Our society has been feeding men privileges since time immemorial. This world has become overwhelmingly male. There is no denying that.

Statistics and ratios, though substantial proof to this, don’t speak loud enough. It is not enough to convey that there are 930 females to a 1000 males in India, or that women earn 80% of what men do in respectable workplaces, because people have turned blind eyes and deaf ears to this. Besides, numbers hide the ugliness of reality. These numbers are drastically male oriented, but they have become acceptable. People shrug them off as if they mean nothing, as if these numbers aren’t stripping women of their rights. Though the ratios are pathetic, I feel that they still show a better picture than what sexism in daily life feels like.

A year back, my sister told me something that I have not been able to forget since. Someone in her class was asking their professor a question, based on a scenario. About halfway through, the professor interrupted and asked her why every single example she used was so overwhelmingly male. That’s when it struck to my sister, and later to me, that the girl had been talking about a company’s manager, and he was suffering a dilemma, so he talked to a consultant, a man who then asked him to employ his firm, because his boss was a man well known for solving such problems.

And now that I have thought about what that professor pointed out, every single example in my textbook, every single incident told by people, every single he used where easily a she would make sense, comes to my notice in bold letters.

The first question I asked myself was why. Why did everyone automatically assume that every damn person is male, and that every position is held by a man.

Is it because there are more men than women? Even so, it doesn’t make sense that when you picture a salesperson, a scientist, teacher, a student, heck even a baby you immediately jump to the conclusion that they must be male, unless told otherwise. After observing more, I realized that except for people who have to obviously be female, like a wife, sister, daughter or mother, no one ever assumes a person’s gender to be female.

This just proves that in our minds, we are not very advanced. I still see people squirm with discomfort on planes when they hear that the pilot is a woman. When my sister drives on the road, she gets disapproving stares and condescending comments. On most reports and forms, I am the daughter of my father, regardless of the fact that it was my mother who carried me for nine whole months. We want our doctors to be male, we want our drivers to be male, we want our scientists to be male, we want every position and job to be held by men, and then we have the audacity to say that women don’t have equal representation in the workplace because they don’t try enough or don’t have the skills.

Our society has always been overwhelmingly in support of men, overwhelmingly in appreciation of men, overwhelmingly in favor of men and overwhelmingly impressed with men and everything that they do. And the exact opposite applies to women.

Almost everything that a man is allowed to do, women aren’t. Almost everything that a man is appreciated and applauded for, women are expected to do. Almost everything that a man does or says, is justified with a pathetic reason while women are judged and put down for the very same. Men are at a much higher tier of respect and opportunities. A man who speaks up is aware but a woman who speaks up is overreacting. Men are respected simply for being male, while women are given shit simply for being female.

Men are the single most privileged group in history. Think about it like this: if you never say no to a toddler, if you let them get away with whatever they do wrong, if you never scold them, they will never learn. They will get spoiled and throw a tantrum when they are told no. That is what this toxic patriarchy is doing to men. This is why they have lost the capability to hear no and feel no requirement to get consent. But while a toddler only throws a tantrum, men rape and murder.

The negative correlation between reported rape cases and conviction rate is India proves that the only numbers that need to be overwhelmingly male are of sexual offenders, sexual harassers and rapists.

And yet, the world is still overwhelmingly in love with men. Their actions beget no consequences and their brutalities have become norm. The more I try to fight sexism, the more I see the blindfold covering people’s eyes. At this point, turning the situation around seems impossible. And as a girl in an overwhelmingly male world, the hope of equality etches further away every day.