Note on a 'hypothetical' gender-neutral/gender-less school policy

When one removes gender, when one says let us go beyond gender and not distinguish between boys and girls and have a surface equality in school, the danger that one runs is that one removes the space in which one can resist any sort of gender inequality. Though the school policies might follow a certain gender equality, in practice there might be subtle forms of gender power relations and disciplining of the female body and a mutated form of a male dominated world. Here, boys and girls study together, play together, get the same treatment from authority, yet gender socialisation points out that certain disciplinary norms are at work. For instance in a heterogeneous group comprised of boys and girls, boys might prefer the fairer girls and might exclude the ones who are not fair. Or they might tease the ones who are fat or pay more attention to the one who adhere to a normative sense of the feminine. Their might also be a mutated gender role play in sports and dance. When these happen, the space to protest, resist or seek some form of equality and justice is suddenly missing. This is so because the school space, which is supposed to be ‘gender-neutral’ or ‘gender-transcendental’ does not recognise these every day acts of the disciplining of the female body. Those who protest or dissent then carry the burden of being gendered, or worrying too much about gender in a gender-less world, just like those who talk about caste discrimination suddenly carry the burden of caste, absolving the higher castes of any caste identity.