When does being a woman weigh heavier than being a student? Is it possible to look at academic burnout in Indian students without looking at the gender-based issues exacerbating these stresses?
Academic pressure is undoubtedly a universal problem, but it is certainly not uniform in how it is experienced. The ways in which stress is interpreted vary significantly depending on where an individual is positioned within the gender binary. This is because the pressures we face are not constrained as an individual, psychological experience, but are mediated by wider social structures. Patriarchal norms shape our psychopathology, and deviation from rigid, normative gender roles can itself become a source of mental distress.
One can apply the idea of deviations from these roles as contributors to the experience of academic pressure: in women being cautious of appearing ‘too ambitious’, in men talking over women in a group discussion or women not being taken seriously in front of male counterparts. Research by psychologists in India further highlights gendered disparities in academic stress, with significant differences emerging as early as age fourteen.
While academic competition is often spoken about in the language of merit, ambition, and economic mobility, the truth is that these pressures carry different emotional weights depending on one’s gender. For many women and young girls, higher education is often an escape. It is framed as a “valid” reason to leave home and avoid being married off to commit to a life of household work right out of school. For a woman stuck in an oppressive house, the pressure to succeed academically then, isn’t just pressure to achieve but is sometimes the only path to freedom. The emotional load is heavier because academic success is not simply opportunity; it is leverage against a system that more often than not, refuses women autonomy unless they can prove themselves to be exceptional.
Even within universities, women face the suffocating fate of being continually underestimated professionally and over-policed personally. Casual comments on the length of one’s skirt, having a man repeat your idea louder and suddenly earning credit for it, a professor who asks if you’re “planning to focus on career or family,” is the everyday reality for women. None of this technically falls under ‘academic work,’ but when your place of learning becomes a site of constant vigilance and defence, academic pressure can’t just be exams. Being a woman in an Indian college means continuously dodging sexist comments, being characterised as incompetent and having to prove your worth repeatedly just to get bare minimum credit.
Rebecca Solnit warns us about this in ‘Men Explain Things to Me’, where she writes about how patriarchy shrinks women. The omnipresent threat of male violence, she argues, shapes everything women do. It dictates where women go, how loudly they speak, whom they trust, and whether they can take up space without apologising overtly.
In the confines of North Campus itself, the divide is glaring. I see boys strolling in shorts at 2AM eating Maggi after a group study session, and girls power-walking the same stretch at 9PM with their fingers clasped around a pepper-spray bottle to their PGs. It’s simply not the same world. When being a woman constrains you, stereotypes you, abuses you and condemns you to a life where you are never truly free, being a woman has to be a part of being a student.
That is not to say that patriarchal expectations make academic stress neutral ground for boys. For men, education holds different anxieties borne from expectations of masculinity. Boys are raised with the burden of becoming breadwinners, their worth tied to their ability to secure stable, respectable employment. Their academic performance is not just personal growth but a preparation to shoulder the financial weight of their families. It is an immense emotional toll to accept onto young shoulders.
Yet the system also makes seeking help a taboo. Vulnerability is not an option for boys told to “man up,” “be strong,” and “don’t cry.” Expressing fear or struggle is seen as weakness, making failure–or even the possibility of failure–terrifying. “There is no emotional support during the moments when you feel low. I used to cry for days and nights,” said a young Kota student to DW News (Deutsche Welle). These words reflect a reality where men don’t always get the tenderness and care needed to survive immense academic pressure.
This is true even more so for LGBTQIA+ students. According to a Noida-based cross-sectional study, 66% of LGBTQIA+ youth suffer from anxiety and suicidal ideation. Already at elevated risk for mental health struggles, academic pressures exacerbate these vulnerabilities. Experiences of ostracisation from peers, professors, and families turn classrooms into stressful environments. In such a hostile environment, succeeding at academics becomes a means of achieving acceptance, safety, and legitimacy.
We see that academic pressure is not a monolith. It is filtered by the expectations, stereotypes, and constraints of a patriarchal society. What looks like a common, personal challenge is actually quite an intersectional one. It is worth looking at sociologist Emile Durkheim comments on the nature of suicide, which he calls a ‘social fact’. Social facts are not just individual or psychological problems, but those created by social forces and systems. Academic pressure in India should be looked at the same way. A patriarchal society’s gender roles, economic inequalities and more influence how deeply wounding academic pressure can be on the already marginalised.
Our resources for care and mental health support need to move beyond just stress management lectures and a “one-size-fits-all” support. Helplines and student counselors need to be capable of addressing the specific burdens placed on girls, boys, or queer youth by virtue of their position in a patriarchal order. The situation calls for a sensitisation of our mental health support providers and a more systemic institutionalisation of the same. Addressing academic burnout in India needs more than reducing syllabus load or increasing counseling services. It requires a cultural reckoning with the patriarchal values that shape our expectations of children and young adults.
Read Also: CUET and the Gender Equation: Why Fewer Women are Entering Delhi University
Image Credits: Ryan Johnson for NPR
Anjali Paruvu
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