I wish I were a man. Really. Their problems seem so much more…significant, no?
At least, that’s how I feel after reading a Washington Post article entitled, New Wives Bring New Hope to Sri Lankan Widowers.
Thanggod! Some good news about Sri Lanka, I thought, as I clicked the link and started reading:
Plunged into despair after the tsunami killed his wife and two of his four children, Ruknadhan Nahamani passed the first months after the disaster in an alcoholic fog, drowning his sorrows in the potent local liquor known as arrack . But grief was only part of the problem, he said.
“There was nobody to wash my clothes and take care of my kids when I went out to work,” said the wiry 32-year-old fisherman, whose teeth are stained red from chewing betel nut, a mild stimulant. “It was really difficult.”
But Nahamani is a single parent no more. In June, he exchanged wedding vows and jasmine garlands at a Hindu temple with a woman from a nearby village. “We are very happy,” he said outside his tent at a refugee camp as his new wife, Leelawathi, heated cooking oil for the evening meal.[link]
The man survived a tsunami and lost almost his entire family and lives in a refugee camp. Of course he deserves all the happiness he can find.
But the grinchy pebble I call a heart couldn’t muster more joy when I remembered all the war widows in Sri Lanka. Some 40,000 at last count.
And the fact that women drowned in massively disproportionate numbers (three times more) during the tsunami because they’re not taught to swim.
And the fact that widows are still treated like amoral harlots in most of South Asia.
Where’s the bloody community support for them?According to Sri Lankan human rights activist and lawyer Manouri Muttetuwegama:
“Widows were marginalised by their communities, orphaned girls were deprived of basic education, and thousands of female-headed families struggling to survive are still waiting to be counted in official statistics so that they can receive aid”, she says.[link]
But let’s return to the happy fisherman:
In [his] village, 31 of the 37 men whose wives died in the tsunami have remarried, according to local officials and aid workers.
In the first months after the tsunami, virtually all of the 37 widowers [of one village] dealt with their grief — along with more pragmatic concerns, such as who was going to cook for them and raise their children — by drinking themselves senseless.
Widowers from the village appear to have had little difficulty lining up new wives, often with the aid of relatives or friends.
Why do I feel sour reading this? Why is it ok for men to have a pity parties while women are expected to hide and fend for their shameful selves? Can you even imagine how this village would react if a woman hit the arrack while her kids yowl with hunger around her?
Maybe I’m still a little steamed from watching 1-800-INDIA on PBS tonight. Young, single women earning enough to support themselves and their families…I was all set to have a happy hour in front of the telly. The show did address some ways in which traditional gender roles are loosening, but single girls, living with (female) roommates? Aunties, Uncles, and SuitableBoys, all say – “Sluts!”
Dismayingly, it’s a hypocritical refrain I hear even in NY, among the American-born…Men want to meet a sexy thing at a club, but not the woman they want to marry. What gives?
I ain’t trying to pour haterade on all the lovely SepiaBoys who visit this site. But while we tut-tut over the latest rural Panchayat decree sentencing a woman to be gang-banged by half the village, don’t we feel rather superciliously removed from it all?
I dunno. If you want to discuss this further, please come find me. I’ll be at the bar with a hipflask full of arrack.
Dismayingly, itÂ’s a hypocritical refrain I hear even in NY, among the American-bornÂ…Men want to meet a sexy thing at a club, but not the woman they want to marry. What gives?
two things that jump out at me
1) this tendency is cross-cultural. 2) but, it is more pronounced in “traditional” cultures.
i have a cousin who worked in saudi arabia who my parents helped bring over to the US. when i was over at his apt. he had to tell me about all the chix he brought home from the nightclub, and how his roommate (our second cousin) would listen outside his door as he did the deed (loudly). he’s married to some brown chik now (i hope he got tested before he got married). i certainly found the whole episode creepy, not that there isn’t some of this to go around in “american” culture…but this sort of behavior i generally only encountered among some of my more fundamentalist christian friends (jesus washes away all your sins, so wait to be saved until you’ve sinned a bit).
anyway, if american brown dudes are actually act like this (i don’t know that many, so my sample would be skewed) then the ladies should go elsewhere. there are tens of millions of single dudes out there, and until the age of 28 more guys and than gals (and because women tend to marry older men, there are often more single men than women in their 20s and early 30s). ladies could always go lysistrata on our asses.
It is indeed a problem for all cultures. And the Lysistrata solution is heavily undermined by a lot of social and demographic factors. The ladies should go elsewhere, but too often it boils down to making a painful choice between being lonely and having self-respect (in our fairly privilaged context) or, more direly, in the case of the women who are being discussed in the bulk of Cictrix’s post, a choice between being indigent and outcaste and having freedom and self-determination. Women will have to fight for themselves for a long time, but true change doesn’t happen until men see things differently as well.
In memory of true knights, I’d like to take a moment to link to a biography of one of the greatest, and most undersung, Bengalis of the modern era: Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, an early campaigner against polygamy, child marriage, and for widow remarriage, especially child widow remarriage.
Anyway, for nowadays, I found this citation of the the Guild of Service, but can’t find a directly relevant webpage. Maybe the Sepa Swarm can do a better job?
Cicatrix, while doing some googling inspired by your post, I found this link:
http://www.peaceinsrilanka.org/
You might find it useful, or maybe you already know it and can tell us what you think?
the ladies should go elsewhere
I totally agree, but I was interviewing some early-20s brown kids at a regular bhangra/r’n’b club night in Toronto a couple of years ago, and the girls all complained loudly about the behavior of the guys. Lots of ass-grabbing, gross comments, nights all ending in drunken brawls between the guys, etc. So I was like, um, why don’t you go to other clubs? Because there are no brown guys there. Riiiiiight. If the girls decide they can ONLY hang out with brown guys, and they hate the way they behave, then they’re shooting themselves in the foot. They felt that white men wouldn’t pay them any attention if they went elsewhere. Which is funny, because when I told this to a white friend of mine who was in med school in Texas at the time, she was like, what the hell are they talking about? White men won’t look at ME in clubs, they all chase after my beautiful “exotic” Indian classmates!
Cicatrix, you’re right on. What I don’t understand though, if I was a single woman over there, why the heck would I (or my family) want to get married to someone who already had kids? Like, why the rush to marry these drunks? I’m surprised the men don’t just pawn the kiddies off on their sisters or mothers or something.
When we talk about gender equality….I strongly believe it is a responsibility that needs to be shared equally by both men and women. Attitudes towards woman, as exhibited my men and women are bought about by a social conditioning that takes place right from childhood.
Unless you stop it there….it will always continue.
Do check out this post of mine….and perhaps you would get my point of view.
Its called “The Great Indian Confused Male”
http://thehissingsaint.journalspace.com/?entryid=341
The ladies should go elsewhere, but too often it boils down to making a painful choice between being lonely and having self-respect (in our fairly privilaged context) or, more direly, in the case of the women who are being discussed in the bulk of Cictrix’s post, a choice between being indigent and outcaste and having freedom and self-determination.
1) in the case of women in non-american cultures, there are no easy solutions that i can see. they have to live with the cards that god dealt them….
2) still, there is variance. as many of you know fiji is inhabited by natives and indian immigrants. now, there have been racial tensions over the past few generations, but i remember watching a documentary about fijian police once, male and female. an indian fijian police officer noted how cultural responses are a crucial variable in how coppers respond to crime. for example, in the case of rape the police knew that the response from the two ethnic communities would differ a great deal. the police officer (female indian) talked about how the indian community was likely to ostracize and shun a woman who was raped, while the fijian community was more accepting of the circumstance and likely to cooperate aggressively to narrow down who the perpretrator might be (obviously a lot of these involve people known to the victim and locals). the point is that fijians are not necessarily wealthier or more civilized than browns, but they react differently to a crime of violence relating to women.* within india, there is a wide range in sex ratio.
3) ergo, there is some elasticity in the lot of women even within cultures where the basic necessacities are not not generously distributed.
4) but back to the USA, i don’t think that ladies have a binary choice between
a) assholes b) alone
there are other choices out there. one might not get trait A AND trait B AND trait C AND trait D AND trait E…. and so on. but if one is willing to be flexible, then i think there are options out there. if brown men in the USA are perpetuating primitive habits brought over from the old country, or picking up the worst habits of indigenous cultures (ie; good-old-boy “a butt fuck before baptism is OK” attitude), than brown ladies should turn elsewhere, after all, one can live without milk chocolate, and vanilla and dark chocolate aren’t so bad.
Because there are no brown guys there. Riiiiiight. If the girls decide they can ONLY hang out with brown guys, and they hate the way they behave, then they’re shooting themselves in the foot.
well, i guess that’s contingent on values, and i don’t know what expectation is 🙂 i mean, if the ladies want to meet brown dudes who don’t ass-grab, they should go to the local perl mongers meeting.
anyway, here is a paper on interracial dating that implies that it is harder for non-white males as opposed to females getting any vanilla action. now, i lived in eastern oregon for a while, where the folk still say “colored” and the 1990 census prompted an article by the paper titled “the blacks of union county,” where they had a small feature on all 10 black people who lived in our county, but as a brown dude i didn’t have problems getting the ladies. iz a big country.
“So I was like, um, why don’t you go to other clubs? Because there are no brown guys there.”
I think it comes down to a couple of things. One I think brown males or a majority of them wont act up if they are at a non-brown fuction. It has to do with egos really. I dont think indian males feel like they can compete with a bunch of black guys and the women they attract, or a bunch of white guys and the white girls they attract. So they go the only place where they can flex on some poor unsuspecting bloke, and grab some indian girls. I think in my opinion the social castration that indian males feel outside the psuedo controlled environments of indian parties and clubs lead them to act a fool in them. Well castrations probobly a strong term, but still you get the idea.
Now I think there is a level of low self esteem for indian girls too. I think they feel they get the most attention from indian clubs like it was posted earlier. So the ego boost is much more at an indian club where the odds of being approached by a drunk indian guy is pretty high, as opposed to another club where you have to compete with girls that dont look exactly like you.
So I think all indians be it male of female want to create social bubbles where the chances of succeeding in it is much higher than if you were to actually go to a more neutral setting. Leading all sorts of issues and problems with males trying to control the only social scene they can dominate. And women trying to be known in the only scene they feel they can be known in.
And when it all goes sour for the guy, he can always press reset and bag a girl from india whose a doctor. And the girl is assed out.
Cicatrix,
It’s the whole good girl/bad girl pidgeonholing. As I keep saying, another symptom of the desi tendency to think in terms of black-and-white extremes.
They’re hypocrites. It’s as simple as that.
Razib,
Exactly. They can, and indeed, many do (some for the right reasons, some for more dubious/misguided reasons). I think that if desi guys really took it on board that their South Asian sisters DO have other options (and are willing to exercise these options), then perhaps it would encourage them to get their act together and not take the girls for granted — either as potential partners or as actual girlfriends/fiancees/wives.
We’re not living in the Indian subcontinent. And, regardless of whether we’re based in the UK, the US, or Canada, we’re certainly not living in some isolated, exclusively-South Asian island in the middle of nowhere. There are huge numbers of non-South Asian guys who will treat the women better, especially if the desi guys start imposing/expecting some of the more negative, conservative and hypocritical attitudes on the women concerned. Beyond probable parental pressures, she’s not necessarily under any moral obligation to restrict her choices to guys from the same background, and if she manages to overcome any psychological barriers previously preventing her from dating non-South Asian guys, her desi brothers had better be ready to be left high and dry.
This is a good point. I think the factors involved here are:
They may be a little intimidated by the idea of dating men from other backgrounds if they socialise predominantly only with South Asians.
Culturally-derived psychological barriers regarding the “taboo” of dating men from other backgrounds. Obviously less of a factor if the girl has managed to overcome this and/or she is in some peer group where they deliberately pursue (from their perspective) certain “rebellious” dating/sexual behaviours in order to be “unconventional”.
Apologies if I’m being a little UK-centric in my thoughts; since we all come from (broadly) the same original geographical/cultural background I’m assuming that some of the same factors will be involved, regardless of whether we’re talking about young South Asian women in the UK or the United States.
Hmmm – are none of the widowers marrying widows? If not, the single (never married) younger men will find themselves in a bind. Marry a widow or don’t marry at all …
Cicatrix
Am not sure what the program was about, but this reality existed over a decade ago too and did not affect many women’s ability to ignore/circumvent it all together.Of course I dont mean to minimise the issue, (it is defnitely an issue) but its importance has diminished greatly.(on the subcontinent, specially among educated upwardly mobile girls)
In a strange way, am more interested in how this attitude exists here(in a supposedly freer society).This currently is my greater concern.
Am not sure what is a bigger concern, freedom of women in traditional socities, or limitation of choices of women in modern societies?
It seems to me, specially in examining the “Sex and the city” or “He’s not really into you” model that things are the same, across colors, across cultures, and across generations.
Its probably time to examine what exactly works for women and what works for men and why, no matter what amount of freedom they are given, they seem to gravitate towards this good girl-bad girl dichotomy. I dont think its an issue of hyposcrisy. For men and women who have not figured out what they really want, it seems to present a genuine dilemma, in my opinion. After all, I think most of them are very clear in their acceptance of this model, so how can we call it hypocrisy? Its a utilitarian model, and it seems to work for some(actually mnay) I guess our idealism does not allow us to accept that a majority hold these views, thats all. As I have repeatedly found, for a woman, its not important to change the way the male world thinks, all she has to do is work on her own relationships and her own reality can be completely redefined. The essential question is :what do men and women want out of a relationship/marriage? Its obviously not the same things. Hence their process of selection of partners will also be different.
There is an interesting book I think addresses some of these philosophical dilemmas : It may even be an entertaining read:
Either/Or , A fragment of Life by Kierkegard.
These are merely some of my incomplete thoughts.
Sumita
“…but back to the USA, i don’t think that ladies have a binary choice between
a) assholes b) alone”
If this is meant to suggest that in India women essentially have a choice between “assholes” and “alone,” I must protest at the gross over-simplification. I find it a strange sort of orientalism to imagine that the choices confronting men and women in India are less complex than those facing their counterparts in other countries/societies. The complexities/difficulties faced by them might well be of a different kind, but the notion that the modern Western/capitalist model presents the best model of gender equity has a whiff of dogma– as opposed to reasoned analysis– underlying it.
My point is not to deny oppressive situations where women are concerned in India; what I do question is the lack of any critical examination of our own cultural practices when it comes to women.
Here’s an observation, a blatantly unscientific one at that, but which should be distinguished from an opinion. I’ve met and dated Indian girls who could be seen as “slutty”. Ignoring the culturally sanctioned disadvantages of brown women in the “sex wars”, I’m afraid I used to think this characteristic was as much an individual expression when compared to the “strong-willed” and “independent” brown woman I have also encountered (at least when I was an idealist). However, the trend which seemed inherent to these “sluts”, was that there was always that one undeserving brown guy lurking in their past whom they loved passionately with ruinous results. Obviously this is not an experience exclusive to “brown’ girls, first love being that common human experience which seems, in rapid succession, to open the entire universe up to us, only to then banish us from it entirely. But for some brown girls, this doesn’t seem to quite shatter their romantic ideals on a 12 step program to cynicism, but rather mutates it into manifesting as the excrescent bits of a failed belief to which there is no alternative. No alternative because brown men don’t give an alternative. We operate under a carte blanche that allows us to murder the brown woman’s self-esteem, and then dance on their metaphorical graves. Cicatrix’s rage is not only justified, but her indignation may be the unsatisfying truth which “brown men” are a long way away from even acknowledging.
i mean, if the ladies want to meet brown dudes who don’t ass-grab, they should go to the local perl mongers meeting.
Razib is right on. I find it amusing that girls feel that they have to choose between drunk jerks they meet while clubbing and bar-hopping or being alone for the rest of their lives with fifteen cats.
I don’t care what your ethnic background is – on the whole, you’ll have a better chance of meeting someone you can actually settle down with in college classes, religious gatherings or geeky meetups than at a bar or party. You don’t see people getting thrown out of Perl Mongers meetings due to fighting very often.
Yes, there are exceptions on both sides of the issue, but the bar/club mentality is one night stand, not shaadi.
And stay away from Star Trek conventions at all costs.
Do you say this from experience? There are many anecdotes which might not bear out this point of view. I think when girls turn the way you describe, it has much more to do with the assumptions they have found in their homes, rather than attributing it to men they meet. A home that will encourage a girl to choose and wil be supprotive in her failures in relationships( a completely human condition), will not find the situation as bleak.
Its easy to blame the men. I think women’ s choices/self esteem and freedom is greatly linked to their own parents’ points of view, not the men they meet.
Sumita
“We operate under a carte blanche that allows us to murder the brown womanÂ’s self-esteem, and then dance on their metaphorical graves. CicatrixÂ’s rage is not only justified, but her indignation may be the unsatisfying truth which “brown men” are a long way away from even acknowledging.”
I don’t disagree with the above, but I do wonder at the use of “we”; is this “we” a “brown man” problem only? Consider the ways in which self-esteem is affected right here in American public school systems (two non-brown law school classmates spoke of girls deliberately doing badly in mathematics and science because otherwise it was hard for them to get dates; by contrast there is no equivalent Indian stereotype associated with girls in school & the “hard sciences”– i.e. the issue in India is differential access to schools, but I quite frankly have never encountered nor heard of an Indian woman who was considered less datable or marriageable because of her education, certainly not in urban India).
Sumita, you’re completely right, I should have clarified the patriarchal scope of the “brown men” generalization
When this modern, western, feminist found her modern, western relationship with a modern, western, sensitive, caring man turn into the same 3000-year-old drama of psychological abuse in the Ramayana, I learned that when it comes to relationships, all bets are off. Outside of relationships, though, there’s been tremendous progress in women’s rights in the West. India has a lot further to go. We can’t make men and women respect each other in love, but outside of love, there are laws. I never appreciated how far the West has come until I lived in Trivandrum, where my favorite female friend could never have dinner with me because she had to be back at her parents’ by 7:30 every evening, or be deemed a “slut.”
“I never appreciated how far the West has come until I lived in Trivandrum, where my favorite female friend could never have dinner with me because she had to be back at her parents’ by 7:30 every evening, or be deemed a “slut.””
Except this is another “relationship” issue, not a “law” issue. If your friend is representative of the lot of Indian women, who does my cousin– serial dater, divorced mother, all while living and working in Bangalore– represent? What is it about a discussion of “third-world women” that one is unable to resist generalizations?
Yes Nina, you are right.
A woman really has a small canvas to work on, her own life. and in that, if there is a negative experience, (which is also highly probable) eventually its her own ability to deal with it individually that holds her in good stead.No amount of social examination will not help her, if she cannot help her own reality.
While on the topic of “curfew” honestly I do feel that girls who get pregnant at 17 and leave babies in bathrooms to die, or have children that welfare must support, as two 18 yr old hormonally driven kids produce (the numbers in western socieities are stupendous) sometimes,(not always) there may have been value in some restraint externally imposed. Not all have inner controls or understanding of long term consequences. In the West, the govenment protects people from the long term moral consequences of such things by provding economic support in myriad forms. Traditional socities recognise this responsibility towards childrem and hence (maybe mistakenly) impose controls.There are hidden economic factors here, not merely social.
Am a big proponent of freedom, but it comes with responsibilities, which unfortunately seem to have been left somewhere at the back. I do feel very strongly, as women physcially endure childbirth and economic ramifications of it, they probably need to consider the implications of their “free choices,” the bill for which is still paid by the men(in law). How come we dont want equality in that? Now for me, that is also hypocrisy, when indulged in by strong free, educated women.
Am not trying to make a case for either side. All I am saying is no one model is better than the other. There are good components in both(as well as weak ones)
Sumita
Umair, it’s actually more of a cultural response/social norms issue. Nina P is exactly on point with the example of her friend who could’t stay for dinner. You cousin, however, could represent a fascinating cultural paradox if she’s regarded with respect by her social peers. Is she?
Sumita, I find this rather oddly phrased. Can you elaborate on this? I agree about external controls being necessary, but the point here is that they should be equitable. Doesn’t your arguement eventually lead backto the fallacy that women are to blame if they incite male lust?
errant attack, I didn’t write this to bash those fishermen. We are in no position to judge their drinking habits. I used this to merely highlight a gender double-standard.
Nina P is exactly on point with the example of her friend who could’t stay for dinner. You cousin, however, could represent a fascinating cultural paradox if she’s regarded with respect by her social peers. Is she?
Cicatrix
Yes there are numerous women who fall into this category and they all lead normal lives
I know many like this too.These are not anomalies. in college going girls, this is becoming a woder norm than most beleive. This was true even 10-15 yrs back, just not as openly discussed
Sumita
Cicatrix: Re: my cousin: I would say some in the family regard her with respect and some don’t. Typically I think younger women look up to her as she’s said to be outspoken and fearless; among the guys it’s mixed: those who think she’s “way out” are also the ones who’re (to my eyes at least) clearly intimidated. It’s fair to say that the family’s older generation– i.e. people 55-60+ are generally scandalized, but NO ONE (not even her parents) would have the guts to say so to her face. Obviously take this with a large pinch of salt because I’m no mind-reader, but these are my impressions. I’m not going to lie and say she has it easy (ahe’s tough; and in any case it’s far better to be her in Bangalore or Bombay than in Delhi; and far better in Delhi than in Allahabad), but then I think since the liberalization of attitudes toward divorce and the profusion of affluent men who divorce their wives in middle age and marry younger women, I don’t think divorced women have it particularly easy in the USA either.
My wider point: my family is pretty traditional, but I must say I’ve never heard the attitude among the contemporary generation that women who stay out past 7:30 by themselves are “sluts” or “loose”; I am well aware that many hold such attitudes, but don’t think this is the norm for growing numbers of urban women. In part it’s a reflection of the fact that women work outside the home in the bourgeoisie now (they obviously always did in the working/agricultural classes), and thus the moral code appears to have a different valence nowadays.
Umair – what makes Nina’s example interesting is that it’s not about going out with guys (in a group or otherwise), it’s about going to a married woman’s house, albeit an outsider.
Is it representative? I don’t know – I’m not familiar with that part of India. It’s not what I know from the big cities. But it is revealing if true for even some (presumably educated) women in that city, that they have to be home or their reputation suffers.
Nina P,
I hope you understand some people might not agree with this. They might even be offended by this. I wonder, if you would be so quick to characterize the Bible and Koran as being psychologically abusive?
I am not saying you do not have a right to your point of view because you are not Hindu (I am assuming?) but a little more nuance to the argument would be nice.
For the record I do not have a problem with someone subverting the text of the Ramayana, it has been done. It has been done by people from within the faith, and by Hindus who no longer considered themselves Hindus. And this is not just a 20th century thing either.
You keep this up Nina, I am going to learn me some animation just so I can make “Jesus” the Bollywood musical : ))
Watch out Nina P or tef will put a fatwa on you.
Nina P is exactly on point with the example of her friend who couldn’t stay for dinner.
No she isn’t. It’s simply not useful to make sweeping generalizations about women in a country as diverse as India. For every story of some ridiculous constraint, I can point to opposite experiences. Of course, all my stories will immediately be dismissed as mere “cultural paradoxes.”
At any rate, I’m a feminist (this in oh-so liberated New York where plenty of women I’ve met wouldn’t touch the term with a barge-pole) and I find this sort of casual writing off of diversity of gender experiences in non-Western worlds irritating. It does nothing for women either here or there to simply dismiss the hundreds of little experiences that paint a richer picture of both here and there.
Punjabi Boy,
Dude, if you were joking — cool. If not see below.
Yes, yes, we brown heathens unenlightened as we are must resort to Fatwas, for we lack the brains, the education and skillz to use words or be satirical in response. So fatwas it is, then.
Is there some special “mantra” for that ?
And yes I am joking. And so was Punjabi Boy 😉
Cicatrix
No it doesnt. Not in the least bit.
Its to do with economic relations in gender dynamics. Its really about the money.
Women become mothers, men dont. The issue always is, who is going to pay the bill for the child. In this one question, all gender wars converge, across cultures, genrations etc.Any women who can individually answer this question to her own satisfaction, will never complain about inequality, whether modern or tradtional.
Hence angst in this realm may be due to an inadequate understanding of this dynamic.
Poor lust: it is truly an innocent bystander.
Sumita
Not to speak for Nina, but I get the feeling she’d love that! 😉
Umair, your cousin sounds like the sort of woman I idolized when I was a kid in Sri Lanka. I had an aunt who went off to Wales to get a Phd, had a string of boyfriends (in the late 70s!) and didn’t marry until well into her late 30s. She used to let me read whatever I wanted and never said things were not “suitable” or “proper.” She had a huge influence on me.
But the thing is, like your cousin and my aunt, you need to be exceptionally strong and self-confident to even try stuff like this in the face of disapproving sniffs (in urban educated areas) or outright ostracism (in provincial areas).
And now, sure many brown girls in the US say to to hell with the ass-grabbing douchbags and go find nice boys (hi mr.cicatrix!) whether brown or non. But there are still as many brown girls who, lacking an independant steak (I dunno what, really. that’s a guess) contort themselves into prudes who dress like $2 whores trying desperately to please the conflicting wants of desi men.
.
Many girls use this as an excuse(blaming their parents) when they lack the will to do what they want or dont really want the “independent life” they say they do.
Its easy to presume innocence. Not true always.
Sumita
Phew – tef isnt going to put a fatwa on anyone.
I am going to commit suicide – desi men are the only scumbags on Earth these days. I just dont deserve to live.
And a $2 whore? That really is cheap. Like a two dollar trick she must be dressing really skanky.
Personally I like my girlfriends to dress as $20 whores – but then I am a slightly more sophisticated desi scumbag male.
It’s not just “brown” women who “dress like $2 whores”: welcome to the world of MTV2…
🙂
Your point re: your aunt and women like her is of course noted. I agree that you need to be kick ass to pull it off…
tef…that won’t work. Try making a musical along the lines of “Hock the Hannukah candles”.
Nina P, respeck 🙂 The blues are tres cool.
Fatwa, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
Some thoughts on Bureau-Cat’s views:
I’ve met people like this too. My own viewpoint:
Happens more — especially the scale of the “rebound reaction” — amongst Indian girls/women who are originally from quite sheltered backgrounds, ie. they’d been brought up to be “good Indian girls” in the traditional way.
They subsequently tend to have quite a negative attitude towards Indian guys…
…Although not necessarily towards white guys/black guys/Muslim guys
And in fact they may be excessively positively predisposed towards these men from a different background as a result of the heart-breaking negative experience they had with a supposedly “good guy” from the same background as themselves.
The promiscuous attitude/behaviour is a way for them to experience some kind of intimacy without necessarily having to put their hearts on the line again, especially as doing so would make them feel too emotionally vulnerable and remind them of the way they got their hearts broken when they had been so sincere about it.
It’s also possibly deliberate/subconcious revenge against either their parents and/or Indian society/culture in general for the “betrayal” they experienced when they were willing to be “good” Indian girls.
The subsequent emotional intimacy issues can result in an inability/unwillingness to maintain a “proper” committed monogomous relationship. “Fear of commitment”, to use the cliche.
I do believe the war is on : ))
For all ye bashers of the desi males, and desi attitudes toward sex. I assume you would like India to be more like America. I think two can play the part of the “easily outraged” or make vast generalizations.
Could you shed light on the following. It is a representation of sexual relationships among upper-middle class children of Rockdale County in GA. This is from a documentary that aired on PBS.
OMG! Are all american girls like this??
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/georgia/outbreak/
Jai
Yes, my observations are similar. They rebel as “the system” did not work for them.
Sumita
I have an interesting history with brown parties. Came to the US as a FOB about 5 years ago. I did attend a couple of those “Indian-American mixer” thingies, but got totally shut out coz of my accent and stuff.
But now that I’ve been in this country long enough to pass off as a 1.5 gen (thanks to a couple of close American friends), my view is different. I find it SO much easier to befriend non-Indian women at brown gatherings. First of all, in front of the brown gal, there is so little to distinguish myself from the next guy. Also, somehow, the Indian (2-gen) guys never approach the white/non-Indian women, and there are lots of gorgeous ones just left alone enjoying the music. I’m curious as to if this is because of a lack of confidence (which would surprise me coz many of these guys are doing so well in life) or some sort of “peer pressure”, or just plain ol’ “brown loyalty”.
As for me, since I don’t really “fit in” into the 2nd-gen culture, I don’t feel restricted by peer pressure and happily chat them up and get some digits etc… 😉
I wonder if any of you 2-gens have to say anything about this.
Then there’s Cicatrix, who sucker-punches ass-grabbing douchebags. She’s my idol. 😀
tef….the argument is about dating patterns and not teenage swinger parties. But I see your point, it is vastly overgeneralized to claim that desi males are worse than, say, American males when it comes to dating.
Like PB says, we all want $20 whores — or, in more universal terms,a long island tea and a coupla tequilas. It is just that most women I have met in Indian clubs are less empowered, while women in clubs here are more likely to let you buy drinks and talk to them while they decide if they want to date you/take it any further.
And the reason men don’t pick up women to date/marry in clubs, cica is as follows: men keep getting burnt by women acting prudish at clubs…these are the women that judge guys who simply walk up to them as sexual predators. So men learn to look for girlfriends in private parties etc. rather than in clubs. A club liasion is meant to be temporary and no-strings-attached.
ohhh nooo.. I didn’t mean to bash! I thought I made that clear up in the post…we lurve you SepiaBoys 🙂
(ok. The $2 whore quip was a low blow. I’m jsut tired of seeing camel-toe from too-tight pants.)
I certainly do, but my viewpoint is obviously going to be based on my experiences here in the UK — where there may or may not be different dynamics. I can keep out of it if you guys want to keep this chat US-specific; either way, I thought I should check with you all first before diving in.
thanks
technophobicgeek: I wouldn’t even restrict it to dating; most of my FOB friends have far more non-desi friends than my American friends who are desi too; the latter primarily have as friends other desi Americans…
Ah what the hell, in the spirit of the transatlantic “special relationship” I’ll just join in anyway 😉
Yes
Yes
Sometimes, not always.
DesiDudeinAustin.
First of all dude, you must get a shorter moniker. : ) The documentary is not necessarily about swinger parties. Read what Prof. Blum says at the end, that it is quite common.
But all I am trying to do is to not let certain things go uncontested.
In the end, yes, there are assholes and idiots in every sphere. Some are plain assholes and some carry the assholishness that is specific to a certain culture. We can choose not to deal with them. We can choose to find like-minded people and get on with it.
Umair,
I for one do not have any 2G desi friends. Not even 1G ones. I am not so sure, how typical that is. But I do find that oddly enough 2Gs exhibit a certain desi insularity and cliquishness which is why I suspect that they do not mix with FOBs. And god why must they all go out in groups of twenty : ))
Re: “…most women I have met in Indian clubs are less empowered, while women in clubs here are more likely to let you buy drinks and talk to them while they decide if they want to date you/take it any further.”
I have a different issue with Indian clubs, perhaps related to the one you raise: that in Indian clubs there are various “closed circuits” operating; i.e. if you aren’t already part of some “group” at the club, it’s much harder to “break in” than it would be in American clubs…
Personally, I cant get enough of that.
the quote:
girls decide they can ONLY hang out with brown guys, and they hate the way they behave, then they’re shooting themselves in the foot. They felt that white men wouldn’t pay them any attention if they went elsewhere.
Question: Why does it have to be white guys? Couldn’t it possibly be anything else besides white? What gives?
Correct, and that’s because of the cliquey/feudal nature of Indian society/culture, which the 2nd-Geners deliberately or subconsciously perpetuate as they’ve inherited that from the older generation (and because “everyone else” does it).