Pierced: Our Ears or Our Thought Process
By: Damini Mehta
Tags: Freedom, Thought Provoking, Feminism, Bias, Choices

Source: ShethePeople.TV

​​​​I was never a Tik-Tok person. Never had an account, never felt the need to. My daily dose of so​​cial news was fulfilled by scrolling through Instagram.

The recent controversy surrounding the Indian government’s blanket ban on a slew of Chinese apps and most of all Tik-Tok put me up to date about this short-video trend. So when Instagram launched its own version of Tik-Tok, curiously named Reels, it caught my eye. Thou​​gh I have to admit, for the first few days I couldn’t even locate the ‘Reels’ section on the Instagram phone app. When I finally got a hang of it, I spent a better part of my screen time on scrolling through Reels (my iPhone, unsuccessfully, makes all attempts to help me rationalize my screen time, most of all my social media consumption).

A few days into my obsession, I chanced upon a video of a baby girl, some 10–12 months old having her ears pierced. What made the Reel interesting was her ‘before’ and ‘after’ reaction towards the piercer and how she felt betrayed by him after he had finished piercing one of her ears and was moving on to the other. I must admit I had the same despise and skepticism towards the piercer when I was getting ,my piercings done. Though I was much older than 10–12 months!

This reminded me of another much less cute ‘piercing incident’ from my own life. A lover of ear piercings, I have more than the basic pair of piercings on both the earlobes. Thus to me, an ear piercing is both very normal and very special at the same time. Anyone (mostly females) who don’t have at least their earlobes pierced always end up being on the scornful end of my reaction towards them.

My little cousin, 10+ now, doesn’t have her ears pierced. Every time she visited our home I would compel her and my uncle-aunt to get her ears pierced. She was obviously not keen on it, mostly because she was scared of the pain though excited on seeing my collection of earrings and immediately sensing her lack of pierced ears.

All that was fine until I found myself at a crossroads with my own thinking. What bothered me was my steadfastness to have her ears pierced, or my general displeasure at her un-pierced ears. My reactions would often amount to enticing her with my earring collection so she would agree to get her ears pierced or nudging her parents to get it done. She has a younger brother too, who’s almost four now. He too doesn’t have his ears pierced. But that didn’t seem to bother me much.

For someone like me who had her first piercings at 10 months old, and who has a more than fair share of piercings, a girl not having her ears pierced comes across as a bit strange. She is a girl after all. How will she wear earrings? She is supposed to wear earrings. A girl without earrings is no girl at all.

What I never realized, until recently, was why I was assuming that my cousin would grow up to like piercings or wear any form of jewellery at all? Why the preconception that she has to have her ears pierced? Is it principled to make that decision for someone else? Am I to make that decision for my cousin, only ten, still figuring out which color she likes the most, leave alone jewellery. Aren’t her parents right in deciding not to make that choice for her? Also, from what measure is it right to make them go through the pain of an ear piercing at such a young age and just because we think that they’ll like this way of lifestyle or dressing up?

Now, boys/men having ear piercings is not uncommon. In fact, the Indian tradition encourages men to wear jewellery as is evident from historical record. This also forced me to ask myself why I didn’t show the same unwavering desire towards my little cousin brother. Was it because I had a biased frame of mind and had decided from the very beginning that a girl will grow up to like earrings whereas a boy won’t. Or was it because of my own favourable predisposition towards piercings? And this when I have male friends with pierced ears and never called out to them for it. Whatever the reason may be, I couldn’t justify myself forcing her to do it against her will.

But what when this biased attitude and preconceived notion or expectation towards wanting girls to make certain kind of choices and boys a certain different kind of choices reflect a flawed and dogmatic mindset? What when our preconceived notion forces others to take decisions against their choices?

Feminism apart, do we not need to let others, as much as our own selves, make their own choices especially when it comes to our personalities and individual identity?

It’s a question all of us need to ask every time we find ourselves restricted by a preconceived notion or unjustified assumption. It might allow us to be more open to our own and other’s choices and be less critical towards what is unfavourable to us thereby freeing us from a ton of resentment.

From that day onwards, I never egged my cousin to have her ears pierced. The next time I saw her, I told her it’s her choice. If she grows up to like earrings, she can have her ears pierced anytime, just like I did with my many piercings.