"...Why is it all about 'He' and not 'She'?"

"...Why is it all about 'He' and not 'She'?" My little one asked me this question a couple of hours ago this morning.

She had contracted what seemed like a viral infection a few days back, which wasn't going away. So, this morning, I decided to take her to the doctor and stay home with her all day. So, if any of my colleagues are reading this, that's the reason I'm missing the office on our anchor day.

While we were waiting for the doctor, she noticed the framed picture on the wall (as shown in the attached image) and quickly raised the question. Uncertain about how to explain the concept of inclusivity to her, I replied, "You are absolutely right. It should have been 'he/she.' In the past, 'he/him' was a commonly used pronoun to express generic thoughts, but that is changing now with greater awareness. This frame must be a decade old."

 

She countered, "So what if it's a decade old? And why not 'they'?" That question left me stumped. As an HR professional who has always been mindful of diversity and inclusion, I found myself caught off guard. While 'he/she' can be used, she was right – 'they' is even more appropriate to make it truly gender-neutral.

Moments later, the doctor called us in for the check-up. At the end of the visit, I told him about my daughter's observation, and he smiled. I explained how she suggested using 'they' and how I told her that the frame might need an update. "Beta, you know you can't refer to a child as an 'it,' so 'he' is often used as a generic pronoun," he explained.

Now this doctor is really a doctor in all terms (his practice as well as an individual), but I felt the need to defend my daughter here. "Doctor, she already said it should have been 'they,' not 'it' or 'he,' and I think she's right," I replied softly, with a wide grin. The doctor chuckled and said, "You've got a little Greta Thunberg there!" As we left the clinic, holding hands, we hoped that the frame would soon be replaced with a more inclusive one before our next visit.

Charity begins at home, I had learned as a child. So does inclusivity, probably more so.

"...bang the door with force, its useless!!..."

"...bang the door with force, its useless!!..."

...exclaimed the uncle, giving the poor door an angry stare. 

We have an old-fashioned lift in our building. It has two grills that need to be slid shut for the lift to move up/down. There is a door on the outside and then one on the inside that is attached to the moving unit. If either of the doors doesnt close well, the lift lady will keep on saying "Please close the door, kripaya darwaza band kijiye" till the end of eternity (were you to not pay heed to her request). 

Lately, it has been seen that when one enters the lift on the ground floor, even though one shuts the doors properly, the lady keeps singing. As a result, people keep sliding the grills back and forth. Two things are noticeable :-

1. Every person uses increasing force to bang the door shut with each attempt.

2. Nearly everyone fiddles with and closes the door closest to them, the grill connected to the lift.

On this particular day, only three of us were in the lift: a young man, the uncle, and myself. When the lady kept asking us to shut the door, the uncle seemed annoyed and asked the young chap to shut the inner door with force. 

There are a couple of noteworthy observations here.

1. This problem only occurs on the ground floor, not on any other floor. If the inside door was the issue, it would affect all floors.

2. The outer door issue wasn't getting fixed even when people banged it with force. However, something eventually clicked, coz the lift would move after a few tries. 

Later that day, I faced the same issue when I was coming up again. I closed the doors but the lift lady refused to stop talking. I opened the outer door again and gently slid it shut until it couldn't move any further. That was it, the lift lady took a chill pill and the lift moved up. Apparently, there's an issue with the outer door that causes it to rebound slightly when shut forcefully, breaking the connection. When closed gently, it stays put. However, most people (myself included initially) were using force to shut it, assuming it required strength.

1. Often, when we face a problem, we instinctively knock or hit the nearest / most accessible door, without logically considering which one needs attention.

2. When things don’t work as expected, often force/push/pressure comes as the first line of action, whereas sometimes it is the exact opposite of the actual need. Only when the force fails to yield, do we try a softer approach, instead of the other way round. 

"Bola na, zor se band karo tabhi hota hai" [Told you, use force to make it work], the uncle had said. Little did he know that the lift eventually moved due to luck, not force.

What we believe works well, isn't always what truly works well.