Have you ever noticed the poorly lit sidewalk? Or counted the number of crime stories where women are victims in your news feed? What are the places you have noticed in your locality? A park, your favourite restaurant, and many more things that you recognise with. You pay attention to the people there, the traffic there, the shops in your area, and in fact you pay attention to those potholes on which the auto bounces their customers.
There might be some things which may seem out of place to you. For example that one tree which was bent due to the last storm and can now fall any day. Or the school wall, outside which many people throw their garbage. Why do you notice such things? Because of your experience, knowledge and reality.
All these things combined make your gender lens. You notice all of this due to your experience, knowledge and reality. And all these things combined make your gender lens. Your worldview depends on your life story. And this lens varies from person to person. And just like that everyone's lens keeps changing from person to person. About lenses, you wouldn't even know and realise when they become a part of your life. Your gender, your culture, your background, and many other factors around you, all come together to make your lens.
Each person's lens is unique due to their background, their culture, their gender and many other reasons. Now for you and me the route to the office might be very different. I know where street lighting is proper or not, which lanes are busy and crowded. However, my male colleague would have never even felt the need to think about street lighting. Just because some people can't see certain things, that does not mean those lenses are not important.
When a decision maker, journalist or content creator wants to tell a story of their area, then it is important that all the lenses of that area can come together and give them a holistic perspective. And this perspective will only be complete when we put all these lenses at the same level and we understand that the gender lens of you and me is equal in a society.
Sure your storytelling does not reflect a gender bias? 🤔 If not, we're here to help.
We've just introduced a course for creators looking to understand how to use a gender lens while creating content 👉 Gender lens in storytelling 👉 Admissions open now #BackToSchool