Indian youths are orthodox, misogynist and homophobic: CSDS survey

If anyone thinks that India is moving forward, then read what the survey has to convey.

New Delhi: The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Berlin-based political think-tank, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung had recently conducted a study at the Delhi-based social science research institute with 6,122 participants in the age of 15-34.

The 19-state-wide survey findings revealed why the young Indians are homophobic, misogynist and orthodox. The study revealed the patriarchal, intolerant and conservative thoughts in the youth.

Patriarchal mindset:
Now, under the patriarchal mindset, it was revealed that only one out of three (33%) youth including women that it is a right thing for married women to work after marriage, while 16% of youth think that it is okay if women work after marriage.
In the same way, 27% of youth strongly feels that wives should listen to their husband, 24% people agreed that it is somewhat okay and only 23% disagreed to the question.
Similarly, the findings indicated that 20% youth agreed to the ideas of males being good leaders than women and 23% of them somewhat agreed to the idea.

Now coming to the girls wearing jeans idea, half of the Indian youth that's around 48%, strongly, somewhat opposed to the idea and only 19% approved the idea of girls wearing the jeans.

The surveyors said that they found a quarter,24% youth were said to be very patriarchal and 18% not patriarchal at all. The others fell somewhere in the middle. Out of this 29 %, youth were somewhat patriarchal and 29% were less patriarchal that they only responded to few questions.

Now the study indicates that the patriarchal was not limited to the man only.

The surveyors who also studied the patriarchal mindset of women said that about one in three were of the opinion that women should not work after the marriage, two out of five women were of an opinion to be the decent wife.

While 57%, close to six out ten males were found to be patriarchal in their views and females with same views were 40%.

The surveyors said that according to the responses, people living in urban areas were likely to be less patriarchal than the rural counterparts and the patriarchal views of the people living in the cities were the least.

According to comparative study in the survey 61% Muslim youths were found to be patriarchal and 53% Hindu youths were found patriarchal. While the study said that the youth from Sikh and Christianity were said to be least patriarchal.

The study revealed that in geographical comparison, 57% youths were patriarchal of northern states. While south and east part of the country shares 49% and 46% patriarchal attitude respectively.

Surveyors added that Education, exposure to media, interaction, mingling with opposite gender was found to be negatively related to patriarchal mindset.

The surveyor stated that "Youth who are non-literate or have studied only up till primary school were found to be far more patriarchal than those who have only completed high school or attained higher education. Youth who have no exposure to news media were found to be very patriarchal. On the other hand, youth who were highly exposed to news media were less patriarchal."

They added that "For instance, 63% of young men who reported having no close female friends were found to be patriarchal compared to only 46% of young men who said they have close female friends. This difference was also noticed with respect to young women with close male friends and those without it."

Homosexuality:

The youth accepting homosexuality is less than 24%. The youth in urban areas fare worse than non-urban youth when it comes to approving homosexuality but age was the huge factor in this regard.

The reports stated that "Age makes a difference to how homosexuality is perceived by the youth. The youngest respondents (15- to 17-year-olds) were more approving of homosexuality than the older youth. Interestingly, urbanity reduces approval for homosexuality. Youth living in big cities were found to be less approving of homosexuality (21%) than those living in smaller cities (27%) and villages (29%)."

Marriage:

Coming to the marriage part, a clear 1/3rd, somewhere around 33% of the Indian youth say that it is not important to get married, another 53% youth said that getting married was important. 67% of the youngsters said that they do not approve the live-in relationships. 53% disapprove dating before marriage.

'Inter-caste marriages were strongly opposed by more than a third of the Indian youth with 36% still considering inter-caste marriage to be completely wrong and an almost equal share of their peers (33%) approving of them. 23% of Indian youth see inter-caste marriage to be partially right," said the surveyors

Discrimination:

The researchers, after an overall study the researchers concluded more than half of young Indians i.e 56% is not at all discriminatory, another 25% are less for discrimination. 9% of the Indian youths are very discriminatory and 10% of the youth are somewhat discriminatory.

Vegetarians vs Non-vegetarians:

When coming to the dieting style, 47% of upper caste Hindus and 30% of OBC Hindus were pure vegetarians. In 30% of the youth, 47% of the vegetarians would have the problem with non-vegetarian neighbors.

"Among Hindus, youth from the upper castes were most opposed to the idea of non-vegetarians as their neighbors. Over a quarter of them (26%) said it would cause discomfort to them. Along with upper castes, youth from the OBC community, who over the years have attempted to ape the social and cultural practices of the upper castes as a process of 'sankritisation', were equally resistant (26%) to their neighbors eating non-vegetarian food," the study noted.

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