Should only women learn about waste management?

An announcement by BBMP gets slammed for lack of gender sensitivity.

Poornima and Ankita are two names that Bengalureans hear every morning. The names are a part of a Kannada public announcement that the Solid Waste Management (SWM) auto tippers play every morning on their garbage collection drive.

The informative announcement, accompanied by a catchy tune, features a mother asking her daughter what kind of waste collection vehicle (wet or dry) has arrived at the doorstep today? This is followed by a school teacher questioning two girls — Poornima and Ankita — on waste disposal methods. All three girls recite the right answer confidently.

Women from across the city point out that it perpetuates gender stereotypes as it is addressed only to girls and women.

Why only girls?

R R Nagar-based Poorvi Kalyani listens to the announcement every morning as she gets ready to head to work. “One day it struck me that only girls were being questioned in the audio. Such an announcement sets the narrative that taking care of the house or waste management is only a woman’s job. If we have no problem with this audio playing every morning then we are all agreeing with this narrative either consciously or subconsciously,” says the 28-year-old.

Earlier this month, she made a social media post voicing her opinion on the same and found many agreeing with her.

Janani (name changed), a pourakarmika working with the BBMP for the past seven years, believes the announcement is a misfit for a progressive city like Bengaluru. “Nowadays, it is very common for the men in the family to dispose of the waste. The younger generation, especially, is no longer sticking to these gender rules,” she says.

The announcement produced by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) acts as a metaphor for the way waste is managed in our society, believes Tara Krishnaswamy, activist.

“In our society, there is a gender bias when it comes to waste management. At home, it is the women who deal with the waste. When it comes to daily
waste collection, again the waste pickers are mostly women, while the drivers, contractors and managers are men. These are gender stereotypes that the BBMP audio is once again perpetuating,” she elaborates.

Misconstrued

People in power often tend to misunderstand the meaning of women empowerment, Tara tells Metrolife.

She explains, “If this announcement is meant to empower women and give them a voice, then the authorities don’t understand what women empowerment means. The point of women empowerment is to give the women a voice, and that voice is not some song or advertisement. For real women empowerment, listen to the pourakarmikas and provide them career opportunities for growth.”

She says we often notice that while women are told what to do, announcements aimed at men focus on what they shouldn’t do. On some days, the auto tippers play an announcement discouraging men from urinating in the public. 

The misunderstood version of women empowerment is an outcome of male dominance across managerial positions, says Afifa Kauser, psychologist. “What do women want? Is that how they want to be represented? These are questions that men in power answer on behalf of women, making gender conditioning a never-ending cycle,” she says.

‘The idea was to empower women’

“We have no intention to hurt the sentiments of anyone, be it a man or
a woman. The idea of creating such announcements was to empower
women and provide a platform for their voice. If the sentiments
of women are truly hurt by the announcement then we will fix it,”
Harish Kumar, special commissioner, BBMP, tells Metrolife.