Du. Saraswathi, a social activist, said that the prevailing caste and gender-based discrimination and inequality have deprived people of becoming knowledgeable.

She delivered a talk on Food Systems, Women, and the Knowledge Question, on Friday, as part of a three-day convention on Knowledge in Society, at Shankarghatta.

Ms. Saraswathi stated that because of inequality and discrimination, the marginalised sections including women, Adivasis, and Dalits have been forgotten. “We have not become knowledgeable in the real sense because of discrimination and inequality,” she said.

Referring to her field study to understand food systems, she said that women had excellent knowledge of plants and animals. Any woman could identify more than 50 leafy vegetables and very well understood the anatomy of animals, which they normally cut to prepare food. “We do not treat their understanding about the nutritional value of food items and the diversity they brought to the food system as knowledge,” she said.

Further, she pointed out that many women with vast knowledge about food might not have a language to communicate their understanding in an academic environment. “We need to create an environment where they can have leisure time to speak and share their experiences,” said Ms. Saraswathi.

Tashi Choedup, a transgender person and a human rights activist based in Hyderabad, said that people loved binaries very much and were comfortable with the idea of man and woman. However, accepting transgender people would not be a problem if everybody questioned themselves about how solid or real their gender and sex were. “Whenever people ask me what it would be like being a trans person, I turn around the question and ask them what qualifies them as a man or a woman,” she said.

The second day of the convention included dialogues on Swaraj, knowledge in development discourse and people’s movements, artificial intelligence, art, and knowledge questions. Scholars and intellectuals from different places participated in the dialogues. The convention has been jointly organised by Kuvempu University and the Journal of Dialogues on Knowledge in Society.