A Time To Reflect

charukesi June 18th, 2008

Puzzled over this since I read it a couple of days ago - Government’s gift for rural brides: Pregnancy test strips!

The government will give packets of pregnancy test strips to rural women on the occasion of their marriage - to reduce unwanted pregnancies and maternal mortality across India. So how are pregnancy kits a way to avoid unwanted pregnancies?

So has the government accepted defeat over its family planning program and has decided that abortion is better than prevention? Whatever happened to varmala ke saath saath aur ek mala ko dhyan me rakhna? and all that?

• Indiawatch , - Gender issues , - Public health
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charukesi January 4th, 2008

As Annie has said so eloquently, the new year brought. Reading news reports and specifically, blog posts on this incident, I realize now that I was expecting some comment on how the women were at fault - partially if not entirely. Bracing myself for that line. They were asking for it? In what way, please?

Harini has written about an opinion she heard - so what did they expect? Sure, the person was not exactly saying the women were asking for it, but what did they expect? Perhaps a fun night out in the secure company of male friends (husband!). Why, I stood on Baga beach at midnight on new year’s eve with my husband and another couple, humanity spilling out into the sea, some drunk, some sober, feeling the crowds around me but never actually crowding me physically till we tried to make our way through the narrow lane past Tito’s into the main road. Even then I assumed it was the rush of happy people trying to make their way past crowds, just as we were. Call me naive, call my faith in people misplaced. I ought to have expected something like this? And taken precautions - stayed away from any crowded place instead of wanting to watch the fireworks light up the sky over the beaches for an hour?

So is the solution to stay away, stay home, stay covered, stay sober, stay with male company…? Does any of this make you safe? Another thing that really pisses me off is to see women drunk to death. At the hotel where we were partying, no exaggeration here; there were more women literally puking their guts out in comparison to men - says Sakshi - I wonder how much drunkenness had to do with what happened that night - I do not know if these women were drunk or sober, but does that make a difference?

What kind of eye is it that judges a woman wearing Western clothes (jeans, shirts, skirts - as “modest” as Indian clothes) and with a glass in her hand as actually inviting the male glance? and the grope? Does this instinct have anything to do with drunkenness (all that mobs need to be drunk on is the strength of the crowd), migration (I read in several places comments about people migrating from the bimaru states - but Delhi has already claimed that excuse for her own), frustration - economic? (they have the money, they have the looks, they have the opportunity? what about us?) - sexual? (any woman is easy target, all that is needed is a chance?)

Such incidents on one side, it is such reactions that sadden me, but not entirely surprise me…

The Lady writes - In 1977, Anne Pride’s war cry rang out in Pittsburgh. Take Back the Night, she said, and the women of the world took up the chant. In Mumbai, we too, are shouting the slogan, but the night never did belong to us. Was the night then never ours then? Or the day? Or is it time to reclaim them? (there, I have linked to Annie’s post twice here - so read it now if you have not already)

• Society & Development , - Gender issues
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charukesi October 23rd, 2007

First there were pepper sprays and karate moves - The Age now writes about this Japanese skirt to ward off crime [link via textually - where a tenuous link has been established between this piece of news and the main focus of their blog - mobile phones!] - quoting from an article in the age - the above skirt serves as a disguise, by converting a person into a vending machine, to elude pursuers - Now I cannot honestly say that I know how this works - woman stops for a second, opens her skirt and lo! turns into a Cola vending machine - and lo! lo! pursuer is left baffled?

And how about this - Take the “manhole bag”, a purse that can hide your valuables by unfolding to look like a round sewer cover. Put it on the street with your wallet still inside, and unwitting thieves are supposed to walk right by.

A phone booth for Superwoman now? All I can say is I hope the women don’t end up drinking all that Cola and finding themselves unable to fit into the skirt the next time they need it.

• Technology , - Gender issues
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charukesi November 13th, 2006

I read this piece on India Together - Morning-after pills seized in Chennai - a while ago, shook my head in disbelief, book-marked it and forgot about it. Yesterday, I read Harini’s posts on sex and sensibility - I try not to be judgemental about it - but there is something fundamentally wrong when a 15 year old goes for a MTP not because she had sex, but because she did not know about safe sex - and why, because their mothers did not want to talk to their daughters about it since it was “not part of our culture”. Right.

In the case of the morning-after pill which were to become available OTC from October, the Tamilnadu government’s drug controller seized stocks from Chennai’s pharmacies responding to protests - that such medical aids promoted free sex and took away responsibility from the act of sexual intercourse.

More from the article - In what was seen as a major step forward for the reproductive rights of women, in September 2005, the Drug Controller General of India officially made a levonorgestrel-based EC available over the counter. But the Chennai-based Responsible Parents Forum and Satvika Samuga Sevakar Sangam are seeking to challenge that order.

The Responsible Parents Forum and the Association for Social Welfare have jointly decided that what is required is not a step forward but several steps backward, preferably with eyes tightly shut to the real world out there. And they have gone ahead and got the drug withdrawn from the market. Serves you right, you immoral girls.

Please read the entire article at India Together and Harini’s post - it is scary to think of how we persist with the speak-no-evil-see-no-evil-andhey-there-IS-no-evil (sex = evil in this context) attitude. What about women who are vulnerable - rape victims, women who have been forced into the sex act but wish to avoid pregnancy, even within a marriage? Or simply, women who have had sex out of choice but aree not ready for a pregnancy?

Reproductive rights, please go take a walk. Morality, take a bow in the meanwhile.

• Indiawatch , - Gender issues , - Public health
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charukesi August 14th, 2006

I was searching earlier on the net for something and came across a site called smartbahu and of course, I had to click on it. This is what the site says - Smartbahu.com - India’s 1st portal for the complete woman.

What was that again - complete women = smart bahu (or is it the other way round?)

The home page contains links to articles such as Injazat data systems to build the most advanced TierIV data centre in the region and GM utilizes internet to introduce new vehicles.

What am I missing here?

• - Gender issues , - New media
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charukesi June 19th, 2006

Things that a mobile-phone camera is meant for…

Found stuck on glass at Spencer’s Plaza at Chennai…

Doea anyone know more about this?

• - Gender issues
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charukesi May 11th, 2006

Girl or boy?, originally uploaded by Wam Mosely.

My blogger’s block has become more or less a permanent thing now. As if to make up, I am spending more and more time on flickr, mostly tring not to die of envy at the astounding talent I come across on that forum.

And once in a while, I come across such pictures too that tell a story. Not a dew-on-flower or red-orange-purple sunset story (which are all magical in their own way and make me gasp - often). But a sad story. A story that has been told before. And needs to be told again and again.

This is from Wam Mosley’s photo stream on flickr [thanks, Chandru, for pointing this out]. The Chinese lettering translates, he says, into “girls can also inherit the blood” - which means girl children deserve to be as much part of your family a boy children. And in China, the horror of female infanticide is increasing; the one child policy makes it worse.

The idea is that if you have a daughter then she will get married, therefore losing the family name, and more than likely she will move in with the husband and they will lose her income into the family.

I kept thinking as I read this - with a daughter, you will lose your family name and the income she gets in every month… think of all that you will gain.

I particularly loved the way this pictures ends with a hazy feel… as if to point to the uncertain future and a young couple, a boy and a girl walking together there… Read also the discussions on this photograph

As an aside, I came across this comment from someone who had recently adopted a baby from China - Interestingly enough we were allocated a boy which is very odd considering 98% of adoptions in China are female (maybe this sign is working?). He is a great kid and we will never forget the country that gave us the opportunity to become parents. I remember reading somewhere that in India too, a majority of adoptions are of baby girls. I wonder about this… Why do people who adopt prefer baby girls?

My earlier posts on this issue : Headed towards Mathrubhoomi - It is believed that the Chinese kill over a million girls every year in order to have a boy. It is also believed that Indians are about to overtake the Chinese in a few years.

and Sex ratio across rural and urban India

• - Gender issues
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charukesi April 10th, 2006

I was recently going through a UNICEF report ‘The state of the world’s children‘ published in 2004 - the report focusses on the millenium develpoment goals, primarily universalisation of education and gender equality - to be achieved by 2015.

From the foreword by Kofi Annan,

Every boy and girl around the world has a right to expect that we will do all we can to ensure that they will enjoy their right to an education. But in most countries, girls are the most disadvantaged when it comes to school. As this year’s State of the World’s Children reports, millions of young girls never attend school at all, millions more never complete their education, and countless numbers never receive the quality education that is their right. These millions of girls slip easily to the margins of our societies – less healthy than they could be, less skilled, with fewer choices in their lives and less hope for the future. As they grow into women, they are ill-prepared to participate fully in the political, social and economic development of their communities. They – and their children in turn – are at higher risk of poverty, HIV/AIDS, sexual exploitation, violence and abuse.

Conversely, to educate a girl is to educate a whole family. And what is true of families is also true of communities and, ultimately, whole countries. Study after study has taught us that there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, improve nutrition and promote health – including helping to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is as powerful in increasing the chances of education for the next generation.

I found a summary of the most recent report on the internet - The 2006 report is about children excluded and invisible - not just denied access to education and other rights that the UN considers basic but additionally coping with armed conflict, HIV, exclusion and discrimination… I have not yet read this latest report but a quick glance showed no indication of the progress made towards the set goals, but sadly additional goals to be met…

Here is an ad I came across while searching for some information on gender and education: More education for girls in Islamic countries!

[Image courtesy : adsoftheworld]

Here is the video of the ad - I personally prefer the print version - it is simple and powerful…

• Society & Development , - Education , - Gender issues
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charukesi April 5th, 2006

Lack of women turns tables on suitable boys, says a rather optimistic report on yahoo news. [link through anthropology.net]

The report says that young men wanting to get married (and their parents) face a problem in finding girls - not surprising since the gender ratio in many districts is 922 girls for every 1,000 boys, and shockingly, in a few villages, less than 500 girls for every 1000 boys.

This apparently has led to a situation where parents of young girls have been spurning offers of marriage from men unless the potential groom’s family also has a marriageable daughter for their son…

The joint engagement pact, called “aata-saata,” or the “double-couple plan,” has emerged as young women find themselves much in demand in a state where the traditional preference, as in much of India, has been for sons.

Now the slightly incredible part - …dowry, where traditionally a bride’s father had to bestow riches on a groom to secure a marriage, has completely disappeared from many parts of the state. Rather the groom’s families are now offering to bear the cost of finding a suitable bride for their sons.

I doubt if the change is as drastic as all that. It is nice to think that people will wake up to the dangers of a skewed gender ratio, but that will happen only in the long run, if at all. I am skeptical - what do you think?

***
And this is why I am skeptical - Gaay aur Gori… The cow and the girl (gori also means fair-skinned, to look at another level of this). Better off than the donkey and the housewife, which again Harini points out in her post…

But, obviously for the guys who set the curriculum and write the text books in Rajasthan, the film has some sort of sacred symbolism. This from the ToI - “A donkey is like a housewife. It has to toil all day and, like her, may even have to give up food and water. In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents’ home, you’ll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master”

This is my point - are people going to wake up to the fact that young men are finding it difficult to get married and therefore, hey, I need to keep my daughters and not kill them? I think it takes a lot more than a feeble threat of non-marriage in the distant future to achieve any progress in the gender bias and the female foeticide issue. And that is a fundamental shift in attitudes.

Harini also pointed out this piece to me from the Indian Express - Women versus girls - what about the right to abort?

What if aware, literate Indian women, who are not necessarily influenced by their families, consciously seek to give birth to male children by exercising their right to abortion? Here we confront one of the biggest conundrums in this debate: a woman’s right to abortion — a crucial right that has been the centerpiece of many a feminist struggle the world over — militates against the right of the girl child to exist, which is again a crucial social and feminist concern. How do we reconcile these two rights?

• - Gender issues
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charukesi March 6th, 2006

Blank Noise has the blog-a-thon 2006 going, inviting stories and thoughts from people about the problem of street harassment. People, because men need to speak out on this as much as women do.

I was waiting to attend the Blank Noise meet in Bombay before I posted on this. Some thoughts from there. The idea behind Blank Noise is to raise awareness among people that we need to Say NO to street harrassment, it is not okay to harass or be harassed, even in the name of fun. It is not okay to encroach upon a woman’s personal space, in the name of checking her out or appreciating beauty. No, it is not okay when the woman feels uncomfortable by this.

So what is harassment? And what is not?

So where do we draw the line and say this is okay and this is not? Start with looking at the innocuous name given to such harassment in India - eve teasing. Uh? teasing? The unemployed Rmeo whistles at the girl, sings lewd songs at her, and in the next scene fades out with the girl and the guy singing lewd songs tgether, declaring their undying love for each other? Nope, Eve and Romeo… doesn’t work that way.

One of the things Blank Noise wants to do first is to understand exactly what constitutes harassment. Please leave your thoughts on this here and spread the word around. Eve teasing to me means *blank*

Activism is such a dirty word?

It is alright to write about it but getting down to the streets where the harassment actually takes place is not so easy for everyone. You do not have to stand in the streets and ask people questions and hand out pamphlets. be your own activist - when you see a woman get harassed, take some action. Show your support in some way. And if you want to be involved in blank noise, please get in touch with Jasmeen right away.

But what can I do about it?

I agree often there isn’t much you can do about it - in a crowded space, it is sometimes difficult to even tell who pinched or groped. But when you do know, then make a scene. Ask him ‘why are you staring a me’? I have tried this and it works. It sends the “teaser” into a tizzy. Shout if in a public place and get the attention of others.

And if you feel physically feel violated in any way, first get this clear - you are not responsible for it. It is not about the way you smile or the clothes you are wearing - it is about the fact that you are a woman and you happen to be there. I don’t know if this is supposed to make one feel better or worse, it is not about you - it could have been any woman there and then.

All that I have written, I have faced, and thought about.

And the stories….

As Annie said, karoge yaad toh har baat yaad aayegi. It just needs one person to start talking about it and then suddenly every woman has her own story to share.

After all these years, I still get disturbed when I think about this - and I do often. Twelve years old and in a crowded temple on a festival way. And a man squeezed my breasts from behind. hard, so hard that I shouted out. But I had nothing to say when my aunt asked me what had ahppened. And I saw the man. I saw him again and again. I saw the leer on his face. And I saw him come towards me a second time, and it happened a second time. And I saw him walk away. And I came home and cried unconsolably.

I am shaking with anger as I write this. What breasts does a twelve year old have, you bastard? I have noticed that I still instinctively cover my chest if I sense a stranger come too close to me, and if I am not wearing a dupatta. And I have not mentioned this to anyone in my life till now.

Walking to class at 16. Passing through a house where four teengae boys sang dirty songs every single day. Till I snapped one day. that night, they came to my house drunk and made a scene infrnt of the gate. Neighbors watching in avid curiosity, and supportive parents who threatened to cal the police. The next morning, my dad and I went to the house; the boy’s father as a well known physiotherapist, and compalined about him. The boy’s mother advised my dad to keep his girl under control. They did not sing from the next day, but I didn’t feel good about that “victory”…

And then driving classes at 19. And the scent of the male instructor as he leaned over my neck teaching me to reverse the car. That nauseous smell of coconut oil, mixed with sweat and what, lust? I snapped at him after three days and demanded a woman instructor. And he failed me in my preliminary driving test before going to the RTO. I don’t drive to this day.

Related : my earlier post on Being a female body

Technorati tag: Blogathon 2006

• - Gender issues
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