The girls of a particular village are kept away from school education. From a young age, they are only taught household chores and are not allowed to participate in any social or political discussion. The above episode is a classic example of:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Discrimination
Option (1) Scapegoating — Incorrect. In scapegoating, a majority group blames a weak minority outgroup for its own social, economic or political problems. The girls are not being blamed for any problem of the village.
Option (2) Discrimination — Correct. Discrimination is the behavioural component of prejudice: people behave in a less positive way towards a target group than towards a group they favour. Keeping the girls away from school and from social and political discussion, only because they are girls, is discrimination based on gender.
Option (3) Self-fulfilling prophecy — Incorrect. Here the target group itself behaves in ways that confirm the negative expectations about it, and so keeps the prejudice going. The question describes what the village does to the girls, not how the girls respond.
Option (4) Kernel of truth — Incorrect. This is why people keep holding stereotypes: they believe there must be some truth in what everyone says about the other group. It concerns a belief, while the question describes unequal treatment.
NCERT (2025-26): “Prejudice and Discrimination … The cognitive component of prejudice is frequently accompanied by dislike or hatred, the affective component. Prejudice may also get translated into discrimination, the behavioural component, whereby people behave in a less positive way towards a particular target group compared to another group which they favour. History contains numerous examples of discrimination based on race and social class or caste. The genocide committed by the Nazis in Germany against Jewish people is an extreme example of how prejudice can lead to hatred, discrimination and mass killing of innocent people.…” |