No, I’m just kidding. There is not a new Law & Order show in the works. Unbeknownst to me, the U.K. actually has an entire unit of people, the Forced Marriage Unit, which reviews cases of human rights violations as pertaining to forced marriages:
The Forced Marriage Unit sees around 250 cases a year. “There used to be confusion between forced and arranged marriages,” explains a member of unit staff. “They were seen as being part of a certain culture. But that’s changing now. Forced marriage is not a religious or cultural issue – it is a global human rights abuse”. Forced marriage means just that – where a victim (one was 13 years old) is told they have to get married and they don’t want to.Cases can be difficult, as the young person doesn’t usually want to see their parents get into trouble. “As well as providing guidance, if we know in advance that someone is about to be forced into marriage, we can work with partners organisations to find an appropriate way to support the victim. If the victim goes overseas, our consular staff will work with the local police to do what they properly can to help the victim. In extreme cases this can mean helping to bring them back to the UK if this is what the victim wants.”
<
p>The BBC is reporting that the FMU is unveiling a new campaign, complete with awareness posters like the one seen to the right:
The campaign by the government’s Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) is backed by actor and writer Meera Syal and former EastEnders star Ameet Chana.
More than 250 cases are reported to the FMU each year, most of which involve links to south Asian countries.
A decision by the government is also expected soon on whether to outlaw forced marriages.
The new drive will include poster and television campaigns and radio and press adverts…It will highlight the difference between an arranged marriage and a forced marriage, which is one conducted without the full consent of both parties and under duress. [Link]
We’d be forever grateful to our U.K. readers if they give us the heads up on any television or radio ads they’ve seen that get posted to the internet. I wasn’t able to find other versions of the posters but I am sure they will pop up soon. Not to make light of this very serious and worthwhile effort but the funny thing is that the poster to the right is vague enough that it may send casual passerbys (who are also committment-phobes) into an anxiety attack about an impending non-forced marriage. I’m just saying.
sifox –
I totally agree. If not divorce, at least annulment. I personally know of cases where the families rushed into marrying off their son/daughter and the results were disasterous. When the green light is given by both parties, there is often no time or option to back out. The groom/bride comes over to India and, two weeks later, they are going through a ceremony.
Anyways, in these types of cases, I think annulments might carry less of a stigma than divorce.
Even better, have an engagement ceremony and then after 6 months (or on next trip to india of the US resident, for example) let the actual wedding take place. I personally know of many cases where couples broke off after engagement and there was no pressure on them as this totally accepted by family as stigma-free. this particular incarnation of the aranged marriage is very flexible.
Dudette, when you talk about communities like in Bradford, this is exactly what it is like. Communities are very tight knit, elders do not care to speak english, temples, gurudwaras and mosques have incredible social pull, etc etc. Many women I encountered were not “allowed” to work or study…not what you call free or empowered.
That’s like putting in one internet wired gujrati keyboarded computer in a chinese school of 10,000 and saying that the school has internet access. The statement is true but….
I agree that women in south asia have LESS access but that’s a relative statement and has no real bearing on this situation. Women in the UK may feel as though the services provided are not for them not friendly etc, and therefore don’t use them. I think it’s rather pompous and frankly imperialistic to say that services are available but are not used. If they are not culturally appropriate then they are useless.
I’ll give you another example. If the only doctor in a conservative town is a man, women might not seek the help they need. Does this mean we should say, well they have better access to medical attention than someone in the middle of Somalia, therefore we shouldn’t do anything about it. NO you find a way to alert her to services provided by female doctors, or find a way to get a female provider out there.
M. Nam, does it ease you mind that the Southhall Black Sisters have been campaining for this for a long time? . Activists in the community have been asking for government for assistance for a long time. They’re finally getting the law on their side, and more money to be able to make a real difference.
From their website:
.
In regards to the last sentence, these new laws seem to have addresses SBS concerns.
Besides which, most women’s shelters, DV programs etc are government funded in the US/UK/many other countries I know of, so where would these women be if the government hadn’t stepped in?
M Nam #22
Everytime the government intervenes on behalf of society to correct a social injustice does not automatically equate to Facism. When society is sitting on its collective kundis doing nothing, the government has to step in from time to time. Point in case, the US government outlawing racial discrimination and segregation. Did that lead to facism in the US? I think not. On the contrary, colored people like you and me are leading decent lives in the US, without having to collect food from the rear entrance of a diner.
surely people are not advocating making divorce as a remedy!!??
?
this is a move forward how?
Southy has a point, maybe have there be a waiting period, like owning guns. in many cities, i.e. nyc, u have to go in person to get a pre-license thing a week before u can go to get an actual one. perhaps a 30-day cooling off period from Intent to Marry and before the legal marriage can take place. heck, if u do 6 months, many people not in arranged or forced marriage situation might bolt. and have it be where only the principles are present. so if need-be, the bride/groom can bolt via side door under protection.
i recall reading somewhere where it was either the british or american system in some state requires the bride/groom to do exactly this, not bolt, but attest that they are doing so under no pressure or duress.
maybe i just imagined it.
That should read: I think it’s rather pompous of someone who is empowered to say that services are available but are not used.
sorry
Dudette,
I agree that there are far worse situations people face in life, but it’s not appropriate or right to dimish the suffering and trauma a person may be going through within the context of their own lives. It’s not right to basically say “We’ll ignore or dismiss the problems faced by people in Situation A because people in Situation B have it far worse.”
These individuals may not be suffering in terms of physical violence but the psychological impact of such events can be pretty horrendous, especially as they are being manipulated by their family members who know exactly which buttons to push. I know people in real life who have been coerced into marriage, and I know people whose existing relationships with Mr/Miss Right have been deliberately sabotaged for completely unwarranted, selfish, and unjustifiable reasons. In both situations, the people are often condemned to a living hell, a waking nightmare. Being pushed into a dysfunctional marriage is something no-one should have to go through, especially if it’s something they are expected to “endure” in the decades ahead, for the rest of their lives. Inflicting this on one’s children as some kind of exercise in power is undeniably cruel and certainly a sadistic way to behave for parents who are well aware of the pain it causes their children, regardless of how one may try to justify/rationalise/excuse it to oneself, to one’s children, and to everyone else.
These things are very much a matter of culture and not religion, even if the latter is often manipulated or ignored by the family members concerned in order to justify their behaviour. Nevertheless, I do know that Sikhism explicitly condemns the strong imposing their will on weaker parties (unless it is to intervene in the defence of one party being unjustifiably attacked or harassed by another), and this also applies to the attitude towards one’s (adult) children and in particular with regards to marriage — in fact, the religion is completely neutral on whether “arranged marriages” or “love marriages” are ‘better’; the emphasis is on using one’s own judgement and common sense and, most importantly, marrying the right person for the right reasons. I also know that Islam states that Muslim men and women should both freely consent to marriage and, technically, they have the full right to choose their own spouse. With regards to Hinduism, well I’ll let one of the Hindus here on SM answer that for themselves.
‘Immoral’ and ‘unethical’, by the way, mean exactly the same thing.
btw, jai, that immoral and unethical mean the same thing is news to me. not in everyones vernacular. immoral is a higher offense, if u will, dictated by religion, unethical is dictated by society, as per my understanding, and usage, i understand not all share this view. so thats illegal, unethical, and then there is immoral.
i keep on saying this, and its getting boring to say it again, i dont disagree with what u and others are saying, as a matter of fact, i agree. what i am saying is, as others have also, its not the governments job or responsibility to fight the small mindedness of a set of parents in a given community. my understanding from others of a non-southasian persuasion is that they go thru the exact same things, albeit to a lesser extent. jewish mothers want their children to marry jewish spouses, and polish mothers want the same thing. and if u think emotional pressure or coercion is not applied there, then u havent had a long conversation with a catholic mexican american from texas as to why a swedish atheist is not the choice for their precious child…
it seems to me people are speaking from their personal/individual cases. not all arranged marriages are forced, and not all forced marriages are because individuals are locked up in their rooms till wedding day. i understand that if u are in brick lane, forget law enforcement, even the embassy tries to avoid community entangles there, and u have been brought up to simply obey and not question, brainwashed to believe that u dont/cant think, then there is a case to be made for external intervention. but how would external bodies know about such cases? i recall reading about the high/increasing cases of drug addiction among young women in bricklane and other bangladeshi communities in the UK due to the constant helplessness people feel. i know, and understand and believe in those instantces, external measures are required. but a law that blanket deals with every case without impunity is a slippery slope in my opinion.
as i said earlier, help those that cannot help themselves, not those who can, but wont.
btw, islam, like christianity does not advocate coercion, nor does it implicitly deride it. but what we have here is a subcultural phenomena (not all in any given community act the same way), not a religious one. ergo, my issues with how some think it immoral.
Moornam This is related to the other thread on giving back, you have to be careful who you are giving back to and how.
Another thing to note is gates foundation did not try to go for medicine but aids awareness. The reasons is cost benifit analysis led them to the conclusion that prevention is better than cure. Most people with aids are practicaly doomed. you can only extend a few years and in india that too will not be achieved as easily as in US.
Because they are not a government agency they can get away with this analysis. Its raional sadly government programs dont take that into account.
The point simply is that more lives can be saved by spending less money on awareness rather than expensive and not fully developed or scientificaly understood treatment operation which would have finished his money faster and would have extended the life of a few by ~5yrs. Heres gates on the program
what about aisha?
According to me they do
The figures that you cited only apply to first cousin marriage, right? I thought the risks (both individual and societal) for second cousin marriage were the same as the general population.
yeah, i wouldn’t worry about second cousin marriage in a non-inbred population. the last is key, stuff like “first cousin” or “second cousin” is more relevant in exogamous populations.
as far as i know, emotional coercion and blackmail isnt against the law or immoral (very harsh word there). parents use both techniques throughout a childs life from trying to get them to stop acting up/crying and getting them to eat as children to getting them to study the “right” studies at uni. as young adults and everything in between.
it is a find line between allowing individual choice, and forcing particular choices.
the reality is that people are social animals, embedded in their environment. we aren’t born with exactly the same choices, thank the god i don’t believe in that i was born a man, at least judging from the stresses and tensions that seem to be part & parcel of college-educated bangladeshi american girls from the same background as i.
the reality is that i think “dialogue” is part of the problem. we shouldn’t shrink from kulturkampf. empirical evidence tells us that patriarchy, more or less, is normative. in some societies patriarchy is mitigated or dampened somewhat, and the west, vis-a-vis south asia, is one of them (one could argue that in some ways west africa is another, though there it takes different forms). institutions and laws matter, but without cultural frameworks they are a dead letter.
word up. with the realization that we have priviledge, we should do what we can to stop the patriarchal things around us. as desi men, the question i think is to stop letting the discrimination slide. its not cool to pretend to ignore it
Praise be to God that he has not created me a gentile; praised be God that created me not a woman; praised be God that he has not created me an ignorant man…. is a form of a jewish prayer. i believe some forms are less explicitly sexist, but the fact that such prayers exist tells us something about humanity. i’m not a big ‘feminist’ in a post-1970 sense in that i’m rather pessimistic of overthrowing the patriarchy, i think men are born to rule to some extent by the nature of who some of us are…but aspects of nature red in tooth & claw can be mitigated by the Good Society.
The poster looks a lot like the ads for Manjrekar’s 2000 Bollywood Film Astitva. Here’s an ad here. There were a few different ones with the same idea.
dudette:
When the problem is endemic like it is in the UK, then the government does have a responsibility. They should also have community & religious programmes to educate the parents that this type of bullying is not acceptable in the UK.
Looking at the table linked from the above, it seems that 50 – 60% of the Arab population have married 1st or 2nd cousins. Do Arab countries have a much higher overall rate of congenital defects than other countries then?
Do Arab countries have a much higher overall rate of congenital defects than other countries then?
yes. read the new york times.
It’s not endemic, but it is persistent in a strata of the society.
“i think men are born to rule to some extent by the nature of who some of us are…”
HA HA HA… While your other comments have merit, there’s NO WAY that you can prove this one using genetics…although, you’ll probably try 😉 . In every group/team (school and professional) I’ve ever been in, all the guys have practically waited for me to take charge and become the leader, which I end up doing somewhat reluctantly (sometimes it’s nice to let someone else be responsible). Basically, I think leadership qualities may besomewhat innate, and not gender-biased – which is why everyone bugs the hell out of me expecting me to take charge, delegate, have the final say, etc.. If it ain’t obvious, I disagree with your comment. I think the patriarchy will change and evolve over (a very long) time to a more equal ground. It’s all about how we’re socialized and raised – which IS gender-biased.
In every group/team (school and professional) I’ve ever been in, all the guys have practically waited for me to take charge and become the leader, which I end up doing somewhat reluctantly (sometimes it’s nice to let someone else be responsible).
you might be a good and confident leader, but you don’t think in terms of populations. which makes sense, i’ve heard that good leaders have to be kind of blind and dumb to nuance and have total confidence.
Sounds like a definition of a bad leader as well.
That sounds more like Dubya.
yow… that was a wicked claw strike
razib,um… nathalie.“yow… that was a wicked claw strike razib, um… nathalie.”
Y’know – I wasn’t oblivious to such nuances – the clawing attempt just didn’t bug me that much 🙂
hmmm….I wonder if Nathalie is “A+”……. 😉
it was a mild claw. i just tire of
a) i am an x b) i am like z c) you say x is !z
so, you are wrong, blah, blah….
it is of the same genre as “you deleted my comment, you are a censor, you are against free speech, blah, blah, blah….”
let me clarify. I may have used myself as illustration, but it was by no means meant to beself-indulgent or about me. Perhaps the subtle nuances in my commentary were missed:
i am an x but i am like what you deem a z, but this is besides the point because…. there are many x’s more like z’s, whether it is ever a fully realized “potential” or not. if the potential is not fully realized, there are many societal reasons for this…. this is becoming less and less of a factor as we progress, but is still a challenge, nonethelss.
My point: gender bias and other issues have prevented women from historically taking on leadership roles – it is not an innate personality trait for women to take a backseat or supporting role. Nor is it a personality trait for the male gender to be born leaders. If you can prove that this trait is a male expressed – the same way colour-blindness is expressed, maybe I could buy your theory, but I’m 100% sure that there is no linkage between gender and leadership.
Anyways, you have your opinion and you’re entitled to it. Obviously, being female, I have a unique perspective on the matter. I’m sure there are many who can support me and point out the historical factors reasons why women are not often in leadership roles, particularly at those level deemed superior by whoever. I would think that examples would be too obvious at this point.
I do however think good leadership or the ability to lead may be linked to other personality traits. My personal opinion is that type B personality (if you buy that there’s only 2 types of personalities!) are better in leadership roles. Brains and charm and a je ne sais quoi factor help, too. I tire of type A’s who have to be right and authoritarian and bossy – and everyone else does too!
i simply disagree with that assertion razib. its like saying people with nose hair are born to rule. ok…sure. not that i’m being rude to razib, but the assertion itself, i’m not about to wind around in circles disputing it, just simple and totally disagree. it would be my suggestion metric ang you’re just going to go around in circles by trying to disprove his comment. its much more strong to simply disagree with him and be about making our society a more equal place
course by me suggesting what to do, thats probably partiarchal right there
i simply disagree with that assertion razib. its like saying people with nose hair are born to rule.
look, i don’t want to get into an “argument.” that’s dumb, there is a wide literature on various personality differences on average between males and females. there is a wide literature on the relationship between hormonal levels and various personalities. there is a wide literature on the developmental genetic reasons for the differential expressions of these hormones.
the simple explanation is testosterone: women who have higher basal testosterone levels tend to be more aggressive and domineering. men who boost their testosterone tend to be more domineering. sometimes connecting the dots doesn’t work in that correlations of correlations, but i’m pretty sure this one will work. men are simply geared toward dominance and risk taking behavior because of higher testosterone levels, and there is probably a genetic rational via the trivers-willard effect, males are the gender with higher potential reproductive outpout (skew).
as for history, there has never been a matriarchy (matrilineal cultures don’t count, and iroquois females having veto power over male decisions doesn’t count). the employ of female warriors by the king of benin doesn’t count. shrug
now wave hands and tell me how every society that we know of somehow magically stumbled on the same stable-state of shitting on women.* (i suppose you could posit a marxist explanation)
anyway, i’m not making a deterministic argument, i’m making a probabilistic one. most males are not born with personalities that allow them be leaders, and most do not live in societies that allow them to be leaders. same for women. a particular socioeconomic background helps, for example, but not being a pussy really helps too. if you have two normal distributions and you shift the mean a bit, then the number on the tales will differ a GREAT deal.
consider, assume a mean of 100, and a standard deviation of 15. .135% of the probability distribution is more than 3 standard deviations above mean (>145). assume a mean of 105, and .38% of the population is above the 130. you nearly triple the value at the high end of the tail by a small shift in the mean.
if you assume that being at the extreme end of the tail of distribution gives you a leg up or is a necessary precondition, than small mean differences in populations can make a big difference. this doesn’t take into account things like gene-environment correlation and gene-environment interaction.
i’m not trying to be a bluffing asshole here…but i am tired of the same-old-same-old platitudes about social and historical factors that totally ignore some populationally powerful biases. sure, behavorial genetics or evolutionary psychology aren’t physics, and there is a lot of gray area in there…but, i think it stands up well next to sociology, which is what its detractors appeal to (sociology, at least the type that attempts to be a science, even uses many of the same statistical techniques as behavior genetics).
in my “fantasy” world where i am a single alpha male all women would be potentional cameron diaz’s like something about mary (plus, a little more promiscuous too). i don’t see that happening.
its not platitudes razib, and i also at this point don’t want to get into a long-running arguement about this topic. For one thing in order to have an arguement like this there would have to be a committment to deconstruction, as the predominant view is, indeed, patriarchy has been the rule. If we’re just going to base a discussion on prevailing lenses, of course, a thousand times, on the face of it, one would concede the point that patriarchy is the rule. I’m not an idiot, generally.
The point I would be making about the non-inherency of patriarchy (which is not probably an exact way of the goal) would entail so much willing deconstruction that it would only be useful if all sides in the conversation were committed to seeing the plausability of an alernate point of view, and working to bring such evidence as would strenthen the point. After that, a committment to being reality-based would neccesitate testing the plausability of any evidence that was found.
I feel that if you personally wanted to disprove that partiarchy is innate, you’d bring a lot of evidence for it. Thats not to blow smoke up your ass. On the face of it I just do not want to sit back and “let” it be true that patriarchy is a default condition, even as I’m not willing to simply delude myself into a more pleasant reality.
btw, readers might find this normal distribution applet of interest. it gives you an intuitive feel if you play around with it numerically.
oh, btw, short men are sexy, only anti-short cultures hold their potential down 🙂
I feel that if you personally wanted to disprove that partiarchy is innate, you’d bring a lot of evidence for it.
the thing is, the term “innate” implies a lot and leaves out a lot. my position is that with enough social inputs males and females could be equalized in outcome as well as opportunity. granted, we aren’t at equality of opportunity yet either. i simply don’t think the social inputs are worth it, in fact, i think the Left’s recent tendency to reshape society in a very aggressive way via government fiat and program has been counterproductive to the project of individual liberty and potentiality.
if the set of extent societies approaches infinite at some point a large number of matriarchal societies even without inputs, and a far larger number of non-sex-triarchal societies would emerge. as it is, i don’t think the set of human societies is large enough to explore all the improbable potentialities out there. the die is loaded, so to speak.
as for deconstruction and what not, well, i think our lingo is going in orthogonal directions 🙂
oh, btw, what texts would someone rec. to learn this deconstructionist stuff?
i’m assuming we have very different ways of looking at this. i don’t think its a good idea to engage each other on it
you might want to check out the situationists. as for texts. i’m self taught and most of what i learned about deconstruction came from feeling that certain shit was just not right. i’m not academic on deconstruction.
completely unrelated to the topic, but in reply – but if you’re lookin for deconstructionsim at work, you could try J.Butler’s Gender Trouble… she’s a bit of a crazy Foucaultian…
yeah forced marriages are just wrong!