All the school students of the previous generations have grown reading the textbooks which shown mother washing the vegetables and father reading the newspaper. But all this gender biased content is about to be removed. Keeping with the changes in modern society, Balbharti, the state curriculum board, has changed most of the illustrations in the textbooks to present women in more progressive light of the present day.
The official said that the new textbooks aim to do away with the gender biased content.
An official from the board said “The Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research wants to break the stereotypes and has incorporated illustrations and stories of men and women sharing household chores in the revised textbooks of Class II”.
In one of the illustrations, both men and women are showing cleaning the vegetables while in another a woman is shown doctor and in one more such illustration, a woman has been depicted as traffic cop managing the traffic. On one page a male chef has been shown and students have been asked to write a few lines about it.
Through several such illustrations, students and teachers have been asked to take note of the changes such as women as a doctor and pilot and a male chef and discuss them in the class.
Sunil Magar, Director at Balbharati, said that the pictures depict that both men and women are equal and both can do any work.
"We here at Balbharati give emphasis on experiments.While drafting the new textbooks, especially for the young ones, we need to see that the content in the textbooks is abreast with structures and changes in the society," he said.