The Plight of Modern Family; Gender Equality and contemporary changes

The human society is comprised of men and women. The society has given specific roles based on the gender which has now changed dramatically. Both men and women go out for work and provide financial support for the family. This is mainly because of the economic conditions which force women to earn and the high educational and professional standards of modern women.

In the ancient pre-historic world, men go hunting or forging while women stay at home caring for children and doing other household chores. Human physique had adapted to that lifestyle as well. A woman can do patient work such as weaving, creating artifacts etc and she can endure longer than man. On the other hand, man can unleash massive energy for a short period of time helping him to pursue and kill animals. Almost all of the human races were patriarchal. There was no place for women other than home. Education of women is neglected but the knowhow of doing household work had passed down from mother to daughter. The slightest of improvements for the working of women happens in the 19^th century western world. Women were allowed to work as governesses for children of wealthy households. Poor woman were also recruited as factory workers and laborers to fuel the growing demand for labor in the newly industrialized economy. But prostitution being the world’s oldest job welcomed women with open hands as it always does even now. Apart from those, economic contribution of the women for a society was very limited. Although Sri Lankan women are somewhat liberated than their other Asian counterparts, women going to work was an alien concept for the conservative Sri Lankan society.

In the modern society, women had defied the traditional gender roles. The main reason for this revolution was improved education standards for girls. In Sri Lanka and throughout the world, schools are established for both sexes. Sometimes, women outperform men in education field. In Sri Lanka this scenario is well observed. Since independence Sri Lankan women are coming out of their typical job roles specified to them (schoolteachers, clerks etc) into engineering, finance, manufacturing and entrepreneurship. With the universal suffrage, women have their political freedom so it is not a surprise at all to see a Sri Lankan woman becoming the world’s first female prime minister. Now Sri Lankan women are pushing their independence to the limits as discussions on men-women equality and feminism being carried out.

This newly found independence has an immense impact on the typical role of woman in the society. In the past a woman had always been under the protection of her father, husband and elder son in various stages of life but now they have financial and sexual independence. It is up to them to decide whether to get married to a man or to get married to a job. Even in Sri Lanka, highly educated high achieving young women belong to late 80s and early 90s generation tend not to get married or to set aside their marriage until they get elevated in educational and professional life. Sometimes young women who get married don’t like to have children. Even if they have children, family duties are most of the time put in a second place making room for educational or career obligations.

Women must have their independence. We can’t turn the clock and go to a medieval society again. Financial contribution of a mother in a family is needed like never before in this economically hard times. Giving financial and personal independence is not a bad practice since it gives some sort of self-esteem to women. At least girls should have opportunities to apply the knowledge they have gained from education to the national economy.

Temporary Solutions

Flexible work schedules can be introduced by employers. Of course, maternity leave is grated for women at childbirth but that is not a guarantee that the woman may have quality time for her family. Standard 9 to 5 office schedule should be replaced with the permission to come and go to office at any time. Modern Information Technology (IT) companies are adapting this practice. It is much easier for them to emphasize on flexible schedule because all those organizations have target oriented work pattern. For them, all that matters is you have completing your work before deadline. When, where and how you are going to do your assigned work is not important. This helps a woman who is a mother and a wife to adjust her time according to family obligations. Company policies regarding women also need a change allowing more flexible times, reduced workloads and ‘work from home’ opportunities

Giving reduced workload for women employees is also among discussion but that raises questions about salary. Employers are reluctant to pay the same salary for a woman who is doing less work than her male counterpart. Although this practice goes against gender equality, it is much better than women working all day long without having time for her family.

Work from home is another alternative to smooth up to busy work schedule of modern professional. This doesn’t mean that you are always in doing whatever the task assigned to you in home. Regular visits to workplace may be needed but combined with flexible work schedules, this is a good solution. Development in IT field has broken the time and distance barrier. An employee can connect to office computer network form her Laptop or home computer. Video conferencing can be used to communicate with people anywhere in the world so time is dramatically saved. A busy mom can look after her child and do household chores even while she is doing her office work. She can do her work at night or early in the morning with the comfort of her cozy home.

What lies ahead?

All the above mentioned solutions are temporary. With the diminishing of the gender roles the concept of family may be abrogated in a couple of generations (it has already happening). Human society is in constant evolution. It is inevitable that traditional gender roles will soon be wiped out and we may come to the age that we no longer distinguish men and women as their contribution to the society and economy is more of less becomes the same.

We need to set aside the traditional beliefs that a family makes a person complete and it is needed to the personality development of a child. More and more single parent homes and artificial insemination pregnancies and surrogate motherhood gives both men and women to procreate without the express help of the other gender making the ultimate independence of sexes form each other and freeing them from the burdens of the family.

Whether the conservatives like it or not, it is inevitable that family, as an institution is failing as the concept of marriage has already failed. Embracing a and preparing for a future with enhanced personal independence, diminished gender roles and less and less family and emotional ties should be the wise thing to do. 

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Sri Lankan Education System Needs an Overhaul

Education is a basic need for a human being.  The right to education is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We get education until we die. Humans are the only creatures in the world who have the capability to pass their collective knowledge in to the next generation. New knowledge piles up from generation to generation making humans capable of mastering their atmosphere and become the most successful creature in the world. There are two kinds of education systems; formal education we get from educational institutions and informal education. When we look at the formal education system in Sri Lanka, a need to change the system arises.

Formal education is Sri Lanka started with the introduction of Buddhism. Mahaviharaya in Anuradhapura which was controlled by Buddhist monks was the main knowledge hub. Only Buddhist philosophy was discussed at first. Writing was not popular at that time so knowledge goes from teacher to student orally. Sinhalese literature was in its golden age in ‘Kotte’ kingdom. Even our Kings were scholars who were fluent in many languages. When Sri Lanka, came under British rule, old education system had changed. Buddhist temple centered education was replaced by missionary schools.

Later, with the efforts of Colonel Olcott to introduce Buddhist schools and C.W.W Kannangara’s free education, a student is getting education from government schools freely. Because of the education system, Literacy rate of our country is 93% and we have universal literacy rate among young people. Every child is getting a school and sometimes scholarships for education.

Sri Lankan education system although seems to be fine for an outside eye is actually plagued with problems.

Our education system is not up to date. The world is changing and new knowledge is piling up but the content we learn is very old and outdated. New subjects are left out. This situation is mostly present in technical education in which the things which we learn will be obsolete in a couple of year’s time. Knowledge delivery methods are very old. Teacher-oriented learning is still practiced while in education systems in developed counties are already in more dynamic student-oriented system. Our children are still being spoon fed by teachers. That was even present in our university system as well. The disadvantage of the above approach will become apparent to students when they go abroad to read for a foreign degree or when they try to read for a post graduate degree.

From the moment a child is entered to the grade one, parents and teachers are pushing the child only to be excelled in academic achievements. Sports, aesthetic and extra-curricular activities are virtually being thrown out of a child’s time table thus hindering the personality development of the child. Our children’s creativity is much low compared to children in other countries. Endurance (both physical and mental) is nil. Children are getting depressed and committing suicide more often. All because of the imbalanced personality created by our education system.

Fierce Competition for popular schools is a controversial point. It is true that many schools don’t have even the basic resources. Government needs lot of money (of which the government is always running short) to develop schools. Even all the schools get equal resources, people still try to send their children to popular schools in Colombo and other major cities for their prestige and for better opportunities their child will get for being a student in those schools, for instance getting a high-paid job or securing a good marriage proposal. 

 Restructuring the education system is one of the most challenging tasks that lie ahead. We should focus on an education system for the future needs.Changing education system from teacher-centered to child-centered is needed. Child should be given room to discover the existing knowledge and create new ideas from it while teacher should be playing a supportive role.

Sports, aesthetic and extracurricular activities need to get introduced as part of the education process. A rapid update of the content of textbooks is also needed. New technologies and foreign language education should be considered of utmost importance.  This will all become in vain if the resources both physical and human is not developed in schools so infrastructure development is also needed.

Policy makers need to understand the fact that the money spending on education is not a waste but is an investment for the future. Increasing the percentage allocated for education of the GDP is not merely enough. Quality of education should also be increased. Children are our future. Without them getting a good education to take up the future challenges, all of our present work will be rendered useless so it is everyone’s duty is to revive our education system from the sinkhole in which it is buried.  

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