Gynophobia
How many of you know the meaning of the term Gynophobia?
Dear evaluator, please make a note. My first part of the
speech objective is met. An unfamiliar topic to the audience.
Good evening fellow toastmasters
and guests. I would like to thank my mentor and the person who introduced me to
this club TM Ramanan at this moment. Gynophobia – The term refers to abnormal
fear of Women. If you ask me, do you have this disorder? I will say I had a
milder version of gynophobia previously. For the next 5 minutes let’s see how I
got this disorder, how did I overcome it and how to prevent it.
Let’s
first see how I got this disorder. It was in the year 1993 I studied Kinder Garten
in my native. That was the only class I studied co-education in my entire school
life. Later for the past 12 years I studied in boys’ school where there is no
chance to interact with girls. This I feel the primary reason for this
disorder.
The
school life was somewhat okay but the college life is worse. Though I studied
in the so called co-education college, forget about talking to girls, you will be
penalized even staring at them. This made my disorder even worse, that I
thought I had a very good habit of not talking to girls. Fellow Toastmasters,
Madam toastmasters and guests, If you want to admit your children, especially
boys in these kind of strict institutions, then please create a panic/fear
about the opposite gender right from their childhood. Else your boys will
suffer a lot after admission.
I want to
quote an incident that happened in my college life to prove my point. What will
be the feeling for a person who met a girl 12 years ago in Kindergarten and
again meeting her during her college? It will be good right? But I was not
excited to see my UKG class mate in my engineering classroom when she entered
the first day of the college. Since I was suffering from…
We both
are days scholar, used to go in college bus from my native. In the bus stop
whenever I saw her at the distance, I use to turn my face up or down and will
not interact with her. She noticed my behavior and complained to her mom, that
I am a very shy person like a girl not even looking at her. They are staying in
a nearby village, where my grandpa was also staying. Her mom told this to my
grandpa. My grandpa called my mom and told about this. so and so, so and so so
and so. My mom got tensed on hearing this. She shouted, how dare she can talk
about my son like this. What was she thinking in her mind?. Then she told me,
don’t talk to that girl hereafter. I told mom, I don’t even look at her. My mom
told, I know, You are a good guy. Do you all need any another reason why I was
like this?
Later in
my life I realized that this is an actual problem when I joined this software
industry. It was the first day of my training. We are a batch of 30 people,
with 50:50 men and women. I was like in a land of aliens there. The men are talking
casually and teasing the women like some of our youth toastmasters. Since we
talk about gender equality, it happened vice versa. I was thrilled, on how am I
going to survive here. In the training room, two girls of my batch approached
me welcomed me by shaking hands. I was hesitant to shake hands with them
initially as I was suffering from this. Later I thought it will be a disrespect
to them and gathered all my courage and shook my hands with them. In this
process I was not aware that my hands are shivering, these girls noticed that
and where laughing. Hey see this guys hands are shivering and went and told to
everyone. It was a shame for me. Later in my career I learnt not to panic much
about it and treat them as a fellow human with a great respect.
To
conclude. Dear toastmasters and guests, while bringing up your boy or girl,
teach them to consider the opposite gender as a fellow human and treat them
with respect. This will help in bringing up a fearless kids like our VP PR or
Phani.
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