Society and Institutions
Perpetuating myths…
There has been considerable outrage on the expose by NDTV and Tehelka on the attitude of policemen in and around the National Capital Region towards rape victims. While it is shocking that such comments come from those who are supposed to be protectors of the innocent, none of this is really surprising. The attitude is simply representative of the attitude of a large majority of Indian men who seem to think that a woman who is in a relationship with one person automatically grants privileges to 10 others because she is of “loose” character.
Nor is it surprising that the very act of forcing a woman is considered “normal” because she was drinking, or exchanged phone numbers, or dressed in “skimpy and provocative” clothing. I do not remember how many times women’s rights activists, women in general and several others have reiterated that provocation or “losing control” does not exonerate the rapist. Along with rapists, the police and other law-enforcement authorities, sometimes including our law courts are just perpetuating several myths regarding rape:
Myth: If a woman dresses provocatively, drinks or is in a relationship with someone, she “tempts” a man into raping her.
Fact: Rape is NOT a sex crime. Rapists rarely do so because they are unable to “resist temptation” or because they lose control. They do it because they are trying to establish their power over a woman by doing so. Rape is about power, not attraction. It happens because the perpetrator of the crime does not even consider what he is doing as a crime. It also happens because the rapist believes (and with good reason) that he will get away with it. As with most cases, shoddy investigation, unsympathetic police personnel and lack of DNA evidence results in an acquittal.
Myth: A woman who dresses modestly will not be raped.
Fact: Rape is the result of the twisted logic of a sick mind. What else could explain rape of 2-year old children and 85-year old grandmothers? A woman is at risk of being raped even if she were dressed in a burqa. Asking women to dress modestly and not “provoke” only puts the onus of security on the victim. It practically exonerates the actual criminal and victimizes the victim.
Myth: She is doing it for money. When someone uses force, she cries rape!
Fact: Even if a woman were a prostitute, she does not deserve to be raped. Her character has nothing to do with the whole affair. And in case our cops don’t realize, forcing a woman is indeed called rape.
Apart from all this, it is quite distressing that the Delhi government seems more inclined to impose restrictions on women rather than address the core issue of rape as a law and order problem. To top it all, the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has expressed concern at the state of women in NCR. We do not want to know if she is “worried”. In fact, she should be angry, not worried. She should be angry enough to do something about the current state of affairs in order to make a difference. She should, as the Chief Minister of a state, take action to ensure that Delhi’s streets are safe for women, and not pay lip service to the plight of women in the country’s capital!
Random musings…on Bollywood!
Sitting at home during the weekend with pretty much nothing to do means that you spend all your time catching up on TV. Now, this was one of the rare instances when I didn’t feel like picking up a book to read. Switching channels, I found Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, that cult movie of the 90’s. Even as a teen, I never really understood the brouhaha about the whole thing, but as a nearing-30 adult, the movie makes me cringe.
This sickeningly sweet story about college love involves two best friends, one of which is a tomboyish girl. This Karan Johar movie (along with several others over the next decade) basically try to brainwash their viewers into believing that for a man to love a woman, she needs to act either like a cultured Indian woman, or like a brainless bimbo.
I am probably not supposed to read so much meaning into the whole thing, but I couldn’t help asking some questions as I was watching it. Our hero is ok with flirting with everything in skirts, but will only take a sanskari bharatiya ladki to mom as potential bride. His “best friend” in shorts, girl masquerading as boy, only exists to save his ass from random people? Sounds hypocritical, doesn’t it? And, when our hero realizes that his latest crush is just back from London, he dismisses her as an Angrez until she sings “Om Jai Jagdeesh”? Jeez! Give me a break!
Several years later, when the crush-turned-girlfriend-turned-wife is dead, she leaves behind a letter to her daughter stating that our hero and his “best friend” must get married. The child, in an annoyingly know-it-all manner takes it upon herself to brig the two soulmates together. So far so good? Hold your breath! How can our hero fall for a tomboy? So, the tomboy now grows her hair and is draped in transparent saris to be rendered attractive to our hero, who comes to his senses and falls for her. Wait a second! Something wrong here? Is there a rule that men must only love women with long hair who generally act like bimbos? And whatever happened to our heroine? A perfectly sane and sensible woman suddenly goes all mushy and even challenges the hero to a game of basketball (in a sari), which she eventually loses to satiate the hero’s ego!
I know I am probably a decade (or more) too late with this critique. But, I simply couldn’t help myself. It grates on my nerves and the decision of not watching it for so many years was probably an incredibly sensible one! What message are we trying to convey here? That women who revel in their tomboyishness and like to wear their hair short will never find love?
I have said it before and I will say it again. We come in different hues and shades, just like men. Some of us like our kajal and make-up and will walk in stilettos and little black dresses. But some of us prefer our sweatshirts and sneakers and are comfortable with our hair cut short. Hard though it may be to believe, some of us are still tomboyish in our attitudes while continuing to love our nailpolish and our lipstick. Actually, it should not be that hard to believe. We are multifaceted, just like everyone else in this world.
Don’t put us in compartments that you have created and expect us to conform. Some of us are just non-conformist at birth! We will not fit into any of the compartments you have created for us, simply because we are different. We are women, and proud to be.
On city girls…
Earlier today, @wavehit tweeted me asking me to join the protest against the content of the Tamil talk show Neeya Naana that aired on Pongal Day. I had watch a part of the show until the constant and extra-long ads breaks finally got to me and I switched off the television about 40 minutes into the programme. With wavehit’s tweet, I decided to watch the show on You Tube and then get down to the onerous task of registering my protest without getting angry.
Now, this discussion features a motely group of men dressed smartly, some in veshti and other in more Western clothing. Sitting on the other end, are women, dressed in jeans and tees, some in skirts and all sorts of Western clothing, ostensibly representing city-bred women. As it is, the difference in clothing i’s stark and sets the tone for what is to follow. Gopinath, the anchor puts a loaded question to the men. “What have you studied and how do you want your future wife to be?” The combination of questions is telling, because the rest of the show just goes on to prove that education doesn’t get you anywhere.
All men wanted to get married to good village girls, the reasons being wide-ranging. Without going into intricate details, I noticed that some of the points raised by the men ranged from the ridiculous to the outrageous.
“My wife should wear only sari, or salwar kameez. She should wear the dupatta in V-shape. She is not permitted to wear jeans or any other such western clothing. She can dress in skimpy (read western) clothing inside the four walls of my bedroom and only for my eyes.”
This attitude of curtailing women’s clothing seems rather widely-prevalent irrespective of social, educational and economic status. The general impression seems to be that a woman who dresses unconventionally is: a) easy, b) difficult to control and c) unfit for family life. Also, the permission ostensibly granted to the wife to dress in similarly unconventional clothing inside the bedroom reeks of commodification of the woman in question. Enough said.
“My wife should be a good cook. She should be capable of multi-tasking, of cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids, and then going to work and still coming back on time to make a hot, fresh dinner for me. City-bred girls are incapable of it all.”
Ok. So basically, these men want an unpaid cook, a maid, an ayah and a wage-slave (rolled into one) who will bring home the paycheck every month to keep up the lifestyle they are used to. Right! And I was thinking marriage is about partnership, caring and sharing. Maybe we are a bunch of fools here.
“City-bred girls lack respect. They call their husbands by name. We do not want such disrespectful wives.”
Uh oh. We have a problem here! If I am not supposed to call my husband by name, what else am I supposed to call him? Prananatha? Aryaputra? Come on guys! Let’s get real!
“My wife should be sweet-tempered and friendly with my relatives and hers. But it is not acceptable that she be equally sweet-tempered and friendly with her friends.”
Apparently, friendliness should be the exclusive right of in-laws and the rest of the world does not deserve the same. A reflection of possessiveness, lack of trust and respect perhaps?
“Chennai girls have a lot of boyfriends (read pre-marital sex). Village girls will be sweet and virginal. My wife should be from the village.”
Apparently, they have never taken a look at abortion statistics in the city and elsewhere, as the good doctor and psychologist Shalini later points out. Also, the general attitude seems to be that they can sleep around all they want but still want virginal wives. What’s sauce for the goose is obviously not sauce for the gander.
Apart from these obviously chauvinistic comments, one thing seems certain: none of these men seems secure in his own skin. As they finally admit, they seem extremely scared of a woman’s (obviously superior) intelligence and social skills. They seem to truly believe that a woman who is smart, intelligent, independent and outspoken will not stay in the marriage.
Now that I have made these observations, on to rebutting each of them.
- No man has any business dictating terms to his wife on her choice of clothing. We don’t tell you to walk around in veshti-chattai all the time do we? Neither should you. We will dress in what is comfortable for us. If you have a problem with it, live with it. Or handle it!
- If we are married to you, it means we expect you to treat us as equal partners in that relationship. We are not competing with you for supremacy and neither should you. If you can’t do that, maybe you need to rethink getting married at all.
- We can be pretty to you within the four walls of your bedroom, but that does not mean we are sex objects. In case you did not realize, we are human being with real feelings and emotions.
- Some of us truly love cooking and make it our life’s mission to keep you well-fed and happy. But some of us detest cooking and the thought of the kitchen makes us cry. We come in different hues and shades, just like you. If you want a cook, get one. Don’t marry her.
- Some of us may work at home and outside, managing multiple tasks, deadlines, client meeting, personal commitments and kids perfectly well. But some other are less-adept at doing all that. We admit we have our limitations. Maybe you can help by getting your butt off that couch and putting the clothes into the dryer or mopping the floor for us.
- We call you by name because we believe that is why you were named so. In case you wish us to call you mama or athaan or even prananatha like I mentioned earlier, kindly return the favour by calling us bharye.
- If you want a friendly wife, please acknowledge that she will have friends. We cannot turn on and turn off friendliness. We do not have an inbuilt “friendliness switch”.
- As for pre-marital sex, we are human too. If we have had relationships before and are honest enough to tell you about it, you should appreciate that we are willing to let go if the past and make a new life with you. And it’s not as if you are pure and virginal anyway. So get over it!
I could probably go on, but I think 1000 words for a post is a bit much. Have your two bits to add? Please go ahead. That’s what the comments section is for.
Infidel – Ayaan Hirsi Ali – some thoughts
I just finished reading the memoirs of Dutch feminist activist and politician, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I found it honest, refreshing, and very bold. This is not a review of the book, and my thoughts appear in no particular order. This is just a compilation of how I felt when I was reading this book.
I find that Hirsi Ali is completely honest about her feelings about Islam, even at great risk to her life. She has been accused by many of being neocon in the garb of feminism, but some of her questions strike a very deep chord in my heart, as a reader, as a feminist, and as a woman. Her repeated questioning of the logic behind obviously unfair practices such as segregation, veiling, and the demand for complete obedience of wife to husband stay relevant in contemporary, non-Islamic cultures as well. If God (whatever name you choose to give him) is indeed merciful and compassionate, why would he demand that women submit at the cost of their self-respect, their individualism and sometimes even their life? We have no answers.
Hirsi Ali’s account of her genital cutting when she was six is cold, detached and dispassionate. She almost sounds like she is narrating something that happened to someone else. And that makes it even more chilling. The idea of FGM is so repulsive, so depressing and so utterly cruel that you can’t help but develop respect for a woman who has made it through it all and is now fighting for women’s rights. Her turning away from Islam, and questioning the very existence of God is entirely understandable, even if you don’t agree with her. Maybe, just maybe, I would have been atheist too, had I been so brutally cut in the name of religion, and made to marry a stranger without even my presence being required to solemnise my wedding.
Finally, her struggles, against men, against the religion which demands nothing but submission, against forced marriage, against female genital mutilation and for women’s rights make us respect her immensely for the work she has done so far. As for the book, it is definitely worth reading for the many insights it provides on the wide variations in the practice of Islam, on the increasing influence of the orthodox Brotherhood and the political climate in the Somalian peninsula. Read it! You won’t regret.
Hyper-connected?
After three days, I am finally connected to the internet once again. More pertinently, I am still off mobile phone because I decided not to activate international roaming and am not yet in India. When I arrived in Paris a week ago, I felt lost. I know the city well, speak its language, and yet, I felt totally cut off from the rest of the world. Arriving as I did on Saturday night, I had no time to go check with Orange on why the France sim card I was carrying would not work. And Paris being Paris, everything is closed on Sunday. Yes…I mean everything. Even supermarkets and pharmacies! This basically meant that I went all of Saturday and Sunday without a working mobile phone connection. Work started in full swing on Monday and I realized that I would have no time at all to go get a mobile connection.
After feeling slightly out-of-touch for a few days, I settled in. I realized I got by perfectly well without a working mobile connection, and with limited internet access. I came to enjoy the small things like observing people while having dinner, carrying on a conversation without obsessing about who is texting me or tweeting to me. After a very long time, I realized that some things in life can only be enjoyed if we cut ourselves off, at least momentarily, from the world wide web and from mobile telephony. Without the constant buzz of my wifi-enabled, EDGE-connected smartphone, I realized I was actually noticing more of the world that I ever have over the past year.
The point here is not to decry the use of mobile phones or mobile internet. I would be guilty of that addiction myself. But somehow, I got the impression that by staying connected with friends on every network possible (BlackBerry, What’s App, Twitter, GTalk, text AND FB), we deny ourselves the joys of a real meeting. What can be so urgent that we feel the need to tell the world through FB or Twitter about a beautiful pebble beach, even before we have fully taken in that experience ourselves? Really? What are we running away from? Are we so insecure with ourselves that we feel the need to connect with others 24/7? Or is it peer pressure? Or am I just overreacting? I know that this temporary absence from the web and from telephone was forced. Left to myself, I would never have cut myself off voluntarily from the internet or my phone. But now that I know what it feels like, maybe I should do this one day in a month. Just maybe!