Gender sensitization is required to tackle pervasive sexism

Gender discrimination and sexism are so pervasive around us that many times we don't even realize it happening around us. It happens so routinely that our senses don't notice and start accepting gender-biased statements and behavior as if it is a normal way of life. The result, we not only start ignoring these incidents but also stop noticing them where we should. As a society and as an individual we need to evaluate things through a gender lens. Such evaluation is needed for the day as we waited too long and allowed gender discrimination to occupy too many areas of our lives. Gender discrimination is there in our homes, our relationships and friendships, movies and books, stories, the workplace, and many other places. All cultures are full of gender-discriminatory practices and rituals. Many want to preserve these discriminatory rituals because they are part of our heritage. I wonder how something becomes right because it has been going on for centuries. Rather, something discriminatory when allowed to exist for long without being questioned gets normalized, and very few dare to question it, such practices require a strong and determined resistance. The good part is not everyone gets normalized to these discriminatory practices, there are some who notice them and dare to protest. These are the ones who force the change or at least initiate the process for change. I am lucky enough to meet with some of these people either personally or through books. These interactions have sensitized me about gender discrimination and helped to realize many of my own privileges because of my gender.

The movement against gender discrimination has been going on for decades. Definitely, our society is becoming more conscious about gender equality, but a lot is yet to be achieved, and in some places, the movement is in the very initial stages. Gender sensitization, which can be defined as the modification of behavior by raising awareness about gender equality concerns, is one of the important ways to make individuals aware of gender-discriminatory practices. Once people become aware of discrimination the hope is they will fight against it or at least they won't follow such practices. I can say this by personal experience, since I became aware of various aspects of gender discrimination I started evaluating things using a gender lens. When I evaluated movies I loved, songs I admired, books, and authors I read while growing up, I realized that most of them failed the gender test. That is, most of these things were heavily gender-biased, they treated men and women in a very stereotypical fashion, and women were always shown as tolerant, sacrificial individuals, who could tolerate any injustice forced on them. Remaining silent, even when put through unjust situations, was considered a virtue for women, and a revolt of any kind was reserved for men. This is why gender sensitization is required to tackle pervasive sexism in our society. More so today because there is no more open gender discrimination as most societies know it is bad and try to project a picture that they are not gender biased. However, this does not mean that gender discrimination is not there, it is more subtle and made to look normal, that is why we need to evaluate things through a gender lens. Our gender lens should enable us to evaluate the books we read or movies we watch to make sure if they do a good job of sensitizing us about gender-related issues. I know some people will make the argument that it's not fair to judge things of the past using today's standards, and this is true, however, this does not mean we cannot call a spade a spade when we realize that it is a spade. Anything, no matter how old or new, if it perpetuates sexism, it is sexiest and we need to call it sexiest and I am glad people are doing this. Gender sensitization is not easy and many will struggle with it as it will challenge their convictions and beliefs, and put them at odds with their culture and traditions. We need to take this challenge, it's tough, but continuing with sexism is not an option we should choose, it was a wrong option yesterday, and it is a wrong option today, let's choose the right option. 

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Why Olympics are special

Olympic 2020 recently concluded in Tokyo, Japan. The Olympics (summer, winter, and Paralympics) are the most recognized and celebrated sports events in the world. This is not just because of tradition and glamour, but because of the aspirational aspect associated with it. It is the struggles of Olympic participants and their stories that make this event special. Winning an Olympic medal is a dream of every sportsperson (if it's an Olympic sport), but this is just one part, when people reach that stage and share with the world their struggles to reach there inspires millions. Every participant nation expects to win a medal, no matter whether it's a Gold, Silver, or Bronze, an Olympic medal has a special place and recognition. Winners, as well as non-winners, get famous, sometimes participants miss a medal by a whisker, by 1/10th of a second. Some participants become overnight stars, or some stars take bold steps to highlight issues that people hesitate to discuss, for example, mental health or discrimination.

Every participant comes with his or her unique story to the Olympics, some of them are stories about incredible inspirational journeys. For example, Allyson Felix's comeback journey after her daughter's birth to become the most decorated athlete of the USA, Hidilyn Diaz of the Philipines winning the first Gold for the Philipines, or Neeraj Chopra from India winning India's first-ever track and field gold, even they all won a Gold medal their stories are different and unique. The Olympic medal also offers instant fame to the winners, for example, Neeraj Chopra from India was already doing great in the javelin throw, he was undefeated since 2018 in all the events he participated in, and he topped the qualifying round, but his country only noticed his talent when he won India's first-ever track and field Gold, this is the power of an Olympic medal. Winning is not as important as participating is, some participants even after getting injured or being in the last position complete their event, not for any medal or record but to fulfill their dream of being an Olympian who finished the event. 

I enjoy watching the Olympics just because of these stories, they inspire me, and they give me hope. Many sports like track and field or swimming I don't follow at all, I only watch them during the Olympics and enjoy the drama and action. This year's Olympics were more special as they happened when the world was facing a pandemic crisis. The event got delayed by a year, even though it happened in 2o21, it was called Tokyo 2020, or Olympic 2020. The event is over, it gave the world a lot to look forward to, some athletes like Simone Biles took an unprecedented and brave step to withdraw from some of the events to focus on their mental health. I am sure each one of us looks at the Olympics from a different lens and may have something to share. Like most previous Olympics this Olympics also didn't disappoint, thank you Japan, thank you Tokyo for giving us a chance to witness this amazing spectacle of sports.

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Stop worrying about sounding less than brilliant

Social media has transformed the way we communicate with each other. Nowadays, a major part of our communication happens through written or visual (video or photo) mediums rather than spoken communication. We have many platforms available for us where we can read other's opinions and share our own. However, this abundance of platforms has also made many of us worry about sounding less than brilliant or getting criticized for our views. However, we all must remember that just because someone criticizes or ridicules us our opinions don't become any less important or irrelevant. Also, worrying about sounding less than brilliant just makes us hold on to our thoughts at places where we should speak up. 

First, it takes courage to speak up, we may or may not be affected by certain things because of our social and economic status. But this does not mean we should not speak about issues that are affecting others. Raising awareness about important and sensitive issues is important because many times people who get affected by these issues do not have proper platforms or resources to raise these issues. That is why people who have these resources must take responsibility and use their resources for the benefit of the ones who can't raise their concerns. It is normal to be conscious about our presence and take some precautions so that we don't become targets of online bullying but self-censoring is not a good option. 

Second, if we wait for a day when we will sound brilliant and flawless to voice our views, such a day may never come as there will be always someone who can articulate the same thing better than us. Also, there will be always someone who will find some flaw in whatever we say or do. So, stop worrying about sounding less than brilliant, share your opinion or views freely and fearlessly. Of course, we need to be respectful of others and follow some basic etiquettes that we follow in our everyday lives, but apart from this nothing should stop us.

Finally, perfection is an illusion, it's a relative thing, if we are sincere about what we do or say, it doesn't matter if others like it or not. Therefore, enjoy the social media platforms that are available to you, and use them to connect with people and raise awareness about the issues you care about. Stop worrying about sounding less than brilliant, be a free thinker, and behave like a free thinker.

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Faith and belief, similarities and differences

We use the words "faith" and "belief" interchangeably as if they mean the same, they do have similar meanings but I think there are subtle differences. Whenever we these words, we imply that we trust something without knowing everything or even anything about that thing. Trust is a very valuable emotion to confer, when we trust something we not only offer our allegiance and stand by it, but also try to convince others that the thing we trust is good for them also. So, what are the subtle differences between faith and belief?

The major difference between faith and belief is that faith is inherently blind, we don't need any information or rational logic to have faith in anything. For example, most of us inherit the religion of our parents and we have full faith in it, we grow up watching love stories and have faith in relationships and love. Mostly, this faith remains unshaken unless something dramatic and pivotal happens in our lives. It's hard if not impossible to explain why we have faith in anything without sounding illogical. One of the important characteristics of faith is that it's unmovable, no matter what happens, or what data you produce, people who have faith in something do not change it, rather they find reasons to defend their faith and question the evidence or even deny the legitimacy of the data that challenges their faith without providing any evidence for their statements.

However, belief needs to have some basis and rationale, not direct evidence, but some circumstantial evidence, there is something beyond plain conviction. Also, beliefs are subject to change as new evidence or data may prove them wrong, but as I mentioned, faith seldom changes no matter what evidence or what data is produced. We have not seen atoms or electrons with our own eyes but we believe that they exist, the same way many of us have not seen the south pole or north pole but believe that they exist, but we don't have faith in these things. We don't feel hurt or angry if anyone challenges or proposes alternatives to these things with equally compelling data or other evidence. Beliefs do change, our understanding of our solar system is a very good example of this, it has changed over time as telescopes and satellites have become more powerful. 

Faith and belief demand our trust based on some or no evidence, be careful when you defend them, don't confuse faith and belief. There is no shame in accepting faith as it is, many of us need to have faith in something, that's a psychological need that can be fulfilled by religion or something else, just be clear about it, that's all.

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You can't drive forward by continuously looking in a rearview mirror

Traditions, culture, history, and legacy all connect us with our past. Any country or civilization that is old enough will have enough incidents and achievements to celebrate and feel good about it, at the same time, there will be incidents about which they owe an apology to a certain section of their society. Old civilizations like the Chinese, Indians, or Romans are no exceptions to it. History is not only about glorious triumphs or grand wars or golden eras, but it is also about racism, casteism, gender discrimination, massacres, and exploitation of certain sections of society at the hands of a few privileged ones. It won't be an exaggeration to say that each golden era of any civilization is associated with some sort of travesty inflicted on some section of society. This is true irrespective of which country or civilization we are talking about. However, there will be very few from that corresponding country or civilization to acknowledge this fact, rather, we can find many who either deny or try to justify even the ugliest or most cruel historical incidents.

Learning lessons from history is important, that is why we study history, it is not just important to know what happened, but also important to know why happened. Also, if we don't feel sorry, bad, disgusted, apologetic, or angry while studying history, then we may be studying something but not real history. There is no country or civilization that does not have skeletons buried in their closet. As I mentioned, there are some bright spots in every civilization, and it is important to know about them. But the problem arises when in the mode of hyper-nationalism, people highlight only bright spots and cover up or worse, blatantly deny some inconvenient truths. The result of this is that the most vocal class of such societies keeps on indulging in past glories. They fall in love with their past so much, that they do not even recognize that their current situation is not even close to the so-called golden era about which they are harping. It is like trying to drive a vehicle on a highway by continuously looking in a rear-view mirror.

The rear-view mirror has its utility, one has to look at it occasionally while driving to check on the surroundings. One cannot look in the rear-view mirror and drive forward, if we do that we are bound to crash. Check your present situation and think about how to move forward, know about your competition today, and design a strategy to compete based on what you have today. If I want to win a gold medal in the Olympics, then I need to train hard and compete with my fellow contestants, not brag about my grandfather winning Olympic gold, such bragging is not going to help me a bit to win any medal or even get qualified for that event, rather, others might feel pity for my situation. This is what is happening in countries where hyper-nationalism is on the rise, they are forgetting that their competitors are getting better day by day, by thumping their chest about their past glories they are not doing any good to their current situation but helping their competitors to get better and better. Hopefully, these people realize their mistakes and shift their gaze from the rear-view mirror. Because if they don't, all they can go is in the reverse direction. The more one indulges in the past, the more one loses connection with the present, this is true for an individual, group, or country.  Learn from the past to create a better future for everyone, for things from the past apologize or salute and move on, don't get stuck.

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Drug development is a science, not politics

First, a disclaimer, I worked as a drug discovery scientist for more than a decade working on different projects including anti-HIV and antibacterial. I was fortunate enough to work in such a creative enterprise with some of the best talents in the world in academia as well as in the pharma industry. So, this blog post is based on my training and experience as a drug discovery scientist.

Drug development is not an easy endeavor. It is a risky, expensive, and prolonged process with absolutely no guarantee of success. Many countries in the world where protection for intellectual property for drug development is non-existent or pathetically inadequate don't even engage in this endeavor even though their population needs new drugs for almost every lethal disease that exists in this world. These countries depend entirely on developed countries for drug discovery, even for the drugs for diseases like malaria and tuberculosis that are eradicated from most developed countries but are very much a public health concern in most other countries. Drug development is a scientific endeavor, a very challenging and complex problem, it's not politics and the two should not be mixed.

There are arguments on various social media platforms in India about different types of medicines like allopathy, homeopathy, Ayurveda, home remedies, alternative medicine, or whatever. This argument is more emotional or political than a scientific argument. There is no data, no experiments, or any scientific principles that are debated, there are just accusations and counter-accusations, just like most political discussions. The debate is devoid of any scientific spirit and temper. People engaging in the debate are not even interested in knowing how a drug is developed or approved, they only want to prove the other side wrong, by hook or crook. Once politics enters any argument the first two causalities are rationality and common sense.

Either something is a medicine (drug), or it's not. Over the period of time, the scientific community and governments have developed a reliable, reproducible, and verifiable mechanism to evaluate the approval of a drug. It is called clinical trials, and the data submitted for this purpose is publicly available, almost every country has a competent body to evaluate such data, for example, the US has Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If there is no such data, it cannot be called medicine, it is that simple, it can be anything else but not medicine or an approved drug. So, there is no secret sauce to develop any drug or medicine, there is no need for a statement of an expert, you just need clinical data that can be verified by an independent body. So, anyone or any company claiming anything as a drug doesn't need any celebrity, govt backing, or opinions, just producing clinical data, proving the drug's safety and efficacy, and getting the approval. You just need one reproducible experiment with verifiable data to prove or disapprove any scientific hypothesis right or wrong, it's that simple, but it's not at all easy as collecting such data may not be easy in some cases. Drug development is science, not politics.

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India's self-inflicted Covid disaster

India's struggle in dealing with the second wave of COVID-19 infections has made it into almost every major news portal in the world. Covid-19 is a pandemic. The entire world is battling with it. Many countries are struggling to deal with the unprecedented burden on their public health system. There are concerted efforts on every level and at on never seen before levels to revamp even well-functioning public health systems. In light of all this, India's struggle is a self-inflicted disaster. Many countries in South Asia, including India, got lucky during the first wave of COVID-19 infection. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Shri Lanka didn't get hit that bad or didn't feel any pressure on their already struggling public health systems. This should have given them an advantage and some extra time to prepare for a possible second wave. History (Spanish flu) suggests that most viral infections don't just come once, many of them come in multiple waves and some reoccur every year that too with the mutated virus. Somehow, this thought didn't cross the mind of policy and decision-makers in India, they declared victory over Corona and started as if the pandemic was over, at least for them. The biggest mistake one can make against a highly infectious virus is to allow large public gatherings and India did exactly this. Large religious congregations, state elections, local elections, massive election rallies, everything was allowed without any COVID protocols. How did an opportunistic virus, like COVID-19 miss such a golden opportunity, it did exactly what it is good at, it spread like wildfire across India. The second wave not only caught Indians unprepared but it also created a policy paralysis where the lack of coordination of the governments at the state and national level was exposed. The government did not even try to show that it was capable of handling the crisis. People turned to social media to get help from whatever sources they can. Most of the relief work was done on an individual level, help seekers turned to social media more than the government portals. Many people got infected even after taking precautions as it was impossible to stay away from infected people. Many lives that could have been saved were lost, due to lack of proper and timely medical care.

It is still a great puzzle why a country with the world's largest vaccine manufacturer and largest generic drug industry didn't stock enough vaccines and drugs for its own people. When the entire world was procuring vaccines and drugs from these manufacturers by investing money, collaborating with them, and placing advance orders with almost every vaccine inventor and maker, what the Indian government was doing? What is their rationale behind not going for aggressive vaccination even after knowing that the country's public health system is utterly not capable of taking the load from any pandemic? I don't know if Indians will bother to ask these questions to their respective public representative, somehow in India, such issues don't make a good topic for a political discussion. Politics is unusually focused on caste, religion, and national security. In India, Pakistan can be a bigger election topic than the deaths of thousands of Indians due to the government's mistake, sad but a reality. 

What's the lesson? First, listen to scientists, don't try to underscore the damage by shutting up voices that ask questions, no matter how uncomfortable to difficult those questions are. Second, provide public health institutions reliable data, freedom to share information, and some platform to discuss and communicate this information with world experts. By sharing and analyzing such data only one can come up with the best policy decision in any pandemic. No country is risk-free in a world pandemic, all need to fight it and help each other when needed. This is why when India needed help arrived from all over the world. Finally, ask for accountability. A disaster of such a magnitude cannot happen without failures at every level starting from the top. If Indians don't ask these questions, demand honest answers from respective authorities, and fix the accountability they are going to face the same problems and wonder what went wrong from one disaster to another.

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Vidai- a cringe worthy ritual which is still practiced

Vidai (or Bidai) is a ritual performed in Indian marriages where a bride is supposed to say a final goodbye to her parental home and leave for her husband's house. The ceremony might be called with different names in different parts of India, but the intention behind the ritual is the same, to do a farewell to your father's home and announce your entry to your husband's home. It seems that it is assumed that no home is the bride's own home, she just gets passed on from one patriarch to another. It's an emotional moment with everyone crying as if someone has died, there are many hit Bollywood songs specially dedicated to this ritual. No doubt, this is a very emotional moment of life for many Indian women. I always found it odd to see people crying in the middle of a marriage ceremony that was full of joy and color until this ritual took place. I am glad to see that many brides are now questioning this ritual and going to the extent of getting rid of it, I commend their courage and support their movement to get rid of such a cringeworthy ritual.

The question is why has this ritual not been questioned so far? One of the reasons is it is so glamorized by society and the movie industry that it has become mandatory to have this ritual in every marriage video recording, even brides who don't feel like crying are made aware that they should at least display some sorrow otherwise what people will think. As I already mentioned there are hit movie songs memorizing this ritual and making it an integral part of their memory and culture, this is how it managed to survive so long. 

What's wrong with it? Almost everything. If you look at marriage, the bride and groom are getting married to each other, at least now, legally, both of them have ancestral rights to the property of their ancestors. Then why only the bride has to go through this ritual? The bride and groom, both are starting their new life together, probably, on their own with minimum or no support from their parents. Then why this ritual is applied only to the bride? The time when brides started asking this question, this ritual is standing on shaky ground and its disappearance is just a matter of time. No doubt, as it does always, patriarchy and its overt and covert supporters will argue about how this is a part of our glorious past and culture, how it has some emotional or rational or even some scientific rationale behind it. They make this style of argument almost about every ritual or tradition that gets questioned, many of these arguments are either ridiculous or laughable, but it does not stop them from making it. Hopefully, girls will see through this ploy of keeping patriarchy alive through some rituals and get rid of this ritual or at least force it to become gender-neutral.

Every society and culture undergoes transformations from time to time, this is not only natural but also essential for its survival. However, such transformations are not easy, especially when they question long-standing traditions or rituals that people have followed without question for centuries. Many marriage rituals from various parts of the world have passed their expiry date and need a major overhaul. I am glad to see that change is happening and women are leading this movement of change.

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Nine years

Today is the ninth anniversary of this blog. I can't believe that nine years have passed since I started this amazing journey. I enjoyed every bit of it, sharing my views with readers and receiving their feedback has helped me to grow as a person and learn from others' experiences. I always encourage others to share their stories, we all have unique stories and if we share them others can benefit by reading and relating to them. If you are someone who is still debating about starting a blog or writing a social media post about your story, please do it, you will be surprised to find support from some of the most unexpected quarters. My own journey on this blog is full of amazing experiences. I do not write for the sake of writing, only when I feel that there is something worth sharing, then I write a post. Also, some life changes affect our availability and time management, but this is natural, and as life gets busy it teaches us how to prioritize our tasks to utilize our time more efficiently. 

Recently, I started to reread my old posts to see if I need to update any of them and write an updated version. Many times situations change, new information emerges and our views might change or get modified based on that new information. This is a natural progression and we must be flexible enough to accept that we were wrong or some better options have emerged for our consideration. We get bombarded with so much information almost every second, and thanks to ever-updating social media content, it's not easy to process it. The way social media is designed almost every update prompts us to react to it, and it's hard not to react. This means we are expressing ourselves each time we press like or share the post, photo, tweet, or whatever. The internet is flooded with human expressions, this unique overflow of expressions is a significant cultural phenomenon and we started witnessing some social, cultural, and political repercussions of it. 

Thanks a lot to all my readers, here as well as on various social media platforms like Facebook where this blog is shared. Your comments and feedback help me a lot, all comments and feedback are welcome, keep sharing them, and don't hesitate to share even if they are critical of my post. 

Stay safe, stay healthy, and yes, keep reading. Love you all and thank you all.

Embracing our imperfections and vulnerabilities

Humans are the dominant species on this planet. Our dominance is evident in the way we control things and dictate terms on our planet. Our complex brain and ability to imagine and innovate are a few of the main reasons for our dominance. Despite all this, we have our own imperfections and vulnerabilities. One might ask how our dominance fits with our imperfections and vulnerabilities? How did we survive despite being imperfect and vulnerable? The fact is, our imperfections and vulnerabilities make us human and are the very reason for our success and dominance. However, many of us spend our entire lives worrying about our imperfections and vulnerabilities, feeling bad about them, trying to hide them from others, and assuming that expressing them might make us look weak and timid. Many leaders in various fields also try to project a rough and tough image of a leader, whereas a true leader is also imperfect and vulnerable like all of us they just know how to use them as their strength rather than considering them as a weakness.

Our society has always used difficult feelings like shame and guilt in a negative light. This is why most people hesitate or even worry when they feel these things, they hesitate to ask for any kind of help, and they prefer to keep these things to themselves which makes things worse.  We are taught to disown these feelings rather than embracing them or embracing anyone who displays these feelings. American writer and professor Brene Brown has done splendid research on this subject, her TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability is one of the most viewed TED talks. My own struggles with my vulnerabilities and imperfections have taught me many lessons that I use in my day-to-day life, this is why I don't hesitate to share stories of my own struggles. We are taught imperfect and vulnerable people cannot be good leaders, but these are just incorrect perceptions, and myths without any data to support them. On the contrary, embracing our vulnerabilities is a courageous act, and only a person with good leadership qualities can do this. Also, our struggle with these emotions is a continuous and ongoing process, we discover new vulnerabilities and imperfections as we progress in our lives, our vulnerabilities at the age of five are not the same at the age of forty. This is why embracing our vulnerabilities and imperfections is not a one-time act, but is a process that we learn and relearn every day. 

One of the reasons why people hesitate to display the courage to embrace their vulnerabilities is they lack an empathetic support system; they don't find anyone trustworthy enough to share these feelings. Even in the era of social networks where we are more connected than at any other time in human history, we struggle to find trusted people to whom we can express our difficult emotions and struggles without having a feeling of not being judged or exposed. This is a challenge for all of us, help seekers as well as help offerers, we need to step up to embrace our own vulnerabilities so that we can create an environment where others are encouraged to embrace their own. This is a challenging task, that's why it requires courage and leadership, and this is important for our mental hygiene. Once we learn to deal with fear, shame, or guilt about our imperfections and vulnerabilities many other challenges also become manageable. These feelings come to us regularly as long as we are conscious that is why it's important to learn how to deal with them and the sooner we start the better it is. Let's help each other as much as we can to spread this courage.  

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