A Time To Reflect

charukesi February 2nd, 2006

Uma at Indianwriting has this posted an email she received from someone in the US… I found much in the mail objectionable but this sentence particularly got me thinking - The number of overage unmarried Indian girls in the US is quite large. And there is nothing the parents can do about it, which causes them considerable anguish.

And then this brilliant sentence from Shoefiend on her fact or fiction - Approaching their late 20s, my cousins were still unmarried – earning their mother the collective sympathy of friends, relatives and even the occasional stranger. Like products close to their expiry date, they were nearing the end of their shelf life and people were wary of taking them home.

When exactly does a girl / woman reach that expiry date…? What is this overage that makes parents wring their hands in despair and get ready to sell their product, I mean daughter, off at a bargain deal?

Is it when she starts losing her youth? And when is that…?

Is it when she is touching terrible thirty? And she flinches every time she sees herself in the matrimonial ad described as a “girl”…?

Is it when the woman decides that she has had enough and refuses to submit to any more bride-viewing and bargaining?

Or is it when she is nearing menopause and it is clear that even if she marries then, she will not be able to serve her raison d’être, viz. child-bearing?

And when do men become overage? Do they have an expiry date too? Do mothers of unmarried overage men attract the same kind of sympathy?

Why is it that the tick-tocks and the chimes of the woman’s biological clock alone are so loud and clear that they reach the ears of friends and strangers alike? I wonder…

• - Gender issues
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charukesi January 27th, 2006

The gift of a daughter - is not enough - it is the gifts that the daughter carries to her husband’s home that matter… As I finish reading Subhadra Butalia’s book The gift of a daughter - ‘encounters with the victims of dowry’, my thoughts are with the countless married women who go through this harrassment every day (living with it and maybe even dying of it some day), unmarried girls who commit suicide because they do not wish to be a burden on their parents, and parents themselves who would rather kill their newborn daghters than bring them up and then face a situation where they are unable to provide adequately for their marriages.

The gift of a daughter is on the one hand a powerful moving narrative, an attempt by the author to reflect on and document her efforts in fighting the dowry evil. It traces the first awakening - from dowry was never an important issue in my life - in the author towards the horror of dowry and the subsequent path she takes to set up Karmika; the indifference that existed everywhere, the hurdles at every step, the hope that sprang up every time a woman stood up for herself and against the system, the despair that tended to be overwhelming at times when she sensed how deep-rooted the practice was….

And on the other, it is the story of many young women - women from different places and different backgrounds, but with remarkably similar stories. Every woman’s story goes somewhat like this - married off by her parents, sometimes with great hopes and dreams about her future, sometimes against her will and better judgment. Living with physical and mental harrassment at the hands of those she had hoped would protect her and love her. And finally dying in a bizarre accident involving only herself and a stove…

***
It is the story with the women as the main characters, only they have no lines.

And then there are the other performers, all of them mute too - her own parents watching in silence as their daughter goes through hell…

She stayed at her parents’ home for six months; then there was a council of the elders of the family and it was decided that she must ‘be returned‘. The family apologized to Hardeep’s husband and his parents for the meagre dowry she had brought, they added more and sent her back. [emphasis mine]

What will society say if we take her back into our home? Who will marry her sisters if it becomes known that the elder daughter is separated from her husband?

Adjust. That terrible word. It is a horrifying truth that every time a harrassed girl comes back to her parents and complains about the ill-teratment meted out to her, the parents advise her to go back and adjust.

Above all, who has the time and energy to fight battles for the dead; the others in the family are alive and it is essential to take care of living and forget the dead…

What was important for him now was his family, his business, his widowed mother. If he kept chasing the case, all this would fall by the wayside, so he had decided that since Hareep was dead anyway he would focus on the living. [Hardeep’s brother]

And even before this, parents and families who believe that it is the right of the groom’s side to demand dowry and their duty to provide one.

The brothers said, “after all she is our sister. Why should we not give everything we can? If they ask, let them; we’re happy to give”

“Do you mean we should send our daughters to their matrimonial homes like beggars?”

And her in-laws watching in silence as their daughter-in-law goes in up flames ignited by them in the first place…

Supported ably by the legal system that is as mute as the others in this drama…

In 1981, a judge actually delivered a statement in a dowry case (Inder Sain vs the state) in which he said (according to the Times of India) that anything given after marriage did not count as dowry.

And indifferent and insensitive.

All too often the judicial process fails them, repeated adjournments dampen their faith and, as time passes and the initial shock of grief lessens, the daily routine of life reasserts itself and it begins to seem less and less important to pursue the case.

And finally, the biggest culprit in this all - “society” - voyeuristic at times when the drama is unfolding in front of their eyes, in their neighborhood, within their own family and indifferent when it comes to reacting and doing something, even saying something. Suddenly then, it is an internal family issue and maintaining friendly and neighbourly relations is paramount, even with murderers…

Why do you bother? It is a matter between the husband and the wife. Perhaps she did something to offend him. [So he set her on fire]

***
All the stories that Butalia has documented here are from decades ago, the 1970s and 80s when the self-bursting kerosene stove was suddenly discovered, and some even older. Sadly, these stories could all be from now and here, from the new century, from this ’shining’ country, this booming economy…

Sadly, nothing has changed…

***
Update : Is the traditional match-making really the best way? Read Uma’s latest post where she lso links to an earlier piece on a rubbishy practice like dowry needs to go.

• Indiawatch , On my bookshelf , - Gender issues
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charukesi January 4th, 2006

Came acorss this recent report from the Pew internet and American Life project… For what claims to be a ‘wide-ranging study’, the report seems to me full of stereotypes-exist-therefore-will-reinforce statements and worse, “findings” which really say nothing new…

A wide-ranging look at the way American women and men use the internet shows that men continue to pursue many internet activities more intensively than women, and that men are still first out of the blocks in trying the latest technologies.

Among other things, we are told that women like to chat, use email, forward jokes and are are more likely to feel satisfied with the role email plays in their lives, especially when it comes to nurturing their relationships. And even in email, women tend to use it more for personal communication while men communicate with various kinds of organizations. And indicentally, men also use the internet more to search for information, are more tech-savvy and more interested in technology generally…

Woman the gossipy nurturer and man the intelligent provider - can never go wrong…

But where are the insights? Dimensions that have changed (since the last report, in the last few years, whatever), trends that are being seen, and things that can be expected in the future…?

Somehow, this report reminded me of another study I had read about on Lorenz’s Antropologi a while ago… From housewife to mousewive - Anthropological study on women and Internet (although Lorenz does wonder about exactly how anthropological the study was)

A recent anthropological study (combined with nationwide polling) by Demos shows the traditional housewife has been transformed into a ‘mousewife’ as women drive forward the increasing use of computers in the home.

• Technology , - Gender issues
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charukesi October 17th, 2005

Just read Harini’s post on the 60 million missing children - how to name it? Readying myself for the enlightening and amusing comments containing the “ist” words - activist and feminist - I urge you to head there right now and read it. (And no, don’t even bother mentioning Hepatitis to me).

And just today, I came across this intriguing statistic on the difference in sex ratio between urban and rural India. (It is part of a larger research on “Household Consumer Expenditure
and Employment-Unemployment Situation in India” conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation - 2003 data).

Here it is.

Sex ratio (no. of females per 1000 males)
Rural 957 Urban 932

Sex ratio among adults
Rural 982 Urban 930

Sex ratio among children
Rural 915 Urban 939

Given the deplorable situation, overall rural India has a better sex ratio.
The sex ratio among adults (defined as persons aged 14 and more) is much better in rural India - which to me, is startling data
Among children, rural India seems worse off, but the gap is still not as large as in the case of adults.

Does this mean that female infanticide in rural areas is a newer phenomenon as compared to urban? There must be some explanation for this which eludes me now… I need to think about this a lot more before I begin to understand what is happening… What are your thoughts?

***
(There seems to be some problem adding comments to this post. Please email / leave your comment on the next post which is blank - that was a test to see if there is a problem with the blog or just this post).

• Indiawatch , - Gender issues
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charukesi September 11th, 2005

Yet another China v/s India story. And not so pleasant or exciting this time.

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 Even the world’s poorest countries, including those in sub Saharan Africa, have a positive sex ratio of 103 women per 100 men. Compare this with our ratio of 933 women per 1000 men..

Indian Organizations Struggle to Remedy Frightening Sex Ratio. Clearly as struggles go, not an easy one…

***
Again from my archives, Life and Times of Bharat Mata

For a nation with one of the lowest sex ratios in the world, we have managed to deify woman quite successfully.

Traditionally, the ‘feminine’ has been the nurturer, fertile and life-giving. She is the earth form, denoting life and energy. All gods in the Indian pantheon have a female countepart goddess (except the confirmed bachelors, of course) and no Indian ceremony is complete without the presence of the woman of the household. In fact, Indian culture has given women the highest status of ardhangini - the other half - without whom no man is complete.

Yet, the woman in India remains an object - to be deified or defiled depending entirely on the curent mood of the country. With Navratri around the corner, I want to think about the idea of the woman as object - a concept by no means unique to India, but worth thinking about in any case. For few other countries have so easily and fully linked womanhood with the key twin ideas that drive popular thought and discourse - religion and nationalism.

Life and Times of Bharat Mata discusses the icon of Bharat Mata and traces its path and changes through recent Indian history. Quoting, there has always been a celebration of the nation’s female body - and of her citizens’ male gaze - beneath the seeming veneration is the need for possession and dominance

M.F.Husain for ToI’s special issue for the fiftieth year of Indian independence (ridden with symbols of prosperity, veneration, religion - the feminine form is free-flowing yet trapped within the physical boundaries of what represents ‘India’ on the map)

Martha C. Nussbaum discusses here the idea of woman as the nation, in an attempt to understand and explain (if that is ever possible) the sexual tortures inflicted on women (who suffered most in the carnage) during the Gujarat pogrom, and even before, during the partition. This widespread image of the female body as the nation helps to explain why, during the waves of communal violence at the time of independence, possession of women was such an important issue to the contending sides…

Related reads : Annie on the missing women

From my archives : laddu means boy, burfi means girl

Update : And this fantastic moving image from Akshay of Trivial Matters.

Linking to this post, he says, If only India valued “her” daughter. The irony lies in the personification.. Go have a look.

• Indiawatch , - Gender issues
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charukesi September 5th, 2005

In the series on India Empowered in the Indian Express, Fali S Nariman writes on an ideal situation where women are empowered and equal - in the eyes of the law and society… He quotes this poem written by Kartikeya Sarabhai after after seeing the Mahabharata at Avignon.

‘‘All rights belong to husbands so says society,
But to be shared by five, - a commodity in the market place?…
All this I accepted, became the wife of five - to each gave a son
I was the only wife of none.’’

Also reminded of a post Anand had written recently - Sita continues to be abandoned. And Anand Bakshi’s lyrics in Amar Prem - tu kaun hai tera naam hai kya, Sita bhi yahan badnaam hui.
. To the Indian woman - who are you, what is your identity? Sita herself had to go through her ordeal by fire - to prove… what? her chastity? And we dream of equality…

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charukesi August 11th, 2005

Time has an interesting piece on Conspiracy Theory and Birth Control . This says that a recent research (500 African-Americans between the ages of 15 and 44) found that one third believe medical researchers use blacks as guinea pigs for unproven forms of contraception. About 25% believe that “poor and minority women are sometimes forced to be sterilized by the government,” and 22% believe that government policies are designed “to control the number of black people.”.

This made me think about likely conspiracy theories in the Indian scenario. After fifty five years of policy and population control measures, the billion mark that we kept seeing for years and years has come and gone on. And we are still struggling with an ineffective population control program.

The cultural and economic factors are the more obvious and well understood. Couples having children and more children in the hope for a son. And then just one more son. Not to forget also the notion that a child is a gift from god. Urban, rural. Rich, poor. No difference here. And then, definitely among the poorer sections - one more child, one more earning hand - what about one more mouth to feed?

Beyond this, the tragic gender issues. A large majority of women, ignorant and powerless.

I remember these quotes from a long ago study on social marketing of condoms in UP.

My father in law is the mukhiya of this village. How can I go and ask for the pills from the centre - if he comes to know, he will beat me (the father-in-law)
My mother in law found out that my husband was using a condom. And she threatened to commit suicide. Ater that, we stopped.

Not just husband, but the mother-in-law and father-in-law in control of the woman’s reproductive life. Everyone but the woman herself. (Did Shashi Tharoor’s Priscilla in Riot die because she helped a muslim woman abort her baby?)

The communication focus - another thing I have believed - that the focus of communication realting to population control programs has been long term and macro focus - concepts like crossing the billion mark and growth in GPD are as irrelevant to me as an individual as they are to the illiterate woman in the village - they hardly touch my now-and-here.

I came across this paper - Family Welfare Programme and Population Stabilization Strategies in India which argues for a welfare focus in population control programs. Some thoughts from that…

It is being argued that macro development, which had been emphasized in the early debate on population and development, is not directly relevant unless it is beneficial for improving the individual’s quality of life. Vijayanunni (1994:193) concludes that what is important is not overall development through large-scale projects and programmes, the benefits of which reach the common man/woman only indirectly and after a long gestation period, but welfare-loaded policies and programmes which impart direct and immediate benefits to the people - these include role of literacy, status of women, child health programs.

And finally the political angle - here is where we come close to the conspiracy theory that I started out with. Somewhere very early on in the policy years, the population control program acquired a strong and agressive target focus. Result - sterilization became the “preferred method”. And I am not even talking about Sanjay Gandhi’s ideas about sterilization here.

Was this the beginning if the undoing of any good that communication programs with a softer, welfare-oriented programs could do - given time?

Unfortunately, over the years, the target has become an end in itself and not the means to bring about a decline in the birth rate (Bose, 1989:186). In order to fulfil targets, it was inevitable that a great deal of drafting and mobilization of personnel from other “nation-building” activities would be required for the sake of the family planning programme. However, these personnel were not equipped to deal with such sensitive areas as those related to individual family life. So the kind of persuasion and pressure applied by these people was very crude, lacking the human touch. Sterilization of unmarried men. Repeat procedures. Operations performed under threat and coercion, and bribes.

I know what a problem it is for many social researchers going into villages to speak with the women. This is what an expert had told me when I interviewed her for my disseratation.

I had to open my bag and show that I was not carrying any instrument – it was literally like hands up, see no weapons!
They were turning hostile… if I only want to speak to the women, why do I want to take them alone to a separate room?

• - Gender issues , - Public health
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charukesi July 8th, 2005

In the last few days, I have come across three different posts / discussions which have left me feeling shaken and stirred. These writings in isolation are disturbing enough but reading them one after the other makes me think very uncomfortable thoughts. They are all on the subject of sexual harrasment - in some form or the other.

The first is Hemangini’s widely discussed post Train to Chennai.. Here she describes an incident she experienced (suffered?) on a train journey where she was molested by a stranger….

The second is a message posted by a Mumbai ryzer on the networking forum - How to get stalked on ryze! (I don’t know if you can read this article if you are not signed in on ryze - so I will try to descirbe this in some detail). This lady on ryze has posted a message about how she was stalked and harrassed by a prominent member of the networking group. Following voices raised in suppport and some outraged voices in protest, she has gone ahead and named the person later.

The third one which I just read is by Chinmayee on Jasmeen’s Blank Noise Project. Here Chinmayee speaks up on behalf of Jasmeen who is working in the area of street harrassment - she responds to some comments on Jasmeen’s blog which contain suggestions to do something more concrete than demonstrating - these comments also go on to suggest that Jasmeen would be wise to stop hoping for miracles (if you are wondering what is the miracle here, it is expecting that men will stop mentally undressing women and groping at her body in public spaces).

Men will be men and libido conquers all?

Why should Jasmeen or Chinmayee even have to be in this position where they have to respond to comments which suggest that what Jasmeen is doing is inadequate and even meaningless…

These three posts have more than their theme in common…

One

Each of them (this is much lesser in the ryze message but very strong in the other two blog posts) has the woman writer voicing her thoughts about how she is made to feel responsible for what has happened with her…

Hemangini says - I called my mum after I left the cop station the first time. I said, “Do you think I over-reacted?” And this other voice in my head laughed at me, and our society. A strange man, touches you twice in the middle of the night, and your greatest worry when you screamed and complained, is, “Did I over react”?!

And Chinmayee in Blank Noise Project points out - We’ve all had terrible experiences. How many of us have had our breasts grabbed? How many of us have had men in crowded buses jerking off against our backs? Do we talk about it? No. Are we made to feel like it’s not our fault? No.

As I commented on this blog, that something happens all the time does not make it “normal” or even more acceptable. Certainly not sexual harrassment, of even the “mildest form”

In case of the ryze message, there is an active (I suspect soon to border on the violent) debate on about whether this woman’s post amounts to slander - because the man in question is a “decent” man…

Two

And for me the more disturbing aspect is that in each of these cases, scores of women have responded to the original post describing their own experience - “I have been through this too” - and saluting the woman for having the courage to talk about it - first.

It is to me, like the floodgates have suddenly opened and each woman has a groping, stalking, molesting story to narrate…

In case of the ryze incident, when I read the post, my first response was, I know who this man is and I am glad she is getting this out in the open…. And to my surprise and great shock, it was not the person I thought it was - so what does that make it, more than one man on such a popular business networking site who does such things on a regular basis…?

Going through such incidents is one thing but having to talk about it - to anyone, your closest friend, or even your mother - is quite another, equally harrowing thing. How long will we keep this within the realm of shame (lajja) for the woman - the victim - leaving the perpetrator scot-free and full of cheap thrills…?

This is how child molestors get away with it again and again - after molesting litle girls - and even boys - within their own family…

Hush, don’t say such lies…

Good girls don’t talk about such things

You must have imagined it…

Related link : Also pelase read Dina Mehta’s post SkypeMe Eve - Makes me wonder whether the SkypeMe button attached to a ‘female’ profile somehow suggests a new form of phone sex.

• Society & Development , - Gender issues
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charukesi June 24th, 2005

Harini writes about the decision of Mumbai University to ban women from wearing mini skirts, tight tops and shorts, saying this will help prevent rape.

Rightly, Harini has taken offence to this cause-effect pronouncement - between rape and attire…

And then halfway across the world, there is this - Sartorial shock as English school bans skirts - English, as in, of England.

Sure, the head teacher Marilyn Warden does not mention the word rape here - she goes a step beyond (or is it backwqrd?) and claims that this move is to help the girls maintain their modesty.

I am sure Queen Victoria approves heartily, Ms. Warden.

Here is where I disagree with Harini - worded any other way, such a rule still sucks. Wording it differently may make the link more subtle or indirect but the link remains… Wear revealing clothes and be prepared to get punished for it…? And this is in junior high school - for girls aged between nine and thirteen…

(Just as a thought, would you condone a burgler who has broken into your house because you left a window open just to enjoy the cool breeze - come on, it is your fault, you should have kept the window shut)

The best part is to come yet - “This move,” she argued, “is meant to enhance all of our pupils’ overall educational experience.”

How exactly? Now that the girls are all fully covered, hundreds of hormonally challenged adolescent boys will turn their minds away from bare female legs and suddenly discover the joys of education (I mean the stuf you can learn from school books)?

***
Related to this is a question that I have asked earlier, and been thinking about for a long time now - there has always been a rather simplistic explanation for sexual violence in a country like India - “repression”… but how does one explain such - deviant sexual - behaviour in otherwise ‘open’ countries - where sexual mores are much more ‘progressive’ (for lack of a better word for now) - where there is unlimited opportunity for interaction between the sexes from an early age - where there is no concept of ‘indecent western clothes’ - or equating jeans or a skirt with modernity / vulgarity - as in India?

• Children and youth , - Gender issues
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charukesi June 14th, 2005

This is a blog I have been meaning to write about for a while. Jasmeen Patheja is working on a project on street harassment - something that all women face, irrespective of age and the kind of clothes we wear in public - although Shiv Sena would have you believe otherwise… Blank Noise Project is about the silent screams of “normal” women who live with the did-I-invite-it guilt and shame on top of the actual harassment they go through…

This is what her blog says - Street harassment is an offence. It has been granted normalcy due to its daily recurrence. Like other things we have learnt to ignore and /or accept and /or defend ourselves against…

A while ago, I had blogged about the mind map that a group of 60 women between the ages of 17-23 had created on ‘public space’- violation is the one theme that all participants have come up with - discomfort, stare, anxiety, aggression, vulnerability, fear, groping, feeling sick…. Read more about the mind map here.

She has a public event in Bangalore tomorrow - details here…

If you live in Bangalore, and are interested, do drop in and say hi from me too….
If you don’t and are still interested, visit her blog or get in touch with her.

• Society & Development , - Gender issues
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