The UGC, Human Resource Development Centre, Kumaun University, Nainital organized an online short term course on Gender Sensitization from 18 – 24 August. Dr. Radhika Mamidi gave a talk on Everyday Sexism and its impact as part of this course on 24 August.
In her talk Dr. Radhika Mamidi presented an overview of the gender discrimination that exists everywhere and how most of the times we miss seeing it as we have got habituated to sexism (especially benevolent sexism). A sensitisation is necessary starting from childhood at home and in school. The presentation included examples from domestic lives, career options, marketing, mass media, language, and technology. Examples from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural language processing (NLP) applications including Digital Voice Agents and Google Translate which reflect gender stereotypes and a patriarchal technology design were also shared. The need to acknowledge the concept of gender fluidity and gender spectrum was also emphasised as most of the government policies, schemes and initiatives are made based on gender binarism.