Just Another Woman

Let`s distill the issues here:

1. Sheila`s father was wrong to pressure her into an arranged marriage with someone she hardly knew.

2. Qaiser`s family was very wrong to pressure him into an arranged marriage when they knew he had problems to begin with.

3. Qaiser was wrong to take out his shame/frustration/anger on his innocent wife.

4. Sheila did the right thing by getting out of the abusive marriage. She had no obligation to try to `fix` him and no incentive to do so since she was not in love with him. She only stayed in the marriage for as long as she did out of a sense of duty and because she didn`t have any other viable options.

5. It doesn`t matter that Sheila and Qaiser are 33 and 40, repsectively. They might as well be 10 and 17 because in Pakistani families, children are always chamchay in the hands of their parents and elders. Parent-child relationships rarely mature into mutually respectful adult relationships, so the children always feel pressured to obey their parents and abide by their every wish in an over-exaggerated sense of izzat. How many Pakistani adults do you all know that can stand up to their parents and defy their wishes for their own self-interest? Expecting Sheila and Qaiser to stand up for themselves since they are adults and refuse to enter into an arranged marriage is rather unrealistic considering the nature of the Pakistani family.

Anne Shamim: Is Qaiser gay or not? I suspect that he is, considering the letter from his brother Ishtiaq which confirms Ishtiaq`s `lifelong suspicions` about Qaiser. People have `lifelong suspicions` about their siblings being gay, not about their being impotent.

re slink

``does it make more sense this time around? ``
nope. i understood what you said the first time around. i still disagree with it.

i never used rich and progressive together. i used progressive as merely one example of good fortune.

just being pissed off at women like sheila doesnt help. you are suggesting they stop being martyrs and give themselves a chance. here is my suggestion, why dont women like you, who have `broken` from their conditioning give them a chance?

re Shandana:

``how amusing that you should mention that. ``

-- mention what, shandana ?

one of the problems with being featured on chowk is that people have expectations of you.

-- So.... ?

for a woman like me, brought up in the same atmosphere that sheila was brought up in yet having chosen to be what i am, it creates BIG problems.

-- what are you talking about here ? If you were brought up in the same atmosphere as Sheila and if you are what you are, then i would only applaud your perseverance and your courage. Why should that create any problem, let alone BIG problems....

i guess i been `defanged`.

-- when were you fanged Shandana?

--You might want to read my previous comments on all your articles before you would jump into any conclusions about my intentions to fang/defang you.

Rishi

Just an observation: A lot of discussion about the `moral of` and `morals in` this story by most respondents . Perhaps if this piece was more fiction like, and less journalistic in it`s form, this TV talk show like air could`ve been avoided.

re rishi:

how amusing that you should mention that. one of the problems with being featured on chowk is that people have expectations of you. for a woman like me, brought up in the same atmosphere that sheila was brought up in yet having chosen to be what i am, it creates BIG problems. i guess i been `defanged`.

shandana

Re Slink reply 22

``prefers living like an inflatable doll in somebodys house, letting the words of a perfect stranger shatter her self esteem.``

What! This is not an aberration. The vast majority of women in our culture are socialized to be this way. She doesn`t prefer it, its not an equal choice for her as it is, say, for the man. I cannot believe this misplaced scorn, you make her out to be a brain dead bimbo choosing the easy way out.

``only exacerbates the awful stereotype of Eastern men as tyrranical chauvinists``

Are you compensating desi men for the bad raps they get by dispensing a healthy dollop of mysogyny. Sheila cannot swap horror stories (I fought the patriarchy and won! ) maybe she doesn`t want to be a hero, maybe she doesn`t want to hang out and smoke dope. So what! Does it make her story less valid. Her story may not have a new and fresh twist, may sound like ``cardboard cutouts`` but that is the very reason for its powerful appeal. The issue does not get airtime and Annogul has eloquently put it up for debate. Judging from the varied responses there is no consensus on it either.

``set the stage for a `selfish husband doormat wife` ... one wield the spectre of `rights`for (of course) everyone will automatically line up behind it``

Please give people credit for having a brain despite the fact that they may support a `fashionable` position. You seem to dismiss the argument simply because you feel more comfortable taking a marginalized position. That may work for you but please don`t pass it off as a general panacea for the Shielas out there. When you judge Sheila as a doormat, I suspect you are frustrated with actual people out there like her, whom you know and cannot respect for being passive and not taking charge of their predicament. You as the observer are being disingenuous by not acknowledging emancipating influences such as your own socialization (parental, education), role models, status, power, and other tacit privileges. I did it, she can`t - die loser! Truly petulant. If a black man does not successfully fight back when he is being lynched by a white mob, does he deserve to live?

Re Zaidi

``it gets hard to separate fact from fiction.``

Do you experience any accompanying dizzyness and shortness of breath?

``that our society has a high degree of misconceptions about sexual dysfunction``

Okaaaay!!! Sooooo!!!???? Even my cat knows that.

``No insight into the husband`s actions is presented - so I cannot make a judgement.``

Feel free not to judge.

``If you love someone, is it only for good times? ``

What is this www.platitudes.com? Reality check, Sheila deserves some good times.

``It goes without saying of course that if you don`t, don`t marry them in the first place.``

Yadda yadda yadda.

``Shiela after all was brought up in the US``

An absolute fabrication of Anita`s imagination. Gotta get what she`s smokin`.

``once I knew a homosexual man in his 50`s with AIDS. He had become blind ...``

We wait with bated breath for further scintillating discussions of medical case histories.

Dear Ms. Zaidi,

You still do not seem to have gotten the point. This story is not about why the gentleman in question has a sexual dysfunction. It is about how Sheila`s life was destroyed by her father and her husband.

Your claim that you are humanist first and a physician second sounds hard to believe. It appears that you are a physician first and always.

Regards,

Nasreen Khan

Anita Zaidi:

--If my writing conveyed that I (Anne Shamim) have a bias against sexually dysfunctional people, I am a total failure. Sincere apologies for a confusing piece of writing that seems to be taking up so much of your time.

--I refuse to divulge any more about this couple (e.g. the letter, etc.). Maybe it is a ``journalistic`` piece and maybe it`s a total fabrication, but then again, maybe it`s somewhere in between. Or maybe it`s a total fabrication written in a journalistic vein, merely to point out that this might as well have been real. And maybe Sheila is really my cousin, but perhaps she is just a figment of my imagination. Or maybe she really IS a cousin, only not mine. MAYBE THE SPEAKER IS NOT ANNI!!! Could that be possible? Hmmm.

--It would be kind of boring without you. Thanks.

Re: Aliya (reply # 35)

I have similar feelings. Because Chowk publishes both journalistic pieces as well as stories, sometimes it gets hard to separate fact from fiction.

The way this particular story is written, it implies fact. I certainly read it as fact. Therefore, I was especially uncomfortable to see a private letter reproduced, and talk of ``my cousin`` from Ms. Shamim.

Whether ``Shiela`` is really Ms. Shamim`s cousin is a very material fact to me. If I was her, and I wanted to write a highly personal story based on true events, I wouldn`t identify the person as ``my cousin``, without making sure she was aware and agreed.

Re: all others who think I am denying the right of divorce to women - nothing could be farther from the truth. Nor am I saying that Shiela did the wrong thing in seeking divorce. I am just saying that the institution of arranged marriage is flawed, and that our society has a high degree of misconceptions about sexual dysfunction. In this story, from what is presented originally (I agree with Shandana here), the events are presented very superficially. No insight into the husband`s actions is presented - so I cannot make a judgement. I am a humanist first, a physician second, a feminist third, which I guess rules out a knee-jerk support for the woman in this story in the absence of sufficient data.

And yes, generally speaking, my bias about abandoning people when they are sick does show. If you love someone, is it only for good times? It goes without saying of course that if you don`t, don`t marry them in the first place. Shiela after all was brought up in the US, was educated beyond college, and was 33 years old. Just as much gumption and individual thought as we expect from Qaiser might also be expected from Shiela (instead she seems to be making her decisions `according to her cousin` on what her cousin is saying). The father`s actions of course, are totally inexcusable. He is the most to blame for Shiela`s misfortune, rather than the `very, very, bad` Qaiser.

On an unrelated (to this story) note once I knew a homosexual man in his 50`s with AIDS. He had become blind from reactivation of chickenpox in his eyes and had very disfiguring lesions of Kaposi`s sarcoma all over his body. HIV had affected his mind to, so he was a pretty cranky old guy. His unaffected partner of several years was still around and taking care of the old guy, just refusing to quit, with no hope of an inheritence.

Needless to say people are strange - some want to run away at the first sign of ill health in a spouse, others actually want to adopt children with mental impairments, HIV etc. May we have more of the latter, and less of the former. One day I might just want to write about `Rick` - the amazing gentleman who has three adopted children with advanced AIDS, and just adopted two more (I do have his permission to do so).

Anita

NasreenK: Thank you , thank you. Exactly.

random (Re #42): My Lord, I almost fell out of my chair reading that one. Making things funny in print can be really difficult, but your words just broke out like a troupe of clowns. Thanks, guy (or girl?).

RE: Anne Shamim,

In case my point was lost in the rambling, the reason that some of us are reacting so, Ms. Shamim, is that you have us confused - is this journalism (in which case your personal bias should be minimized - just report the events, and you`ll be excused the superficial nature of reporting, given the absence of more facts), or is it a story, in which case you can say whatever you want. You haven`t made it clear, and seem to want it both ways. If it is a story, its a pity that you haven`t enriched the characters more than you did and tell us why Qaiser was so - instead of just labeling him as `bad`.

Additionally, you seem to have a lot of biases against people with sexual dysfuntion, who you seem to think are all bad. If you consider sexual dysfunction as being equivalent to any other type of disease which is stigmatized, such as mental illness, you could perhaps understand why someone with this problem may become morose and emotionally manipulative. We do not know if he was impotent before he got married. The only evidence you present is the letter, which since we don`t know what is fact, and what fiction, we can`t judge the significance of.

As it stands, either way, it reflects badly on you. If the letter is real, you had no business taking someone`s private correspondence and putting it on the web. If it isn`t, you haven`t told us anything significant that suggests the sexual dysfunction was a pre-existing problem. So which is it?


Re: Random

I am amused that Saad`s and my `alliance` bothers you so, and apparently for a while too. Your musings seem familiar. Have you been around these parts under a different name before? If so, why change mid-course?

Anita

i think we have all had enough of dr. zaidi`s absolutely ridiculous tirades. why does everthying have to be reduced to medical this and therapy that? enough, madam. and enough already about your privacy concerns too. if the author is taking that risk, let her deal with the consequences too. we don`t need a nagging finger-shaking reprimanding net mommy, thank you very much.

hey SR! how`s the bundle of joy and sunshine? (sorry for the tangent, annogul)

Articles like these are the best reason for
having CHOWK.

Ras

I`m not going to comment on all the issues that are being raised here (don`t boo me!). Fascinating as the debate is, I read this piece twice and want to comment on the style.

First, Anne, I think the piece is well-written; you have a good command over sentence structure and say what you want to say cleanly, quickly, simply.

However, it is this matter-of-fact style that makes me think this is journalism, not fiction. Fiction usually has many devices - imagery, metaphors, allusions, foreshadowing (reminds me of 7th grade English class) - which you have left out. Opting for the journalistic style makes me feel that these are real events, even if you have changed names and some of the circumstances. There was a lot more you could have done with language, as well as the presentation of the story, the characters etc. if you wanted this to come across as fiction. To say, many comments later, that this ``could`` be fiction and Sheila ``could`` be a cousin, but not yours, is a little unfair to the reader!

At the same time, it feels like your narrator - you, fictional narrator, whatever - is even more two-dimensional than the other characters. Indeed, ``you`` are merely reacting, and might I say in very predictable ways, to Sheila`s situation. Simple anger was probably justified under the circumstances, but I as a reader would have been very interested in the narrator`s personal dilemma when considering the events. Did ``you`` really just think it was an open-shut case of sexual dysfunction? Didn`t ``you`` have any thoughts about the predicament of the man as well? Not that these thoughts had to be voiced to Sheila - the primary goal was to get her out of the marriage - but it would have been more interesting in a story to see what prejudices and conflicts this stirred up in the narrator herself.

The ending is ruined by the last line: ``And life goes on as usual.`` What does this mean? You have not defined ``usual`` or ``unusual`` so the phrase makes no sense in the context of the rest of the story. Try to avoid cliches like that - they are easy to resort to but are the death blow to any good piece - your writing will become much more powerful as a result.

Finally, I think that the title of the piece ``Just Another Woman`` does great injustice to the whole message of the story. This title implies the mundane, the ordinary, the unextraordinary, whereas you are trying to highlight Sheila and her struggle as something special, something to be taken notice of. I know ``Just Another Woman`` is trying to be ironic, but in my opinion, it doesn`t work. Perhaps something more dramatic like ``The Experiment`` or ``Lifelong Suspicions`` would match the high expectations that you set in the body of the story itself.

Well,I think that you could expand this piece and make it something great. But the way it stands, it ``skirts superficialities`` and ultimately avoids dealing directly with some of the issues you raise. This has all the potential of being a powerful psychological piece, but I feel that you have underestimated the reader and delivered less than you could have!

My 2 (to the nth power) cents.
-Bina