THE GPM Initiative -‘Let’s Cut the Crap’
CEPT University strives to identify various dimensions of gender disparity and work towards bettering them. Through this initiative, the Gender Parity Mission (GPM) has in the past two years worked in close coordination with staff members and students of the university by conducting workshops for sensitization and supported gender related research. The GPM has also developed university policies to cater to specific gender related issues on campus.
As part of the ongoing initiatives taken up by the GPM, ‘Let’s Cut the Crap’ was an initiative to bring awareness among students, faculty and staff about issues of day to day sexism. Through this, participating members were made aware of the rights of every member of the university with respect to gender related policies at CEPT.
Apart from workshops, a Film Screening, in association with FA film Club was organized on 3rd April. The film screening set the stage for discussions for the forthcoming week. Amongst other films, noted one - 'Life and times of Rosie the Riveter', which focusses on how women entered the American workforce when men went off to war during World War II, was screened for the participants.
Post film screening the GPM also organized a daylong event, Decoding 'Mard ko Dard Nahin Hota' on 4th April, to generate a conversation around everyday sexism. Through this event the students participated in a very impromptu competition wherein they were to identify and critique instance of everyday sexism from their own experience.
In another event, a stand-up comedy act entitled, Will the real Feminists Stand Up, Preeti Das shared her experiences with the students from different facets of her life. It was an interactive session where she introduced herself and spoke about her experiences as a mother, wife, comedian, crime reporter and journalist sharing representative incidents from domestic, institutional, social and public occurring were brought up for cross discussions. Through her discussions with the students, the general misconceptions against Feminism were brought to light.
GPM also invited architectural researcher and author, Madhvi Desai, to discuss about various aspects of women in Architecture and discuss about her recently published book - ‘Women Architects and Modernism in India’. Her research has covered a total of 35 women architects, with 7 from the post-colonial and colonial era who broke male bastions to pave way for a generation of women architects who were to follow. The talk focused on the work of these architects, who have carved out a niche for themselves in the field. The discussion also went on to look into the methods adopted for research while authoring the book.
The concluding session held on April 7 - Straight Talk: With Jigna Desai and Gauri Bharat was intended as an honest conversation around experiences of students in the CEPT campus and the policies developed by the GPM in the past two years.
