“Boys are strong and brave; they don’t cry,” said my grandmother consoling my brother, wiping his tears when he was hit hard by the tennis ball. I asked her about girls. “They are fragile and naive so should be polite,” she uttered.

Struggling to comply with my Dadi’s words I could never understand why my brother cried more than I did. Was he more sensitive?

These gendered messages are familiar to all of us, and we often come across provocative situations which raise only one question: why?

It was difficult then to comply with those cultural expectations. Now it’s even more heart rending with all the claims of belonging to the educated, modern society. Recently I witnessed an incident where a young girl age was refused more rice on her plate. “You will get fat,” a middle-aged woman told her, “Girls with slim bodies look nice.” Nobody else said anything in the young girl’s support. Her focus soon diverted to a smartphone, thankfully!

We live in a society where women have never been in a strong position to lead, though it is very wrong to generalise that physically all men are strong and all women are weak. “Men and women are different, everybody knows that,” says Nasim Mughal, a psychologist. “But these differences are related to the brain processing information, emotions and cognition.”

However, women are now stepping out from their traditional boundaries to work parallel to men, and they are showing their superhero powers. They are even entering fields that were once considered taboo. Women are also joining the armed forces and being trained as fighter pilots where they go through the same rigorous training as their male counterparts. Not to mention Fiza Farhan who is included in the Forbes list of the young social entrepreneurs or one of Time’s Next Generation Leader, Nighat Dad, a social activist, giving a glimmer of the hope for change. The list goes on ...

Society may be more progressive by challenging these gender roles but these stereotypes have a huge impact on our lives, reinforced by our social and cultural norms. “These stereotypes arise from the immediate judgements, beliefs and attitudes. The environment of the society frames the way of our thinking,” Mughal explains. “Our culture has the main role in reinforcing stereotypical thinking — what messages are we getting defines the genetic makeover,” she added.

What if Cinders was a boy with one glass sandal, waiting for a Princess Charming to rescue him from the clutches of a mean stepmother?

Time passed by but the stereotypes has been perpetuated in different ways in the society. From a very young age children are indoctrinated with cues from family, friends, teachers and media on how to perform according to their gender.

“Nowadays the child’s first interaction is with the media, instead of nursery school,” Qanita Obaid, a resource officer, at the local primary school said, “When the children come to school, there is already so much going on in their minds.”

Many books that parents still read to their kids or even the TV programmes for children depict traditional gender stereotypes, where men are described as masculine and bread-earners whereas women are poised as being feminine and homemakers. So children relate themselves with these characters.

Most Montessories keep neutral toys. “We never specify which toy a child should pick; the boys have a natural inclination towards cars and girls are inclined towards dolls. They pick such ideas from their homes,” Obaid added.

From a very young age children are indoctrinated with cues from family, friends, teachers and media on how to perform according to their gender.

“It is quite hard especially in our part of the world to tell your daughter that she can play with cars and aeroplanes,” Amber lamented. “Once I bought a helicopter for my daughter, but my mother-in-law and her friends took it to mean that I am fulfilling the desire of having a son by bringing my daughter boyish stuff,” she elaborated.

The segregated pink and blue toy aisles now gives a natural feel reflecting a belief that boys and girls are fundamentally different from one another with distinctive interests. Now the toys are categorised with gender cues such as colour and fantasy-based gender roles such as beautiful princess or action hero.

Recent research demonstrates that toys of today are divided by gender at historically unprecedented levels. “There are now far fewer non-gendered items available for children than in any prior era,” Elizabeth Sweet, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California at Davisis reported to have said —even fewer than 50 years ago, when gender discrimination was socially acceptable.

“Who to blame?” Nafisa, mother of three girls, questions. “It is a pity that on media — TV dramas, advertisements and all —children are bombarded with messages that girls can do anything as long as they are submissive and beauty focused.”

Her eldest daughter is very good at maths and would like to pursue it as her career. Once Nafisa’s daughter asked, would it be fine if she becomes a mathematician. There wasn’t any problem, but her friend told her that only boys can do well in maths.

Afnan, a six-year-old primary student, would hesitate in taking out his lunch box from his bag just because it was pink in colour. When asked the reason he said, “Pink is the colour for girls. My classmates will make fun of me and call me girlie names.”

“I was so happy watching the movie, Frozen, with my daughter, Fatima; she would clutch her hands together and smiled often when Elsa and Anna brought some action,” Amber recalled. Fatima is very inquisitive and chatty. She is a princess-loving child. An avid reader of Disney princess stories she has this notion in her mind that a girl has to be pretty just like Barbies. “A princess can be endearing too,” Fatima said with a big smile on her face.

When her mother asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said she wanted to be a pretty nurse. This is because the doctor she goes to is a man and has a female nurse; it has reinforced in her the idea that boys become doctors and girls become nurses.

“This is what the reinforcement is all about,” Mughal said. “If you really want to bring a change then start thinking critically.” The gendered messages are ingrained in our social and cultural norms which very much give rise to the idea of innate gender differences and this very idea lies at the core of many of our social processes of inequality.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine December 27th, 2015