What if Gender Roles as we know didn't Exist?

By Tanya Chauhan

3rd year, Political Science

Edited by Vanshika

What if gender roles as we know didn't exist?

Surreal ,right? Just imagine

If that were the case,

the very standards of what counts as an idealised woman

or a masculine gentleman

would be an illusion.

Thin women -tall man dichotomy would dissolve .

Tears would be human .

Women could be smart and assertive.

Profession would be based on skills

Skies would welcome all who wished to fly ,

Classrooms , courts and boardrooms would open for anyone with the courage to walk in .

Pink and blue ? Just colours not cages .

Money would not be a man’s burden,

Nor care a women’s fate

Parenthood would be shared

Leave for mother would find its mirror in the leave for fathers .

Families would be circle , not pyramids

No ruler, no obedient shadow,

Just a voice equal in weight.

The kitchen would cease to be a cage

The boardroom not a boys club

Phrases like act like a lady, Boys will be boys

Would dissolve into

silent relics of the past too fragile to survive the light.

Qualities would tear off their costumes

sensitivity, empathy ,courage, strength

no longer painted feminine or masculine,

but rising as simply human,

Marriage would not pluck daughters from their soil,

nor mark women alone with its visible chains.

And that weary proverb

marry your son when you will,

your daughter when you can

would crumble like an old statue,

its dust scattered

Away by change.

While we revere the images of the "strong father but remember

Only a mother knows her child is hers.

A father never truly can

Not even with DNA tests

Which offers only probability.

In the end, gender roles are a social construction, not biologically fixed .

Society maintenance of gender roles is like nude makeup

Painted carefully

So you don't notice it's there.

So imagine if gender no longer ruled over us .

Would power spread equally?

Maybe human nature itself is androgynous.

Maybe freedom begins the moment we choose to live

not as men, not as women

But simply as people.

It's about reclaiming the power

to define your reality.