Showing posts with label feminist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminist. Show all posts
Sunday 25 April 2021
Saturday 24 April 2021
Teacher Cancelled by Eton for Controversial Lecture Speaks Out
The Patriarchy Paradox - the controversial video
Saturday 17 April 2021
The Straw Man and The Great Indian Kitchen
By Girish Menon
In the introduction to his book ‘How to win every argument’ Madsen Pirie writes:
Sound reasoning is the basis of winning an argument. Logical fallacies undermine arguments…Many of the fallacies are committed by people genuinely ignorant of logical reasoning, the nature of evidence or what counts as relevant material. Others however might be committed by persons bent on deception. If there is insufficient force behind the argument and the evidence, fallacies can add enough weight to carry them through.
The Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen is one such exercise in fallacious reasoning. The film maker sets up and destroys a Straw Man in the form of some highly conservative Sabarimala devotees who are male, upper caste and Hindu. In such households, the film argues, the women are perennially confined to the kitchen and subject to male whims. Some women have bought into the system while the female protagonist and her mother-in-law take up the feminist cause of subversion and rebellion.
A Straw Man, Pirie writes, is a misrepresentation of your opponent’s position, created by you for the express purpose of being knocked down. This is usually done by over-stating an opponent’s position. If your opponent will not make himself an extremist, you can oblige with a Straw Man.
The Straw Man is fallacious because he says nothing about the real argument. Its function is to elicit, by the ease of his demolition, a scorn which can be directed at the real figure he represents.
This writer carried out a straw poll (not representative at all!) among those who supported the filmmaker’s thesis and not one of them stated that they were aware of such instances happening to people known to them. Instead, most of them pointed their fingers to North Kerala where apparently such practices are rife. I did ask a former resident of North Kerala if such things happened there and his response was that ‘Women everywhere were the same North or any part of Kerala’.
Some feminists I know took up cudgels on behalf of the female protagonist even though their own life experiences did not match the film’s heroine. They quoted some sisters who were treated badly by their husbands, but added that these husbands also wanted to live of their wife's earnings. However, they were not willing to question the failure of the female protagonist, who is depicted as educated and modern, to carry out due diligence before entering into the marital contract.
In this writer’s view, the creation and destruction of the Straw Man is the only protest available to progressives and feminists. Because, despite the Supreme Court’s progressive decision in the Sabarimala case, even the progressive left government has declared its inability to implement reforms to Sabarimala rituals. This is because the majority opinion which includes many Hindu women want to maintain the status quo and are unconvinced by the feminist rhetoric.
Thursday 14 January 2021
A Reluctant Feminist - Chapter 1
By Girish Menon
Laila, strapped to a seat in an Air Force AN-12 transport aircraft, hums
Waqt ne kiya kya haseen
situm,
Hum rahen na hum,
Tum rahen na tum.
(Time, you’ve tricked us, I’m not the old me, Nor you the old you)
The sound of the azaan
from her phone wakes her from her reverie; she unbuckles her seat belt, stands
up, stretches her weary limbs, sidesteps a coffin like wooden box in front of
her, goes to the open space on the aircraft, searches for the direction of
The captain yells: “Laila, Discharge time!”
Laila: Sir, how did he die?
Captain: Polonium poisoning, I think
The cargo doors of the plane open. Laila gets up and gives the coffin a push. It rolls off outside the aircraft. The aircraft veers upwards into the sky, lands at an airport and Laila emerges into a dark Mumbai evening at Kalina and calls for an Uber to take her home to Bhendi Bazaar.
Laila unlocks the door and quietly tiptoes to the safe in her bedroom. She removes the gift wrapped box from her knapsack, places it in the safe, locks it and rushes to the toilet. Abdul is watching TV from his armchair enjoying the song
Dil se tujhko bedilli
hai,
Mujhko hai dil ka
ghuroor,
Tu yeh mane ke na mane
Log manenge zaroor,
Yeh mera deewana pan hai
Ya mohabbat ka suroor,
Tu na pehchane to hai
Ye teri nazroon ka kasoor.
(You seem to deny your heart, While I am proud of my love, You may not admit it, The world will recognise it, It could be my irrationality, Or a hangover of love, If you cannot still spot it, You could be loveblind)
He switches off the TV, humming the rest of the song he walks wearily to the dining table, waiting for Laila. Laila emerges from the toilet, washes her hands and rushes to the dining table which has vessels of cooked food and two overturned plates and glasses. The maid warms the food.
Laila: Why haven't you eaten? It's not good for your diabetes.
Abdul: Nooo. You know that I don't like to eat alone.
Laila serves food for Abdul and herself
Laila: Ok, I'm sorry darling. Let's eat.
Abdul: What took you so long?
Laila: Routine, unending work. You know I can't say anything more.
Abdul: Was it a late parcel delivery?
Laila Smiles
Abdul: Ok, then can we discuss about
Laila: You know the nature of my job. What about
Abdul: She has failed in maths again. Her teacher has sent a note.
Laila: What about her tuition teacher? What is she doing despite the huge fees?
Abdul: Well! She says that without
Laila: How was your day?
Abdul: Hectic, I got in an hour before you and
Laila: You know I have to take an early flight to
Abdul: Why, I thought you were in the Maharashtra Police.
Laila: Yes, but Lakshmi Madam said that I was being considered for a special assignment.
Abdul: What special assignment? Have any of your assignments
ever been ordinary? You bring this up every time I mention
Laila: OH! That’s great! Let me finish this one assignment and then I will apply for VRS. It will also give me a pension for life.
Abdul: But you said the same thing two years ago.
Laila: I know! I know! Please trust me one last time.
They finish their meal in silence. Dump the dishes in the sink, jump into bed and start snoring.
Same time the next day Abdul watches the song
Dil ko teri hi tamanna
Dil ko hai tujhse hi
pyaar
Chahe tu aaye na aaye
Hum karenge intezaar
Yeh mera deewanapan hai
(My heart desires you, My heart loves you, Even if you don’t show up, I will wait for you, It could be my irrationality)
Laila opens the toilet door and joins Abdul at the dinner table.
Abdul: How was your meeting with Lakshmi madam?
Laila: Great! They have selected me over many applicants including that bloody conniving Sanjeev Bhatt.
Abdul: But he's IPS isn't he?
Laila: Yes, but they have chosen me over him. I have to report to camp in a week.
Abdul: What? Why and for how long?
Laila: You know it is a secret assignment and I will get to train at the top secret Pax Indica Centre. Lakshmi Madam has personally assured me that after this assignment I can retire at 35 with Secretary level pension.
Abdul: And have you said yes?
Laila: This is my one last assignment and soon we will get a
pension for life and I will be home to care for you and
Abdul: Do I have a say in this at all?
Laila: It's for us Abdul!
===End of Chapter 1
Monday 30 November 2020
Monday 4 November 2019
Sunday 3 November 2019
How to Keep the Wrong Women out of Your Life | Dr. Shawn T. Smith PsyD | Full Speech
You never have to chase women
The Rational Male by Rollo Tomassi
Sunday 28 January 2018
Is single the new black?
Sreemoyee Piu Kundu in The Hindu
Last evening, I went out with my college friend to a popular coffee shop in Kolkata, crowded with young lovers bedecked in the colours of Saraswati Puja, a festival that heralds the beginning of spring.
At the table beside us sat a couple who looked like typical millennials — they constantly clicked indulgent selfies, pouted non-stop, uploaded everything online immediately, with the boy checking and declaring the number of Likes triumphantly by thumping on the table.
‘Young love… wait till they are married and saddled with kids, pets, maids, homework and in-laws,’ my friend smirked.
Feminist type
‘We’ll be told we are eavesdropping, bad manners,’ I winked. My friend was about to say something when the girl at the table, who wore a purple sari and backless choli, raised her voice.
We stole a fleeting glance.
‘Let me tell you straight… I have no interest in being married. I am extremely independent, love my job, enjoy solo travel, I can’t give up my flat… and anyway, I am… umm… commitment phobic…’ She made a face and pushed away the boy’s left hand.
Was there a ring in there?
My friend and I exchanged looks.
‘Dude,’ the boy sniggered, taking back his arm defensively, adding almost under his breath, ‘You don’t want to grow into a sexless spinster, living alone with a bunch of cats in a cold, lonely apartment at 40.’
I’d just turned 40 in December, on the 14th. The last word stuck to me, more than the rest of his bhavishyawani.
I waited for the girl’s response.
‘Besides, I don’t think you are commitment phobic, you’ve had a string of flings, haven’t you?’ the boy clicked his tongue, resuming sheepishly, ‘I would say you are nothing but a bloody feminist.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ the girl retorted in a shrill octave.
The boy asked for the bill.
‘Nothing,’ he shrugged his shoulders.
‘No, tell me,’ the girl met his eyes.
‘It means that you hate men… that you think you are better and can survive alone. It means that you are too opinionated and have a foot-in-mouth disease. It means you want multiple partners, and maybe you are a lesbian. It means you have jholawala, nari morcha type principles… it means you are lonely, lousy and lost…’
* * * *
Single women reportedly constitute 21% of India’s female population, being close to 73 million in number. These include unmarried, divorced, separated and widowed women. Between 2001 and 2011, there was an almost 40% increase in their numbers. Media reports say that the Women and Child Development ministry under Maneka Gandhi is slated to revise policy for the first time since 2001 to address the concerns around being single and female, which include social isolation and difficulties in accessing even ordinary services. .
There’s been a huge growth in this demographic, and ministry officials have said that government policy must prepare for this evolution by empowering single women through skills development and economic incentives.
The policy revision also aims to address concerns related to widows and universal health benefits for all women. And yet, a little over a year ago, and despite the social relevance of the subject, when I actually discussed the idea of a non-fiction book on single women in my circle of single women friends, I sensed a reluctance to talk freely about what being single really meant in India.
Some of them, 40-plus, shyly confessed that they’ve just created their nth profile on a matrimonial site, but made me swear I would not tell anyone else lest they be laughed at. Others clandestinely admitted to flings with married or younger men.
They spoke of serious struggles with basic life issues such as getting a flat on rent or being taken seriously as a start-up entrepreneur or getting a business loan or even getting an abortion (statistics collated by Mumbai’s International Institute for Population Sciences claim that 76% of the women who come for first-time abortions are single).
They confessed to a gnawing sense of loneliness, the looming anxiety about the onset of old age, health issues, of losing parents, siblings and friends over time, of personal security, of being elderly and alone.
I started introspecting on my own single life. When did I begin to realise it wasn’t so much a choice as a culmination of circumstances that I must eventually get used to and learn to adapt to, despite the occasional speed-breaks. That being single wasn’t only about relationship-centric fears.
It also covered physical and mental health, living with parents vis-a-vis alone in another city, the nauseating, never-ending pressure of marriage, the need for sex (a friend insists on calling it ‘internal servicing’), the desire to birth one’s own children, coupled with a general all-consuming pressure to conform to the larger majority, the statistic that sells — married people — who seem to be swallowing you up and swarming in population, be it virtually or really.
* * * *
‘Get her uterus removed,’ the gynaecologist declared. It was three years ago and I was at one of Delhi’s prestigious hospitals. She was the third gynaec I was consulting. I kept going back to her every Wednesday at 4 p.m., waiting on the claustrophobic ground floor, complaining of how my menstrual pain had gotten severe in the last few cycles, even unbearable. My mother accompanied me on most occasions, vouching for me, a lingering sadness in her ageing eyes. Perhaps she was just as fragile. In ways that we could never show each other.
‘But she’s so young, only in her 30s?’ my mother stuttered, protesting, as if against a looming death warrant. The doctor was busy talking with the nurse about a woman in labour. Not very interested in the ones who didn’t qualify in her estimation. Those like me who kept coming back — same complaint, same pain, same marital status.
“Why don’t you find her a husband soon? With her history… first Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome… now endometriosis…and, of course, her weight… is she interested in having a baby anyway?” I pushed my chair back impatiently, fighting back tears.
‘Shall we try Ananda Bazaar? They have a ‘Cosmopolitan’ section… more your type,’ Ma had whispered on our way back, as I looked away.
Beleaguered. Belittled. Barren?
* * * *
Nita Mathur (name changed on request) was born in a conservative Uttar Pradesh family, and grew up watching her mother ostracised for not bearing a son. I met the 34-year-old HR professional in an upscale South Delhi café a month before her marriage, which had been arranged by a family astrologer. Nita was preparing to return to Kanpur, her hometown. ‘I grew up with a gnawing guilt that I was born a girl… I wanted to get out of Kanpur at any cost. I battled with my father and uncles to come to Delhi to get an MBA degree,” she told me.
Like a virgin
For Nita, living alone in a Delhi PG meant life on her own terms, earning her way. She started dating, had sex. “It was, strangely, a way to get back at the closeted patriarchy I had been forced to deal with as a girl,” she said.
But her single status and living alone was a stigma for her parents, who wanted Nita married, and her sisters after her. They pressurised her, using tears and threats. “My mother always cried on the phone, warning me that life as a single woman, though seemingly attractive, would return to haunt me later. She told me my behaviour would affect my sisters’ lives….”
Nita finally agreed to marry. And since she could not tell anyone that she was sexually active, she decided to have a hymen reconstruction surgery. “It was the first question my to-be groom asked when we were granted half an hour alone.” Nita spent ₹60,000 on the half-hour procedure.
In an April 2015 report in indiatimes.com, Dr. Anup Dhir, a cosmetologist from Apollo Hospital, said, ‘There’s been an increase of 20-30% in these surgeries annually. The majority of women who opt for this surgery are in the 20 to 30 age group.’
* * * *
I went to visit a single friend in her 40s who lives in a plush apartment complex in Thane. As my rented car entered the imposing iron gates, a lady security officer asked which apartment I was visiting. When I told her my friend’s name and flat number, she smirked: ‘Oh, the madam who lives by herself? Akeli? Not married?’
In the course of my interviews with 3,000 single urban women across India whose voices are integral to breaking the stigmatised silence around singlehood, I came across Shikha Makan, whose documentary Bachelor Girls is on the same subject.
Shikha spoke of being in the advertising industry, of keeping late hours. “From the first day, we felt uncomfortable. The watchman stared at us, as if he wanted to find out what we were up to.” Once, when she returned home at 2 a.m., a male colleague escorted her home. But when they reached the gate, the watchman stopped them and called the society chairman who accused Shikha of running a brothel. He threatened to throw her out.
“I called my father, who gave him a piece of his mind, and we continued to stay there. But we felt extremely uncomfortable. Then, the harassment started; someone would ring our bell at 3 a.m. or write nasty stuff on the walls. We decided to leave.”
* * * *
Ruchhita Kazaria, 35 and single, born to a Marwari family, started her own advertising agency, Arcee Enterprises, in 2004. She has since faced backlash for trying to conduct business without the backing of a husband’s surname or the validation of a male partner. Running her own company for the past 12 years has led to Ruchhita believing that “women in general, unfortunately, are still predominantly perceived as designers, back-office assistants, PR coordinators, anything but the founder-owner of a business entity.”
Sans arm candy
“In October 2014, a friend asked if I was “secretly” dating someone, probably finding it difficult to digest that a single woman could head a company minus a male counterpart and socialise sans arm candy,” she wrote to me. Within 15 minutes, the friend had sought to enrol Ruchhita with couples and groups that participated in swapping, threesomes and orgies, encouraging her to be a part of this ‘discreet’ group, to ‘hang loose’.
With single women, it’s their sexuality that’s always at the forefront of social exchanges, not their minds or talents.
* * * *
‘What did you say?’ the girl at the next table squeals, her eyes glinting.
The boy’s chest heaves as she shoves in the returned change into his shirt pocket.
‘I am a feminist,’ I say, suddenly, protectively.
Then before the boy can say something, I add, ‘and I am single, 40. So?’
The girl pushes her chair back.
‘I’m Payal,’ she swallows hard.
‘I’m Riya, 54, divorced, two kids, that’s my son,’ the lady sitting behind them walks over to the girl’s table.
‘Amio single, feminist, war widow,’ says another woman who has just walked in. ‘Can I have your table please after you leave? Bad knees!’
The boy looks genuinely puzzled.
‘I hate cats. But I love sex,’ my friend pipes up.
We burst out laughing.
‘Single, huh?’ the boy barks.
‘No, but my husband is away on work in another city, so maybe, umm, okay, just feminist,’ she grits her teeth.
Five of us then make a curious semi-circle. Standing around the girl, who wraps her hands around her shoulders.
We watch him stomp off and leave. The girl looks at me. I hold my friend’s hand. The older lady touches my back. The woman waiting for the table clumsily clicks a selfie.
And just like that, in the middle of an ordinary, noisy restaurant, we become the same. A statistic. A story.
Last evening, I went out with my college friend to a popular coffee shop in Kolkata, crowded with young lovers bedecked in the colours of Saraswati Puja, a festival that heralds the beginning of spring.
At the table beside us sat a couple who looked like typical millennials — they constantly clicked indulgent selfies, pouted non-stop, uploaded everything online immediately, with the boy checking and declaring the number of Likes triumphantly by thumping on the table.
‘Young love… wait till they are married and saddled with kids, pets, maids, homework and in-laws,’ my friend smirked.
Feminist type
‘We’ll be told we are eavesdropping, bad manners,’ I winked. My friend was about to say something when the girl at the table, who wore a purple sari and backless choli, raised her voice.
We stole a fleeting glance.
‘Let me tell you straight… I have no interest in being married. I am extremely independent, love my job, enjoy solo travel, I can’t give up my flat… and anyway, I am… umm… commitment phobic…’ She made a face and pushed away the boy’s left hand.
Was there a ring in there?
My friend and I exchanged looks.
‘Dude,’ the boy sniggered, taking back his arm defensively, adding almost under his breath, ‘You don’t want to grow into a sexless spinster, living alone with a bunch of cats in a cold, lonely apartment at 40.’
I’d just turned 40 in December, on the 14th. The last word stuck to me, more than the rest of his bhavishyawani.
I waited for the girl’s response.
‘Besides, I don’t think you are commitment phobic, you’ve had a string of flings, haven’t you?’ the boy clicked his tongue, resuming sheepishly, ‘I would say you are nothing but a bloody feminist.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ the girl retorted in a shrill octave.
The boy asked for the bill.
‘Nothing,’ he shrugged his shoulders.
‘No, tell me,’ the girl met his eyes.
‘It means that you hate men… that you think you are better and can survive alone. It means that you are too opinionated and have a foot-in-mouth disease. It means you want multiple partners, and maybe you are a lesbian. It means you have jholawala, nari morcha type principles… it means you are lonely, lousy and lost…’
* * * *
Single women reportedly constitute 21% of India’s female population, being close to 73 million in number. These include unmarried, divorced, separated and widowed women. Between 2001 and 2011, there was an almost 40% increase in their numbers. Media reports say that the Women and Child Development ministry under Maneka Gandhi is slated to revise policy for the first time since 2001 to address the concerns around being single and female, which include social isolation and difficulties in accessing even ordinary services. .
There’s been a huge growth in this demographic, and ministry officials have said that government policy must prepare for this evolution by empowering single women through skills development and economic incentives.
The policy revision also aims to address concerns related to widows and universal health benefits for all women. And yet, a little over a year ago, and despite the social relevance of the subject, when I actually discussed the idea of a non-fiction book on single women in my circle of single women friends, I sensed a reluctance to talk freely about what being single really meant in India.
Some of them, 40-plus, shyly confessed that they’ve just created their nth profile on a matrimonial site, but made me swear I would not tell anyone else lest they be laughed at. Others clandestinely admitted to flings with married or younger men.
They spoke of serious struggles with basic life issues such as getting a flat on rent or being taken seriously as a start-up entrepreneur or getting a business loan or even getting an abortion (statistics collated by Mumbai’s International Institute for Population Sciences claim that 76% of the women who come for first-time abortions are single).
They confessed to a gnawing sense of loneliness, the looming anxiety about the onset of old age, health issues, of losing parents, siblings and friends over time, of personal security, of being elderly and alone.
I started introspecting on my own single life. When did I begin to realise it wasn’t so much a choice as a culmination of circumstances that I must eventually get used to and learn to adapt to, despite the occasional speed-breaks. That being single wasn’t only about relationship-centric fears.
It also covered physical and mental health, living with parents vis-a-vis alone in another city, the nauseating, never-ending pressure of marriage, the need for sex (a friend insists on calling it ‘internal servicing’), the desire to birth one’s own children, coupled with a general all-consuming pressure to conform to the larger majority, the statistic that sells — married people — who seem to be swallowing you up and swarming in population, be it virtually or really.
* * * *
‘Get her uterus removed,’ the gynaecologist declared. It was three years ago and I was at one of Delhi’s prestigious hospitals. She was the third gynaec I was consulting. I kept going back to her every Wednesday at 4 p.m., waiting on the claustrophobic ground floor, complaining of how my menstrual pain had gotten severe in the last few cycles, even unbearable. My mother accompanied me on most occasions, vouching for me, a lingering sadness in her ageing eyes. Perhaps she was just as fragile. In ways that we could never show each other.
‘But she’s so young, only in her 30s?’ my mother stuttered, protesting, as if against a looming death warrant. The doctor was busy talking with the nurse about a woman in labour. Not very interested in the ones who didn’t qualify in her estimation. Those like me who kept coming back — same complaint, same pain, same marital status.
“Why don’t you find her a husband soon? With her history… first Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome… now endometriosis…and, of course, her weight… is she interested in having a baby anyway?” I pushed my chair back impatiently, fighting back tears.
‘Shall we try Ananda Bazaar? They have a ‘Cosmopolitan’ section… more your type,’ Ma had whispered on our way back, as I looked away.
Beleaguered. Belittled. Barren?
* * * *
Nita Mathur (name changed on request) was born in a conservative Uttar Pradesh family, and grew up watching her mother ostracised for not bearing a son. I met the 34-year-old HR professional in an upscale South Delhi café a month before her marriage, which had been arranged by a family astrologer. Nita was preparing to return to Kanpur, her hometown. ‘I grew up with a gnawing guilt that I was born a girl… I wanted to get out of Kanpur at any cost. I battled with my father and uncles to come to Delhi to get an MBA degree,” she told me.
Like a virgin
For Nita, living alone in a Delhi PG meant life on her own terms, earning her way. She started dating, had sex. “It was, strangely, a way to get back at the closeted patriarchy I had been forced to deal with as a girl,” she said.
But her single status and living alone was a stigma for her parents, who wanted Nita married, and her sisters after her. They pressurised her, using tears and threats. “My mother always cried on the phone, warning me that life as a single woman, though seemingly attractive, would return to haunt me later. She told me my behaviour would affect my sisters’ lives….”
Nita finally agreed to marry. And since she could not tell anyone that she was sexually active, she decided to have a hymen reconstruction surgery. “It was the first question my to-be groom asked when we were granted half an hour alone.” Nita spent ₹60,000 on the half-hour procedure.
In an April 2015 report in indiatimes.com, Dr. Anup Dhir, a cosmetologist from Apollo Hospital, said, ‘There’s been an increase of 20-30% in these surgeries annually. The majority of women who opt for this surgery are in the 20 to 30 age group.’
* * * *
I went to visit a single friend in her 40s who lives in a plush apartment complex in Thane. As my rented car entered the imposing iron gates, a lady security officer asked which apartment I was visiting. When I told her my friend’s name and flat number, she smirked: ‘Oh, the madam who lives by herself? Akeli? Not married?’
In the course of my interviews with 3,000 single urban women across India whose voices are integral to breaking the stigmatised silence around singlehood, I came across Shikha Makan, whose documentary Bachelor Girls is on the same subject.
Shikha spoke of being in the advertising industry, of keeping late hours. “From the first day, we felt uncomfortable. The watchman stared at us, as if he wanted to find out what we were up to.” Once, when she returned home at 2 a.m., a male colleague escorted her home. But when they reached the gate, the watchman stopped them and called the society chairman who accused Shikha of running a brothel. He threatened to throw her out.
“I called my father, who gave him a piece of his mind, and we continued to stay there. But we felt extremely uncomfortable. Then, the harassment started; someone would ring our bell at 3 a.m. or write nasty stuff on the walls. We decided to leave.”
* * * *
Ruchhita Kazaria, 35 and single, born to a Marwari family, started her own advertising agency, Arcee Enterprises, in 2004. She has since faced backlash for trying to conduct business without the backing of a husband’s surname or the validation of a male partner. Running her own company for the past 12 years has led to Ruchhita believing that “women in general, unfortunately, are still predominantly perceived as designers, back-office assistants, PR coordinators, anything but the founder-owner of a business entity.”
Sans arm candy
“In October 2014, a friend asked if I was “secretly” dating someone, probably finding it difficult to digest that a single woman could head a company minus a male counterpart and socialise sans arm candy,” she wrote to me. Within 15 minutes, the friend had sought to enrol Ruchhita with couples and groups that participated in swapping, threesomes and orgies, encouraging her to be a part of this ‘discreet’ group, to ‘hang loose’.
With single women, it’s their sexuality that’s always at the forefront of social exchanges, not their minds or talents.
* * * *
‘What did you say?’ the girl at the next table squeals, her eyes glinting.
The boy’s chest heaves as she shoves in the returned change into his shirt pocket.
‘I am a feminist,’ I say, suddenly, protectively.
Then before the boy can say something, I add, ‘and I am single, 40. So?’
The girl pushes her chair back.
‘I’m Payal,’ she swallows hard.
‘I’m Riya, 54, divorced, two kids, that’s my son,’ the lady sitting behind them walks over to the girl’s table.
‘Amio single, feminist, war widow,’ says another woman who has just walked in. ‘Can I have your table please after you leave? Bad knees!’
The boy looks genuinely puzzled.
‘I hate cats. But I love sex,’ my friend pipes up.
We burst out laughing.
‘Single, huh?’ the boy barks.
‘No, but my husband is away on work in another city, so maybe, umm, okay, just feminist,’ she grits her teeth.
Five of us then make a curious semi-circle. Standing around the girl, who wraps her hands around her shoulders.
We watch him stomp off and leave. The girl looks at me. I hold my friend’s hand. The older lady touches my back. The woman waiting for the table clumsily clicks a selfie.
And just like that, in the middle of an ordinary, noisy restaurant, we become the same. A statistic. A story.
Monday 14 March 2016
Lecture on Nationalism at JNU #5 - Nivedita Menon
This attack on Nivedita Menon
Mary E John in The Hindu
A notable feature of the university protests that have rocked the nation in recent times is the prominent presence of women. Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula’s mother Radhika was hounded by the media, and her personal life vilified in the attempt to prove that Rohith was not a Dalit. The faculty members from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) who came to the Patiala House courts for JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar’s bail hearing and were attacked by irate ‘patriotic lawyers’ were mostly women. In Allahabad, the first woman president of the Allahabad University Students’ Union, Richa Singh, has faced physical intimidation from her political opponents who are now seeking other ways to oust her from the university. The latest in this series is JNU professor Nivedita Menon against whom a concerted campaign seems to have been launched, including media attacks and malicious police complaints.
One of the events that JNU teachers conducted in solidarity with students in the course of the campaign against JNU as a supposed den of anti-nationals was a series of lectures on nationalism. Professor Menon delivered a lecture in Hindi called “Nation, a daily plebiscite” (see video above) in which she made the argument that the formation of one nation does not automatically end all nationalist aspirations. Drawing attention to histories of nation formation as crucial to understanding present-day conflicts, she also discussed Kashmir’s complicated history of accession to India.
These lectures are available on YouTube, and some days afterwards, a TV channel started a campaign, continuously playing video clips taken out of context (including a clip from a speech at a political event in 2014), calling Prof. Menon anti-national, and creating an atmosphere of threat, intimidation and incitement to mob violence. In addition, according to media reports, two police complaints have been filed against her in Delhi by organisations linked to the Bharatiya Janata Party, and a complaint lodged against her in a court in Kanpur. The complaints against her are, in effect, part of a right-wing offensive to lay claim to nationalism by attacking any mode of dissent as anti-national.
Does this mean that men are ‘patriots’ and women ‘dissenters’? Any such claim is immediately demolished, of course, by the powerful presence of militant right-wing women like Uma Bharti and generations of ‘sadhvis’ known for their incendiary demagoguery, from Rithambhara to Prachi. So there are plenty of women ‘patriots’. The real distinction is that it is those women who lay claim to the legacy of feminism who are being singled out as ‘dissenters’. Why is this happening? Why are feminist scholars like Prof. Menon being targeted? What exactly is Indian feminism and what are the forms of dissent that feminists in India have adopted? How have feminists become leaders in the present struggles over democracy in India and why is this being perceived as dangerous?
Feminism in India
First and foremost, feminism in India, going back to the nineteenth century, has never had the luxury to simply be about women. This is because the struggles over women’s wrongs and rights in the Indian context have always been tied to larger issues — to the histories of colonialism and nationalism before Independence; to the meanings of development after 1947; and to the conflicts over democracy today. Feminists have been demonstrating how the hierarchies of gender in India are intertwined with those of caste; how the promises of national development remained unfulfilled for the vast majority of women; and how families have often turned into sites of the worst violence against their very own women.
First and foremost, feminism in India, going back to the nineteenth century, has never had the luxury to simply be about women. This is because the struggles over women’s wrongs and rights in the Indian context have always been tied to larger issues — to the histories of colonialism and nationalism before Independence; to the meanings of development after 1947; and to the conflicts over democracy today. Feminists have been demonstrating how the hierarchies of gender in India are intertwined with those of caste; how the promises of national development remained unfulfilled for the vast majority of women; and how families have often turned into sites of the worst violence against their very own women.
Second, we as feminists have had to learn over and over again that our movements can only grow if we do not claim immunity from our own tools of critique and dissent. Some of the fiercest debates witnessed in the Indian women’s movement have therefore been internal ones, addressed to each other. Prominent examples of such debates include those over a uniform civil code; over the need and direction for reserved seats for women in Parliament and legislatures; and over how best to combat the scourge of female foeticide.
It is therefore particularly shameful, but also revealing, that sections of the electronic media and countless vicious trolls on social media have tried to instil fear by singling out Prof. Menon among other teachers as an alleged ‘anti-national’. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with her writings should know better. Prof. Menon has drawn from prior scholarship (both in India and abroad) to lay out why, in fact, simple universal theories of women’s subordination will not work in contexts like India. By tracing the effects of colonial rule and the many responses to it, she has demonstrated how both community rights and individual rights have played themselves out in our history, and continue to have a massive impact on women’s equality and freedom to this very day. Some of her finest work takes issue with other feminists in offering a dissenting interpretation of the problems women face. Will a blanket demand for one-third reservation of seats actually be the best strategy for the women’s movement, or should we ‘call the bluff’ of those who demanded a sub-quota? Equally provocatively, might the sheer demand to combat sexual violence against women rebound against the basic freedom from violence that the women’s movement seeks to protect? Such examples could be multiplied. Lest anyone be misled, these are all feminist arguments that work through a form of dissent that simultaneously upholds feminist ways of seeing and feminist forms of struggle.
Does this mean that everything that a scholar like Prof. Menon writes or believes should demand our assent? Not at all. I cannot think of anyone who is more open to disagreement and welcoming of constructive dissent, and who, in fact, encourages this attitude from students and colleagues alike.
An undemocratic mindset
That is precisely why we are outraged not by the fact that people disagree with Prof. Menon or want to question her views, but by the mode in which they are choosing to do so. The malicious campaign we have witnessed in recent days is not about expressing dissent; it is about bullying and intimidation. It reveals a deeply undemocratic mindset that offers no arguments of its own, but tries to capture public attention by repeated, sensationalised attacks that work by twisting statements and taking them out of their context. What is truly worrisome is that it does not just stop at this; this campaign goes far beyond the limits of public debate to make opponents fear for their lives by whipping up a frenzy and creating a situation where the laws of the land are seen as irrelevant. These are acts of cowardice, not bravery, least of all acts of heroism in the service of Mother India.
That is precisely why we are outraged not by the fact that people disagree with Prof. Menon or want to question her views, but by the mode in which they are choosing to do so. The malicious campaign we have witnessed in recent days is not about expressing dissent; it is about bullying and intimidation. It reveals a deeply undemocratic mindset that offers no arguments of its own, but tries to capture public attention by repeated, sensationalised attacks that work by twisting statements and taking them out of their context. What is truly worrisome is that it does not just stop at this; this campaign goes far beyond the limits of public debate to make opponents fear for their lives by whipping up a frenzy and creating a situation where the laws of the land are seen as irrelevant. These are acts of cowardice, not bravery, least of all acts of heroism in the service of Mother India.
Such campaigns are also revealing because they inadvertently recognise the transformational potential of feminism in India today. For feminism believes that genuine gender equality can only come about where fundamental freedoms are guaranteed for all, and where no other forms of oppression can flourish. This is the legacy that feminists in India have been striving for so long to bring to fruition, and which is therefore perceived as being so dangerous. This is also the tradition that Prof. Menon has embodied with integrity and force. And if there are those who would attack such a feminism, they should at least have the courage to attack us all.
Thursday 30 October 2014
Tuesday 11 December 2012
Family isn't dead – it's getting better
'It is actually
exceedingly difficult in much of the world for women to achieve highly
in a career while also having a thriving family and personal life.'
Photograph: Aping Vision/STS/Getty Images
Are we living in a post-familial age? According to a new report, The Rise of Post-Familialism: Humanity's Future?,
the answer is yes: the traditional family unit is slowly dying out as
more people choose to forgo children and even marriage. As a result,
society is economically imperilled, lacking the necessary workforce to
support older generations. We're also "values-challenged", entering a
brave new world of materialistic indulgence, selfishness and protracted
adolescence.
Sounds awful, doesn't it? Luckily, almost none of it is true.
People around the world are indeed delaying childbearing and marriage, and larger numbers of people never marry or reproduce at all. But that is not synonymous with a moral decline, or selfish decadence. It represents an uptick in women's rights, a commitment to creating the family one wants, and wider choices for everyone.
It's no shock that the drop in the number of children a woman has came along with the advent of the birth control pill. The countries with the highest birth rates aren't just highly religious; they're poor, have abominable human rights records and lack access to reliable birth control. Contrary to New York Times columnist Ross Douthat's position, it is not in fact the country with the most babies that wins: if that was the case, Nigeria would be running the show.
Despite the clear correlation between reproductive rights and prosperity, the report's author, joined by conservative commentators, laments the decline in childbearing because, as David Brooks says, it represents a rise of individualism and personal freedom – and that's a bad thing. Brooks writes:
Valuing tradition, family and God doesn't automatically translate into healthy families or economic prosperity. Just look at the United States: the states that most idealise the conservative model do have higher birth rates, earlier marriage, higher levels of religiosity and more consistent church attendance. They make up consistent conservative voting blocks. They also have the highest levels of divorce in the country, the highest poverty rates, the highest teen pregnancy rates, the lowest child health ratings and the lowest education levels. On the other hand, the states that champion "liberal values" do have later marriage rates and lower birth rates. They're also richer and better educated, the children that reside in them are healthier and families split up less often.
And contrary to the assertions in both the report and the commentary surrounding it, a lower birth rate does not actually mean that individuals end up voting to support only the interests of affluent childless singles. Quite the opposite: the social safety net is much stronger in liberal, supposedly individualistic, lower-birthrate blue states. An array of choices seems to mean that people respect and support a variety of paths.
The rest of the world tells a similar story. There are obviously myriad complex factors that play into a nation's success, but the places where people are the healthiest and the most economically stable are the relatively liberal nations that provide for social welfare while allowing many different models of family to flourish.
Meanwhile, the arguments in favour of a return to the traditional family remain unconvincing, and even insulting. For example, NYT columnist Ross Douthat accuses single people of being "decadent" in their selfish singledom (an argument neatly taken down by Ann Friedman). In the report itself, the authors project a nobility on to staying at home and "sacrificing" for one's family, as opposed to young people who show "an almost defiant individualism" and "indulge themselves in hobbies, fashion or restaurants". Singapore pastor Andrew Ong says that the child-free media culture is "about not growing up".
Listening to these guys, you would think that kids are an awful drag, that raising a family requires (almost entirely female) sacrifice, and that such hardship simply must be endured for … something they don't quite specify. By contrast, they seem to think that single people are in a perpetual adolescence, out partying, eating and drinking until, I suppose, we get ours by dying alone with our cats.
That's not making much of a case for marriage and babies, is it?
In reality, most of these selfish singles are in fact eventually getting married and having babies. They're just doing it later. The result is that these selfish late procreators are wealthier, their marriages last longer and their kids are healthier. How awful.
Investing in future generations is crucial, but conservatives seem to value not so much investment as major personal sacrifice in the here-and-now that results in poorer outcomes for everyone involved. And for what? So that future generations can grow up to sacrifice themselves too? Feminists and other liberals aren't against supporting children and making the world a better place. We just realise that the best way to do that isn't by making ourselves collectively miserable, but by actually taking steps to improve society for everyone, now and later.
One of the ways we're doing that is by making it easier for women to choose to have children. Demanding that women sacrifice everything for child-rearing isn't exactly getting the young ladies to line up, but that's what our current employment model is based upon. It is actually exceedingly difficult in much of the world for women to achieve highly in a career while also having a thriving family and personal life. Our current employment model is based on a family economy with a male partner who is able to work full time, and a female partner who stays at home and tends to the children. Women are now in the workforce in unprecedented numbers – but the workforce hasn't adjusted to give people much time for anything other than work. And conservatives have championed this model, praising folks who do multiple jobs just to make ends meet or work 80 hours a week. High-achieving men still often have wives who stay home. What happens, then, is high-achieving women either "opt out" and let their husbands do the bread-winning, don't get married or decide that they want to have kids later or not at all. And the economy suffers for it.
But young single people don't just want to slave away at work all day, and we don't have someone at home taking care of the rest of our lives. We also want a work-life balance. We may not be going home to children, but we want to pursue our hobbies, spend time with the families we've created and engage with our communities. We realise there is much more to life than just work – but we also think there's much more to life than a traditional family.
That kind of push-back could be the key in making work-life balance a reality. Historically, women's work has been undervalued and disrespected. One reason "work-life balance" is discussed but not actually executed is because, I suspect, it's women – and the most disrespected and undervalued group of women, mothers – who that balance is perceived to benefit. So what if this new group of highly effective, highly motivated, hard-working young single people are now demanding more balance and reasonable work hours and leave policies? Everyone benefits.
Women today also want relationships that are mutually supportive and egalitarian, something they might struggle to find – but not for the reasons conservatives seem to think. Lots of men haven't caught up, and still want wives who will be subservient and financially dependent. For men, getting married and having kids comes with increased social status and emotional benefits, not to mention actual salary increases and workplace opportunities. For women it's the opposite: motherhood brings with it lost income and opportunity. There simply aren't enough subservient women who are willing to put themselves in financial, social and sometimes even physical peril to have a "traditional family".
Despite its reliance on rightwing values, there is much to be gleaned from this report. It identifies a place where liberal feminists worried about gender equality and conservatives worried about fertility rates can come together to promote both of our goals. Make reproductive freedom a priority, including the right to have healthy babies. We do this by promoting healthcare that covers the family planning tools that lead to healthy, wanted pregnancies. Federally mandated parental leave and other family-friendly policies like state-sponsored childcare would also make it easier for women and men to work and raise families. More affordable housing programmes would make it more plausible for parents to stay in the places where they choose to live, and where they have put down their social roots and earned their stripes at work. Real investment in public education would relieve much of the financial burden for parents who want their children to have the same opportunities they did.
Finally, support a variety of lifestyles and choices. When the traditional family model isn't something that everyone is expected to personally sacrifice to create, we can construct and implement policies that benefit actual families, in all of their incarnations. When they are not a crass economic contract where financial support is traded for housekeeping and child-rearing but instead a unit based on love, respect and mutual support, marriages last longer. The conservative and religious promise that there is only one best way to live, one that requires temporal sacrifice and is justified solely by obligation but will be rewarded by happiness in the afterlife, but it doesn't actually lead to good outcomes here on Earth.
Family isn't dead. It's just getting better. Expanding its definition and allowing people to choose their own happiness model is just making it more highly valued than ever.
Sounds awful, doesn't it? Luckily, almost none of it is true.
People around the world are indeed delaying childbearing and marriage, and larger numbers of people never marry or reproduce at all. But that is not synonymous with a moral decline, or selfish decadence. It represents an uptick in women's rights, a commitment to creating the family one wants, and wider choices for everyone.
It's no shock that the drop in the number of children a woman has came along with the advent of the birth control pill. The countries with the highest birth rates aren't just highly religious; they're poor, have abominable human rights records and lack access to reliable birth control. Contrary to New York Times columnist Ross Douthat's position, it is not in fact the country with the most babies that wins: if that was the case, Nigeria would be running the show.
Despite the clear correlation between reproductive rights and prosperity, the report's author, joined by conservative commentators, laments the decline in childbearing because, as David Brooks says, it represents a rise of individualism and personal freedom – and that's a bad thing. Brooks writes:
"People are not better off when they are given maximum personal freedom to do what they want. They're better off when they are enshrouded in commitments that transcend personal choice – commitments to family, God, craft and country."But the moral case against individualism and choice doesn't have legs. It's a moral good when people have a wide array of choices and increased personal freedom – not just for the individual, but also for children, family and society. And the evidence backs that up.
Valuing tradition, family and God doesn't automatically translate into healthy families or economic prosperity. Just look at the United States: the states that most idealise the conservative model do have higher birth rates, earlier marriage, higher levels of religiosity and more consistent church attendance. They make up consistent conservative voting blocks. They also have the highest levels of divorce in the country, the highest poverty rates, the highest teen pregnancy rates, the lowest child health ratings and the lowest education levels. On the other hand, the states that champion "liberal values" do have later marriage rates and lower birth rates. They're also richer and better educated, the children that reside in them are healthier and families split up less often.
And contrary to the assertions in both the report and the commentary surrounding it, a lower birth rate does not actually mean that individuals end up voting to support only the interests of affluent childless singles. Quite the opposite: the social safety net is much stronger in liberal, supposedly individualistic, lower-birthrate blue states. An array of choices seems to mean that people respect and support a variety of paths.
The rest of the world tells a similar story. There are obviously myriad complex factors that play into a nation's success, but the places where people are the healthiest and the most economically stable are the relatively liberal nations that provide for social welfare while allowing many different models of family to flourish.
Meanwhile, the arguments in favour of a return to the traditional family remain unconvincing, and even insulting. For example, NYT columnist Ross Douthat accuses single people of being "decadent" in their selfish singledom (an argument neatly taken down by Ann Friedman). In the report itself, the authors project a nobility on to staying at home and "sacrificing" for one's family, as opposed to young people who show "an almost defiant individualism" and "indulge themselves in hobbies, fashion or restaurants". Singapore pastor Andrew Ong says that the child-free media culture is "about not growing up".
Listening to these guys, you would think that kids are an awful drag, that raising a family requires (almost entirely female) sacrifice, and that such hardship simply must be endured for … something they don't quite specify. By contrast, they seem to think that single people are in a perpetual adolescence, out partying, eating and drinking until, I suppose, we get ours by dying alone with our cats.
That's not making much of a case for marriage and babies, is it?
In reality, most of these selfish singles are in fact eventually getting married and having babies. They're just doing it later. The result is that these selfish late procreators are wealthier, their marriages last longer and their kids are healthier. How awful.
Investing in future generations is crucial, but conservatives seem to value not so much investment as major personal sacrifice in the here-and-now that results in poorer outcomes for everyone involved. And for what? So that future generations can grow up to sacrifice themselves too? Feminists and other liberals aren't against supporting children and making the world a better place. We just realise that the best way to do that isn't by making ourselves collectively miserable, but by actually taking steps to improve society for everyone, now and later.
One of the ways we're doing that is by making it easier for women to choose to have children. Demanding that women sacrifice everything for child-rearing isn't exactly getting the young ladies to line up, but that's what our current employment model is based upon. It is actually exceedingly difficult in much of the world for women to achieve highly in a career while also having a thriving family and personal life. Our current employment model is based on a family economy with a male partner who is able to work full time, and a female partner who stays at home and tends to the children. Women are now in the workforce in unprecedented numbers – but the workforce hasn't adjusted to give people much time for anything other than work. And conservatives have championed this model, praising folks who do multiple jobs just to make ends meet or work 80 hours a week. High-achieving men still often have wives who stay home. What happens, then, is high-achieving women either "opt out" and let their husbands do the bread-winning, don't get married or decide that they want to have kids later or not at all. And the economy suffers for it.
But young single people don't just want to slave away at work all day, and we don't have someone at home taking care of the rest of our lives. We also want a work-life balance. We may not be going home to children, but we want to pursue our hobbies, spend time with the families we've created and engage with our communities. We realise there is much more to life than just work – but we also think there's much more to life than a traditional family.
That kind of push-back could be the key in making work-life balance a reality. Historically, women's work has been undervalued and disrespected. One reason "work-life balance" is discussed but not actually executed is because, I suspect, it's women – and the most disrespected and undervalued group of women, mothers – who that balance is perceived to benefit. So what if this new group of highly effective, highly motivated, hard-working young single people are now demanding more balance and reasonable work hours and leave policies? Everyone benefits.
Women today also want relationships that are mutually supportive and egalitarian, something they might struggle to find – but not for the reasons conservatives seem to think. Lots of men haven't caught up, and still want wives who will be subservient and financially dependent. For men, getting married and having kids comes with increased social status and emotional benefits, not to mention actual salary increases and workplace opportunities. For women it's the opposite: motherhood brings with it lost income and opportunity. There simply aren't enough subservient women who are willing to put themselves in financial, social and sometimes even physical peril to have a "traditional family".
Despite its reliance on rightwing values, there is much to be gleaned from this report. It identifies a place where liberal feminists worried about gender equality and conservatives worried about fertility rates can come together to promote both of our goals. Make reproductive freedom a priority, including the right to have healthy babies. We do this by promoting healthcare that covers the family planning tools that lead to healthy, wanted pregnancies. Federally mandated parental leave and other family-friendly policies like state-sponsored childcare would also make it easier for women and men to work and raise families. More affordable housing programmes would make it more plausible for parents to stay in the places where they choose to live, and where they have put down their social roots and earned their stripes at work. Real investment in public education would relieve much of the financial burden for parents who want their children to have the same opportunities they did.
Finally, support a variety of lifestyles and choices. When the traditional family model isn't something that everyone is expected to personally sacrifice to create, we can construct and implement policies that benefit actual families, in all of their incarnations. When they are not a crass economic contract where financial support is traded for housekeeping and child-rearing but instead a unit based on love, respect and mutual support, marriages last longer. The conservative and religious promise that there is only one best way to live, one that requires temporal sacrifice and is justified solely by obligation but will be rewarded by happiness in the afterlife, but it doesn't actually lead to good outcomes here on Earth.
Family isn't dead. It's just getting better. Expanding its definition and allowing people to choose their own happiness model is just making it more highly valued than ever.
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