Breaking gender-stereotyping at workplace – Three important lessons from the movie “Dream Girl” 

We believe that you have seen this movie by now, but if you haven’t, it is a must-watch for every D&I practitioner or HR professional. It is a lot of fun and offers a few timely lessons and reflections on the current state of gender-stereotyping at the workplace. 

With Ayushmann khurrana’s powerful dialogue “Trust ka koi gender nahi hota”, the movie has some timeless takeaways on gender-stereotyping by challenging the notions of masculinity. 

The film features Ayushman Khurana as Karam who is an unemployed young man, living in Gokul, Mathura. The movie breaks societal gender-stereotyping by putting a man in a woman’s world. He takes a job at a call-center where women engage in flirtatious phone banter with lonely, desperate callers. It is a simple comedy movie but the film’s plot organically lands itself to the gender sphere and we all have a lot to learn. Here are the 3 key takeaways from the movie “Dream Girl” – 

1. Stop Self-Stereotyping – In the movie, Karam glimpses a flyer promising employment at 70,000 a month. Intending to pay off his father’s debt, he goes at the address mentioned in the flyer and enthusiastically takes up the job at the female call center where he is required to mimic the female voice. Karam doesn’t cringe at all to take on a woman’s identity and talk to men on the phone in a female voice. He also happily plays Sita, Radha, Draupadi in local mythological stage productions. The ease with which Khurrana’s character jump in women’s shoe is a big reminder that we need to stop self-stereotyping. Your gender doesn’t decide your skills so stop limiting yourself. The subliminal message is about being comfortable and embracing one’s feminine or masculine side.  
2. Anyone can do anything – The movie hums around a strong message that everybody in today’s world should feel absolutely okay to chase their dreams and take up a job of their choice without thinking of societal gender-stereotyping or consequences. In the movie, Karam lands up in a call center packed with ladies who knit and crochet while attending calls from lonely men around the city. Prima facie, it looks like a female world with pink walls and only female employees but Karam dives through in and becomes a stellar performer. He proves that your gender doesn’t decide what kind of work you will do. So, this normalizing of gender fluidity at the workplace is something to take away from the film. We have to actively shatter the images that only a man can be a pilot or women can be teachers. We have to discipline ourselves – and practice – to look at skills and experience in a way that’s unbiased. 
3. Leave your assumptions at the door – In the movie, when Karam approaches the employer he dismisses him outrightly just because Karam is a male and he believes that job is only fit for females who can talk for hours and hear people out. In fact, during the course of the movie, it turns out that Karam has outperformed all his colleagues and has become a sensation among his callers. So the idea is to leave your assumptions home, you never know who may surprise you by their work. To help fight a similar bias in the workplace, develop a hiring process by which you’re selecting candidates based on their qualifications and skills alone and not gender.

The truth is everyone, irrespective of their gender comes out in the workplace for the same reason – to advance their careers and earn a living. It is about time that we actively eliminate bias at every step from recruiting to promoting and create an environment where skills are all that matters. Ungender helps organizations in un-doing the gender divide by creating an inclusive workplace for everyone. To know more visit us at www.ungender.in or email us at contact@ungender.in.