A Revolutionary Call to Transform Narratives in Literature, Media, and Education**
We talk endlessly about gender sensitivity, equality, and neutrality, yet our **literature, films, serials, and even textbooks** continue to send the opposite message. Girls and women are often shown as fragile, dependent, emotional, or ornamental—waiting for rescue, approval, or direction. This persistent portrayal silently shapes generations to believe that strength has a gender, leadership has a gender, and value has a gender.
This must change—and it must change now.
**The Need to Reform Textbooks and Educational Content**
The stories we teach in schools become the beliefs children carry into adulthood. Yet, many textbooks still highlight women in secondary or supportive roles, rarely acknowledging the **serious, sincere, and powerful contributions women made in history**—as warriors, scientists, strategists, freedom fighters, reformers, philosophers, and creators.
Where are the stories of:
* **Rani Abbakka Chowta**, India’s first naval queen who defeated the Portuguese?
* **Fatima Sheikh**, co-founder of India’s first girls’ school?
* **Anna Mani**, the woman behind India’s weather forecasting revolution?
* **Captain Prem Mathur**, India’s first woman commercial pilot?
These are not “women’s stories”; these are **human stories**, deserving equal place in our educational narrative.
Our textbooks must depict **men and women in common, meaningful roles—collaborators, colleagues, friends, equals**—not one saving the other, not one dominating the other, but both standing shoulder to shoulder, sharing responsibilities and victories.
Normalising Equal Companionship in Mainstream Media
Cinema and literature need to stop projecting the idea that friendship between men and women is unnatural or inevitably romantic.
Why must every male-female interaction end in romance or dependency?
We need stories that: show men and women as equals, solving problems together
* highlight partnerships, not power struggles* present **companionship, not control**
This shift alone will change how society understands relationships, respect, and boundaries.
**Bringing the Third Gender into the Mainstream as Heroes*
True gender sensitivity is incomplete without acknowledging the **third gender**—not as symbols of pity or comic relief, but as **heroes, thinkers, leaders, warriors, and changemakers*.
Their stories exist in reality but not in mainstream representation.
Where are the narratives of:
*Shikhandi*, whose courage altered the course of the Mahabharata?
*Narthaki Nataraj*, Padma Shri awardee Bharatanatyam dancer?
* Joyita Mondal*, India’s first transgender judge?
*Major Somanadh*, the first trans officer in the Indian Army?
These are trailblazers—yet their stories remain hidden.
Media must place them at the *centre*—not margins—so society can finally understand their strength, contribution, and humanity.
If literature glamorises dependency, if films glorify imbalance, and if textbooks erase truth, how will society evolve?
Revolution begins with representation.
Representation begins with rewriting.
Let us craft stories—on screen, in books, and in classrooms—where: men and women stand as equals,
* strength is not assigned to a gender, friendships cross boundaries without fear,and the third gender rises in mainstream narratives as heroes, innovators, and leaders.
Change the story, and we change the society that reads it, watches it, and eventually becomes it.
These days while discussing n the related topics ,these thoughts came tiny mind so thought of sharing with you all.
Let every voice—man, woman, or beyond—stand equal in the world’s embrace,
For strength has no gender, and dignity shines in every human face.
No crown above, no shadow below—just hearts walking side by side,
Where all genders rise as one, in truth, in courage, in pride.
When every story honours all, no one weak, no one supreme,
Humanity becomes the hero, and equality becomes the dream.
Let men, women, and every soul beyond share the same sun of liberty,
For the world becomes whole only when we honour every identity!
Jyoti Verma