effect monetary independence brings. As we progress in this claimed month for love and tenderness, friendships, and happiness, connect and progress, we must try to understand the importance of understanding that shape. The size of our emotions does not matter. What matters is that we play the game with patience and fairness for the stakes are always high!

While it is now being argued that the mind is flat, there is still scope for acceptance of some ideas of thinking developed through studies of the mind over the past century. The geometry that surrounds different shapes reveals their intended inferences. For instance, shapes like squares and rectangles bring a sense of stability, balance, structure while circular shapes tend to bring about the concept of wholeness, self, timeliness, and completion. Then there is a triangle that even inputs its emotions to emerge with ideas of enlightenment, revelation, brightness surrounding ourselves. It’s heartening to see that the world is moving towards an acknowledgment of the individuality and uniqueness around us. The enforcement of uniform color, shape, and type is not justified when we start attaching emotions with them. These angles of possibility can be surrounded by stereotypical ideas and ideals, yet the result of any relationship can be completely new. What’s more, they can evolve into unthinkable complications, pretty much like these shapes and their mysterious psychological patterns.

The physically fixed-shaped heart has done its fair share of somersaults from films, music, to logic. Wh

en we take literature as well into account, we will find that its journey has been quite adventurous. The characters in books have been brought to life quite often with the awakening of love in their ongoing existence. From early on, this shape has gotten accustomed to the development of the plot, characters, and dialogues. Books bring with them elements of surprise and many times play with the readers’ emotions. A classic or contemporary literary piece of work has its romance. Different angles of this love have played their mystery games in quite many of them.

This Valentine as we think about the shapes and colors our hearts are ready to acquire, are we ready to dance on our own, or do we need our kings and queens to pop the champagne? Perhaps it’s time that we have the same love first for ourselves. With all due respect to our partners, there should not be any illusion as I am not trying to lessen the value of this day but am merely adding a corner of self-love to it! Just like any romantic film’s protagonist, we can very well play the part of characters having mutual affection. However, it is equally important to know that we do not crave a singular dimension. The endgame is perhaps the acknowledgment from ourselves that we matter. We unconsciously long for this confirmation from others rather than ourselves. This ever-trickling loss of self-worth keeps gaining momentum without a counterbalance. It latches itself onto our desires for freedom of thought and expression, self-love, mutual respect, unconditional devotion for our relationship with our surroundings. Instead, we can make it a day for loving ourselves too while respecting each other. Perhaps we may find the real shape of our heart that we can color to our heart’s desire!

Films

Merging the Genders: Working Her Life in Films

January 12, 2022January 12, 2022
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

When we watch films of our choice, as consumers of that content, films lay their focus on our emotional gratification and gradual build-up of a lasting connection with the story, characters and the whole concept of filmmaking. So, when we see our kind in any role on screen, we automatically start resonating with them and the image they project. Though there has been a regular climb in the journey of representation of women and their role on screen, there is a lot left to be desired. From being underrepresented to becoming subordinate selves, they have travelled far and wide and have managed to reach a point where sometimes the whole film can revolve around their character. They have donned the role of independent career woman, with sparks of their own along with their already existing role of homemakers and supporters to male characters. Many times, they go as far as overpowering the male leads due to a well-rounded sketch of the character development.

If we focus upon the image projection of career women in film quite a few times we will see that the women at the top of striving to be a top need to imbibe the qualities of image conveniently projected by men. Be it a corporate character sketch or a media mogul or even a career striving assistant, we witness them be to give the idea to the audience those women need to forgo their sense of softness, emotions, and empathy to reach the top of the chain. They need to self-inculcate a sense of cut-throat competition to reach a set level of success. In a way, they need to become as many as possible to push their way upwards in man’s world. Their need to dress in a certain way that emits power and exclusivity is shown to be one of the key factors of their character development. They require to stay away from so-called feminine qualities since they make them seem weaker in their journey toward success.

But are these stereotypes crucial in role development? Does the audience need to identify with them? Would it help women in general and will they truly get emancipated? Is the identification of ‘self’ with the ‘other’ important or does building up of women characters close to the real-life need to increase in number? The transition of real to reel and vice versa need to be talked in seriousness because the message that these films impart perhaps unconsciously leave a lot of loopholes when the human population in general and women in particular start to believe the absolute necessity of being like the ones they see and identify themselves with on screen. While drawing a working woman character sketch we end up over masculinising them, we gradually lose the sensitive trail of the human race. We tend to forget and forgo the beliefs integral to humanitarian co-existence by painting everyone in one colour or by picking up one umbrella to save all from the outpour. In turn, we end up dehumanising the concept of success and power by common gendering the beautiful differences that make an individual unique.

The films may come and go, the characters may change with time, but what stays is the impression that is already made. The human mind is very strong, and a memory made in time stays back. The fluidity with which sometimes films dehumanise and degrade the qualities of love, affection, empathy, and sense of sympathy that is core to women and humanity, in general, is quite alarming to absorb. It leaves a big question mark about the intent towards the sense of women empowerment in society through media and technology. Are we creating stronger women or are we recreating the need for stereotypes that may have a feminine face but already existing and thriving personality of their male counterpart? A question that we as women need to ask ourselves and to those who create characters about our empowerment. Is there a need to merge genders unconsciously to show a working success of the female sex or do we desperately need to let it go with the flow…

Opinion Shack

Can we Share: Logic and Rationality between Him, Her…

November 10, 2021November 10, 2021
by Sameera Khan Rehmani

When I see my naughty 8-year-old son crying over his shenanigans, lost toy or even a basic scolding, I consciously try to make him stop his obvious tantrums by not saying that ‘boys don’t cry’ or asking him questions like ‘are u a girl’. I do not want him to inculcate the idea of gender difference in his tender mind merely based on physical habits. I want him instead to build his strong emotional self. I don’t want him to be emotional weak (although there is nothing negative in being one too), but I don’t want him to compare himself by thinking that if there comes a moment in his life when he feels emotional or psychologically weak, then he is acting like another gender, in turn considering the particular gender to be weak in any form.

The moment a child is born, they get engulfed under the blanket of gender specifications resulting in unconscious stereotypes and difference in their individual roles. Right from the colour of their walls of nurseries to their colour and kind of toys they use, each aspect focuses on separating the genders. Their clothes, patterns, and even their names show the gender boundary they belong to! It goes to the extent where gender demarcation becomes the flag-bearer of respective cultures that need to be taken care of and protect to a greater degree. These most of the times carry on but the problem arise when these demarcations between genders become a subject of inequality resulting in serious issues of suppression of a particular gender by the other. The suppressive instincts in a way give rise to various obvious disparities kike gender stereotyping. These stereotypes get associated with respective genders and end up widening the gap of their recognition as an independent entity. This is where ideas of logic and emotions seep in that further divide the existing gaps between various genders whether male, female, trans or LGBTQ communities! They further have the capacity to hamper personal, professional, social, and emotional growth of each of them as individuals and as a specific community.

The stereotypes when emerge revolve around a major aspect of logic as well as emotions. In fact, Essentialists may believe that a particular gender has greater ability to project logic, analytical skills than the others who may be more emotional, nurturing, or emotional as part of their gender identification. These attributes end up becoming so integral to their identity that it becomes very difficult to break free and those who can rise above it are considered lucky few! These stereotypes have a great impact on the public and private lifestyle of these respective genders. They in their private outlook consider one gender to be below the other or weaker than themselves and categorise them to fall into the self-built category of nurturers, dependents, soft targets. However, in the public angle they make the other fall into the pit of limited physical capability having lesser monetary value. These need to be guarded by the other and need to be surrounded by rules and boundaries made for their so-called physical, emotional, and financial protection. Perhaps they have not been able to come out of the thought process that believes in the relevance and grave importance needed to develop and manage the already existing demarcations between the existing and emerging genders so that the ever-prevailing natural order can be preserved!

Perhaps when quotes like “Frailty, thy name is Woman!” became popular those were the times when the acceptance towards acceptance of breaking free was not acceptable and the idea of keeping the order and methos was so deeply engraved that gender demarcations were prevalent and accepted quite naturally. With the change in times and views the nature of understanding that there is a thin line between the difference in behavioural pattern in various genders came further out in open. The need of the hour is to understand, accept and enhance the change. There is great need to understand that in these times of physical and emotional turmoil, where each day, perhaps each moment people are realising their different identities; the concept of logic and rationality have long ago transcended the boundaries of gender disparities! To accept the similarities and differences between ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘them’, we need to absorb their need to coexist, and thrive in harmony and self-realisation. It needs to be clearly written and understood that difference in physical appearance and biological individualist capabilities must not be the deciding factors of create the boundaries between rationality and emotionality of various genders in and out of question.

Anyone can be fickle, imperfect, weak or frail. We are all humans. We all have our weak moments. It is necessary to not to generalise. We can very well share our rationality, emotions, logics among each other for there is so much of space for us all to co-exist. The idea of acceptability comes naturally to all and needs to have full freedom to have individuality along with the ability to borrow from each other for the mergence of stereotypes has the capability and power to bring a societal coherence and growth of mental capacity to accept all that exists!

Tag: <span>stereotypes</span>

‘We’ for Valentine: Patterns within our Kaleidoscope

Merging the Genders: Working Her Life in Films

Can we Share: Logic and Rationality between Him, Her…