Marginalization of women - Part I
November 21, 2006 — Shikha
This is one topic I’ve been wanting to write about for a long time, and I don’t think I will be able to say everything I want to in just one post. The impetus, came from watching Oprah Winfrey’s talk show on “Marginalization of women”, aired on Star World (India) on 12th Nov night - let me start with a brief on the show:
The show featured Karrine Steffans (author of “Confessions of a Video Vixen”), Singer Pink (whose music video Stupid Girls actually inspired Oprah to have the topic discussed) and Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, and their discussions were centred around the changing perceptions of and about women in the US.
Karrine Steffans spoke about her experience as a dancer in high-profile music videos - she explained how such women were treated like mere objects on the sets, asked for sexual favors in return for video appearances, and exploited extensively so that the big-wigs in the music business could make big bucks selling them. The irony of it all was that the music videos exhibited the girls (such as herself) as sexually liberated, strong women who were in control of their lives while the truth was that they were all tottering on the edge of disaster - addicted to drugs/booze/sex and slaves to those who gave them work.
Singer Pink’s music video Stupid Girls rips apart the current teen celebrity icons such as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson - blaming them for endorsing the concept of “Stupid Girls” who relentlessly starve themselves to fit into a size 0, do stupid things like making sex videos and wear raunchy clothes and compete for male attention. On the show, Pink clarified that she didn’t think these icons were really stupid - only that they projected this image because it sells… and with this, they were setting the ground for the millions of young girls who aped them, and believed that everything these women did was ‘cool’.
Ariel Levy criticised the raunchy culture that was making headway across the United States, where women believed that public display of themselves and their wares indicated sexual empowerment and liberation. She opined that men no longer need to be given the title of chauvinistic pigs, because the women were taking their place - playing into the stereotypes of sexuality (and encouraging it extensively) by being willing to be treated as mindless sex objects and stooping to any level to get attention.
Also on the show was a former recruiter for the Girls Gone Wild franchise - which made big bucks across America, making and selling videos of teenage girls who’d do any form of exposure and lewd acts for lure of 5 minutes of fame (and no, they weren’t even getting paid). The woman, whose job it was to encourage such girls to participate, found nothing wrong with it, because she believed that while she did encourage and cajole, the girls did the acts out of choice.
I don’t know if the programme was an eye-opener or any such sort for many, but for me, it was just a confirmation of some of the thoughts that have been going on in my mind for some time.
Female empowerment is a subject of many contrasts when it is applied to two diametrically different nations such as the US and India. Here in India, when we talk about empowering the women, we still have to talk about battling social evils such as dowry (where the bride’s family has to give substantial money/material goods to the groom’s family, for the marriage to take place), child marriage, prostitution, female infanticide and the like. Even though economic prosperity is slowly engulfing a part of the country, our enormous rural belts and their constant struggle for upliftment, ensure that in many parts of India, women still don’t get their basic needs addressed, and are victims in every sense.
However, putting aside all these for a moment, I had to wonder : Are women in urban India also being marginalized?
Sitting in a posh corporate office, in Electronics City in India’s very own Silicon Valley, I can be excused for being shielded from the actual issues out there on the street, and especially, having outgrown my teen life 7 yrs ago, I don’t think I would be completely correct in my comments on the issues today’s urban teen girl faces in school/college.
Nevertheless, here are some pennies I’d like to throw out (and you can come up with your own surmises about why I’m mentioning them here :)):
1) The ideal of the ‘perfect woman’: Women are constantly attacked (and petrified) by this premise - that of the ‘perfect woman’ [the 'bharateeya nari']: The ultimate ideal that is bestowed upon only a chosen few possibly - the woman who is gorgeous, elegant, perfect in proportions, the envy of every man in the world, yet… (and now here comes the contradictions) ‘homely’, ‘God-fearing’ (hehe :)), an amazing cook, a passionate lover at times, a caring soothing mother-like-figure otherwise, exemplary mother to her children, social busybody, empathetic daughter-in-law, contributing effectively to making the home a paradise - clean n neat, perfectly maintained, her womanly touches evident in its decorative style (and complete with a smile on her face, waiting to receive her tired, distraught husband at the door when he comes back home from work), and yet, yet, yet… a Career Woman! Okay, so not maybe an important career (similar to what her hubby dearest is doing) but atleast something to keep her busy so that she won’t whine/nag at the end of the day. Voila! What a perfect brew… ain’t it? Yet, do you think I’m only exaggerating? I personally know many women, working hard to juggle work n home, left feeling incomplete about how they do not measure up to expectations. Not many of them can afford the luxury of doing the things they want to do, because they are so occupied trying to complete the lives of the ones around them.
2) The Jessica Lal murder case recently took a fresh twist when celebrated lawyer and politician Ram Jethmalani came to the fore, in defense of Manu Sharma (who allegedly shot Jessica for refusing him a drink, in a bar). While I don’t wish to go over the nitty-gritties of the case here in the post, what caught my attention was an information that Mr. Jethmalani introduced recently - probably as a tactic to divert attention from the case into a different direction. Mr. Jethmalani alleged that Jessica had not refused just a drink but that there was a sexual angle to the case, and that her morality was in question. What I found deplorable was not that Mr. Jethmalani had stooped to such a level, but that this is such a common tactic in a whole lot many of the cases that involve women. Its almost a strategy - “raise suspicions on the woman’s character, and zip up the mouths of her family/supporters”. Once the morality angle is brought about, you can ensure that public sympathy turns away from the woman, and all support for her fizzles out because people are then afraid to be associated with “the tainted one”.
BTW, if you are comforted in the thought that this maybe only for high-profile cases as Jessica’s, then think again - even the women/girls on the street (your wives, sisters, mothers, daughters) often suffer abuse silently, because if they were to raise objections, it would probably boomerang in the form of an attack on their own morality.
Jessica must be turning in her grave.
3) Urban India is getting chic. More so because of its very young, fresh mobile-cum-ipod-equipped teeny boppers in the schools, colleges and yes, the BPOs :). India has an abundant youth population, originating primarily from the vast middle-class (that gets part of the credit for India’s slow climb towards economic prosperity in the last decade) - and these youth are the country’s hope - the torchbearers, the pathbreakers, the innovators. And since education and employment are still the focal point of this group, we can rest for a while, since we need not have too many concerns about wayward teens, … atleast not yet.
However, some disturbing images have stuck to my mind in the past few years, and as I mull on them, I wonder if, down the lane, we’ll end up facing the same issues as what had been discussed on Oprah’s shows. Most of the disturbing images involve young girls - I see them in malls, theatres, MG/Brigade Road - and what strikes me about them is their overt willingness to please the guys hanging all around (and over) them. Most of these girls are young, just into their teens and by their looks, gullible. I’ve seen many put up the “stupid” act (even though in reality, they may be anything but that), and it appears to me that they are afraid of displaying their inherent intelligence for fear of being branded a “geek”, and having men running far away from them. Many of these girls smoke and drink, and don’t know why they are doing it, or what it can do to them. Finally, the very lethal combination of the growing peer pressure, the lure of being branded “most popular”, “sexy”, “cool” etc., the over-exposure to media, celebrityhood and fame, weaker family ties / staying away from home, and addictions (smoke, drink, drugs, sex) make these girls easy prey… to anybody and everybody.
Are we prepared for this fallout?
Part I of this topic stops here (yes, I’m not finished yet ;)). I hope that, as I’ve used this space as a vent for my thoughts on this subject, I have also provided some fodder for thought for all those reading this space :).
