When stuff like this happens in the US, we all say it’s just one fucked up person, or community. It’s “evil people”, not a part of the US as a whole.
When it happens in India, it’s because Indians are bad people as a whole, who hate women.
The truth is that women hating is very much a part of Indian culture. Just as it is a part of ours.
The term “Eve baiting” refers to a man or more often groups of men harassing women. It’s common enough in India to have gotten a common name, but I’m sure it happens in every culture. A friend who is working in rural India now has seen it first hand and in her experience it is tolerated much more than it would be elsewhere.
Female traveler here. I travelled mostly alone to India for about 2 months about 3 years ago, and have some first-hand experience of the culture there. A few things which may help shed some wisdom on the subject-matter:
As an American woman (I’m an asian-american, but they still just see you with a big America stamp on your forehead either way) - you are generally perceived as being slutty. I think the influence of Hollywood has affected how the India culture perceives western women. 99% of the time, I could not go anywhere without many many men staring, some grabbing, and some making lecherous comments. This is common for many female travelers.
For the most part, it’s a male-dominated society. Gender roles are still very much the thing here: the woman is often seen around as cooking, taking care of the children the men working and getting paid. Women are arranged to marry young, and, for many that I have had the opportunity to speak to (especially in less-educated areas) being married is a huge deal. Therefore it’s important to be marriage material (having good complexion, being attractive, being chaste, being overall well-rounded and from a good family) - if you don’t have these attributes and are not marriage material the entire family is shamed.
Based on 2), I can imagine how younger females who have been sexually assaulted or abused do not report it. They probably don’t want to be shamed nor do they want to embarrass their entire family’s reputation.
It’s not exactly “women-hating”, but I do think women are poorly represented in the country. But even in my time there, I can tell that the country is rapidly evolving. I remain optimistic.
Just my two cents.
I am of Indian ancestry but was raised in the states; my parents were both raised in India and I have a bit of exposure to Indian culture, both from ex-pats in the US and in India.
I think that Indians in general, even the current generation, overall have an idea that women should be more “traditional”–they still need to excel in school/work, but they should also somehow be demure, beautiful, light-skinned, skilled in the culinary arts, virginal, well-dressed (both in terms of dressing relatively modestly and in terms of also dressing fashionably). While everyone thinks that the gang-rape incidents are awful, because they are violent and involve strangers, if a girl drinks too much at a party and a man she was flirting with has sex with her without her consent, then there would be A LOT of she shouldn’t have been drinking/shouldn’t have been partying/shouldn’t have been flirting/shouldn’t have been wearing a short skirt, etc.
So in short, it’s not like the majority of men are like, “gang-rapes for all” but in general women are pressured to be a somewhat like Victorian-era ladies (except also with high-power jobs), with all the reprecussions that carries.
It’s such a complicated issue that it’s very difficult to figure out where to start. But let me offer a few starting points:
On the one hand, it’s true that in many respects, Indian culture isn’t all that much different from Western cultures and other cultures in that historically and even to today, women face tangible inequalities in society, while on the other hand, a lot of woman have also managed to achieve a lot. There are a lot of women politicians in India, not only the above-referenced Indira Gandhi. The current chief minister of the State of West Bengal is Mamata Banerjee, a very powerful and outspoken politician, who, unlike a lot of female politicians, did not derive her political position from being someone’s daughter or widow.
It’s also true that Indian society is very complex and diverse. Almost anything you can say about India is both true and false, because there are so many subcultures with their own traditions and attitudes.
Nevertheless, there are significant disadvantages for women in society. Even famous and accomplished women often have to kowtow to the idea of a chaste, “homely” (which, in Indian English means something like “family-oriented” rather than “unattractive”), traditional woman.
Women are judged on their appearance, their reputations, and their marriageability. Even amongst some educated and middle-class groups, a woman who has worked in an office is considered a “bad match” for a boy in their family, because women who work in offices are sluts. Well, why are they considered sluts? In an office, women are often treated as fair game. Almost every Indian woman I know who has worked in an office in India has stories of sexual harassment and demands for sexual favors, often quite blatant. The men who wouldn’t let their sons marry an office girl are the very men who are harassing the women in their offices.
Almost every Indian woman I know has experiences of being groped (“Eve-teased”) in public places.
I have cousins who grew up in India who live here now and say that because they have daughters they will not go back.
Delhi and its surrounding areas are well-known as being very hostile toward women. In contrast, in a place like Bombay, women are in a much more equal position and are much more free to dress how they want, work where they want, live how they want – even then Eve-teasing and office harassment are routine in Bombay.
It’s all very complicated.
Hm, one of the more popular Bollywood movies in the mid 70s, Jai Santoshi Maa is basically about how one poor woman is heavily abused by the family she married into … but that isn’t actually what the movie is about :dubious::smack: Funny how everybody that associates with her in-law family totally ignore how they treat her.
This is largely untrue for present times in my experience. I have never seen or heard any women harassed in my workplaces (have worked in big workplaces of 3000+ employees) and workplaces of my acquaintances. Rather women given more comforts, long maternity leaves etc.
And there is a “high demand”
for working girls for “arranged” marriages. Perceptions may have changed from past.
Situation is not nearly as bad and Indians these days couldn’t care less about the NRIs.
Watch this entertaining video, a sexist comment getting lambasted in a tv debate:
Such debates are very very common these days on Indian news channels.
What does ‘dented and painted’ mean? Like damaged goods that have been tarted up to look OK?
So? that just means more people report rape in America. It doesn’t necessarily mean more rape happens.
thanks for noticing that i wrote “reported” twice. remember, it also doesn’t necessarily mean less rape happens. it means you should not paint a country more than four times the size of the U.S. with a single brush stroke without concrete information, and without applying it on yourself.
does this mean “American culture” hates its women? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics
yes, but I have heard it used only for cars . so, its women commodification. also suggesting tht he seems to have problem with women wearing makeups. plus he’s spoken at a time of outrage in the country over the incidence and questions the worthiness of the people coming to protests. Add to that that he is president’s son besides being a sitting member of parliament.
Its wrong at many levels and then to listen to his replies and to see his facial expressions - its funny.
I’m unsure of how to answer something like “Are gang rapes at all representative of the culture towards women there?”. (I also haven’t slept all of last night, so excuse me if I’m occasionally incoherent.)
I’ll try and explain it through the framework(from a completely different context) of one of India’s foremost historians and thinkers - Ramachandra Guha. As he puts it, India is a massive, incredibly diverse country(size, population,cultures) simultaneously undergoing five dramatic transformations – the urban revolution( 80% rural population 30 years ago to 50% now), the industrial revolution(agriculture gone from 70-80% of the economy to 15-20% now), the national revolution(India was never really one country, we are only becoming one now) the democratic revolution(ditto), and the social revolution. This last is the issue we find ourselves discussing now, but there’s no separating it from the other four. There are many old social institutions that are coming up against these revolutions, and what you’re seeing is the result of the frictions that result.
The relevant social institution here is patriarchy. There is a distinct patriarchal bent in rural and semi-urban North India. In its time and place there was a function it served. IMO, historically, it came from the Northern part of India being much more susceptible to invasion, which anyway ends up favouring men over women. This was exacerbated by the fact that the invaders and conquerors were Islamic which only served to reinforce whatever patriarchal culture there already was. (Counter factual - South and East India have at least four large communities that are completely matriarchal and matrilineal). Whatever the reason, the fact is, rural and semi urban North India are heavily patriarchal. This leads to all sorts of other related problems - dowry(illegal), preference for sons, female foeticide(illegal) but the one at hand is violence against women.
In rural settings, social institutions have adapted so this does not necessarily lead to violence against women. There is close male/family supervision in all aspects of life, marriage happens early, violence is largely limited to domestic violence (If this sounds bad, it is, but I’d like to remind you that domestic violence is a very recent taboo even in Western societies). Mind, at no point am I saying this is a good or desirable state of affairs. It is not. It is merely the way things were.
In urban settings, particularly settings which have been urban for more than one generation and thus been through the ‘social revolution’ that Guha speaks about, things are very different. Women are valued, they’re educated, they’re part of the workforce, they get out and go to work on their own everyday, and for many women, lives are not hugely different from how they would be in a western city. Yes, they may face rape and violence from acquaintances and family, but I think that’s a human problem.
India’s problem lies in the friction that arise when populations on different sides of the urban/social revolutions come in contact. Distressingly, a good looking young woman on the street in Delhi will get leched at and perhaps groped by men who have no social conventions or restrictions to deal with something like this. Disturbingly, millions of female foetuses are aborted as ultrasound technology makes sex selection possible before a real live infant has to be murdered. Harrowingly, a young woman (who was earning a degree and had just finished watching a movie with a male friend - definitely on one side of the social revolution don’t you think?) can get in a bus with five men (who were from rural India) and gets raped and is wounded so badly, she dies.
None of these things is representative of India. They only give you a snapshot of the ugly side of the transition that India is going through. There are huge positives too - hundreds of millions of people(no exaggeration) have moved out of poverty in the last 20 years. There is a definite difference in how women are treated in the more affluent sections of society - and many more Indians are becoming affluent. There is no doubt in the minds of the majority of Indians or the Indian press about the role we want women to play and the equality we want them to enjoy. They already do so on paper(except muslim Indian women, who come under the Islamic civil code). As women become more scarce, the forces of the market will supplement the legal and societal pressures that already exist to treat women better.
I am optimistic.
I think you’re trying to be nice, but you could perhaps have framed things better. Certain parts of your statement do come off as being slightly naive. This in particular was a little uncalled for (emphasis mine)
The rape in Delhi was not a case of outright abuse and sexual violation in public. It was in a moving, closed, private vehicle. Sometimes outright public sexual violence happens, but don’t you have your own Steubenville(?) to contend with?
And, really, how many times does a society as a whole do something? If anything, society in India as a whole has come out strongly against the sort of abuse that was committed in this case.
I have no doubt rape in India is heavily under reported. But pulling a factor of 50 out of your(generic) arse has no meaning either.
Why really? Violence against women is bad no matter what the purported reason. It stems from a very similar, very human place. And the name ‘Honour killing’ was meant to be descriptive only, not to shower the perpetrators with glory. Because of idiotic misunderstandings like this one though, there has been a move in the Indian press to start calling them ‘dishonour’ killings. I don’t see the difference frankly, but if people think it’ll improve things, they’re welcome to try it.
I do believe he meant temerity. And while AK84 does come off as being impatient, I can see where he’s coming from, particularly since he’s from Pakistan and no doubt catches a lot more hostile flak than Indians do.
Aren’t you from South Africa? Isn’t that the place with the world’s highest incidence of baby rape and rape ? That tells me all I need to know about the South African attitude towards women. Oh and your attitude towards women too for that matter. It’s so nice to be able to form easy opinions about the world. I love it.
I think this is a wee bit unfair. I agree that both law enforcement and judiciary need massive overhauls, but given that there is a slow judicial system, looking at number of convictions in the last year and saying there was just 1 is not right. Here’s a WSJlook at the figures
It’s eve teasing. I was under the impression that the term eve teasing was bequeathed to us by the British, but I’m wrong apparently.
And for many Indian women unfortunately. They tend to develop ways (body language, and just plain tune it out, except for the touching, which my female friends immediately make a huge deal, typically the guy gets beaten up, either by them, the police, or bystanders) to deal with it which is of course something they shouldn’t have to do.
Well, yes, it does. Did you think I’d dispute that? South Africans, and especially South African men,** in general** or as a whole society, have a very shitty attitude towards women.
Err, no. Logic fail. And a strawman.
Or you’d be able to point out where I made any inferences about individual Indians, right?
This is a difficult thread, and I commend the Indians who are taking part in it. I keep wanting to say something, but I just don’t know if I really should.
We Indians are about 1.2 billion now, with a gender ratio of of 100 to 94(male to female).
That means 628 million of us males live here. Excluding boys upto 13, we are about 500 million. Deduct another 100 million invalids, rapists are about 400 million.
Wow! More rapists in India than total population of U.S.!
No, wait.
We all have a mother and a sister on an average ( yes, we really do). We don’t rape them. That is Indian culture.
We rape other females. That means 300 million approx rapable females.
Wow!
Since culture means something shared by a large number of people, about 60% is a decent assumption to arrive at a ballpark figure of rapists.
So, 240 million Indians must be raping all those females.
Amazing! I never realised this having lived here all long.
Hope your ignorance is fought.
@bldysabba really well written post!! I agree with all that you said. Also think even if India gets more criticism than deserved, condemnation by UN, bad image in other countries etc , I will take it gladly if it gets some positive work done by the authorities and change in society(of northern India specifically)…
Agreed, and its good that you pointed to the data. I was referring to:
Delhi: Of 635 rapes reported in 2012, only one case saw conviction
This is significant because justice delayed is justice denied. Takes away the deterrence value and increases the suffering of the victim.
I’m not talking about some distant past. This is exactly the problem (problem No. 1) that I identified in my post – India is very diverse, and whenever you try to talk about India as a whole, you get stuck in this mire of “not here it isn’t.” But TruthSeeker2, you are illustrating a second problem, which is that every individual wants to generalize his or her personal experience.
It’s not relevant that in your experience you haven’t encountered these things. Because they are happening in the experience of other Indians. To have any kind of reasonable, logical, productive discussion, you have to forget the “not in my experience” trap. It’s a fallacy. Just forget it.
And here we go with problem No. 3 when trying to discuss social problems in India – the reflexive defensiveness.
Anyone who is an N.R.I. is dismissed out of hand. Well, you know what, this is not the 1960s. N.R.I.s don’t leave the country and lose touch, having only the experience of their childhoods to refer to. Many N.R.I.s these days maintain very close ties to India, through frequent travel, through closely maintained family relationships and friendships, and through business.
Indeed, many N.R.I.s can offer a much more balanced perspective on what is going on in India, not only because they lack this reflexive defensiveness but also because the experience of living outside of India and then being able to experience India closely from the inside gives you a clearer eye as to what is going on. I would suggest that Indians should check their pride and take what N.R.I.s offer a bit more seriously.
Here is another manifestation of problem No. 3 – India gets unfairly criticized on the global stage. Well, actually, no it doesn’t. By and far, India has a very good reputation in the United States and in other places (you can give N.R.I.s substantial credit for that). And when India does face criticism, it is generally fair and proportionate and it unfortunately tends to dissipate before any real reform is undertaken. Both Indians and N.R.I.s tend to get very defensive whenever there is criticism of India, and this doesn’t help improve things.
There are many layers to what is happening in that incident. First of all, it should be noted that Abhijit Mukherjee is from an educated Bengali family, which tends to be one of the most liberal and modernist sectors of Indian society, which makes his comment even more shocking.
Anyway, this is how I interpret his “dented and painted” comment – In reaction to the Delhi gang rape, there were a large number of women who started demonstrating in objection to the plight of women in (certain sectors of) Indian society. Mukherjee was trying to discredit those demonstrators by implying that they were not “good, clean, nice Indian college students.” He was implying that these were “fallen” women who had cleaned themselves up (like a car that has been dented and painted), and thus the demonstrators should not be treated as having credibility. This is enforced by his assertion that “women who go to discos” don’t have the standing to protest the treatment of women in society.
Absolutely zero reflexive defensiveness. If you read all my posts you will know that I am very critical of India.
You said your cousins say that because they have daughters they will not go back.
I say its just an excuse for justifying their staying away, attempt to convince themselves with somethings blown way out of proportion, trying to praise their adopted country and that nobody here is waiting for your cousins.
Please do not take it personally.
NRI?
Not Really Indian?