Western Feminism and South Asian Women

Romair,

You really are a piece of work.

warpster,

since you havent asked any of these couples what their thoughts are, how would you know? My father backed my mother at our masjid when the Arab Muslims there decided that women had no right to be on a governing board. What is feminism, if it isnt that?

I also find your arguments too conservative and specious to even begin to respond to. Your interpretation of science serves your an almost right wing agenda. I`m not interested.

Why exactly do people want to work? What exactly does it give them? If today I had the option of sitting at home, looking after the kids, and watching GEO on my new sattelite dish, wouId I accept it? My answer is not, ``Yes.`` But, ``Hell Yes.``

A career counselor told me in college that people work to earn money so they can use the money to do the things they really want. How true. Thus my aim in life has been to retire as quickly as I can. If the .com bubble had not burst, I may have reached my planned age of retirement at 40. Now I have to add five to ten years to it.

I am thus working only so I can retire as quickly as possible, and then do what I really want to do: travel, read, study some more. Perhaps become a professional student (like Saminashah :-), just kidding.....).

So, if today my wife were to come to me and say she wants to seriously move up the corporate ladder, and wants me to look after the house, I would agree. Assuming she actually does end up moving up that ladder.

Once a person has achieved some sort of financial independence, then I cannot think of anything better than not working. Contrary to popular belief, doing repititive work doesn`t really improve people much. One writes the same software over and over, or makes the same business deals over and over, each year. You learn some new skills, but not much. A much better way to learn is to not have to work, and spend all your time learning what you want to learn.

So barring the people who are doing cutting edge R&D like Dr. Salam, or writing creative stuff (like Faiz) or captaining the Pakistan cricket team, the rest of us are really in a hum-drum monotonous existense. The world will go on without us, equally efficiently. We raise our kids, in the hope that they will change the world, since we couldn`t. That is not real personal productivity.

Personal productivity cannot be reached, until the burden of a 9-5 job is no longer on our shoulders. So the women who have the option to remain at home or work (unlike men) should thank their lucky stars. They have the best of both worlds..........

--
ut you havent answered my question-when an entire gen of Pakistanis left Pak AFTER Partition and got their doctorates and jobs in countries that would offer jobs to BOTH spouses, what ``foreign`` feminism was that?
--

where did I say this ? Or how did you come to believe that I hold such views? Modern society and its conveniences make two-job families feasible. Few people have careers (a job as passion). for most it is just a means to an end. south asians abroad tend to be educated and are very pragmatic (and value education, house etc.). Most of them probably have explicitly no clue about feminist ideology. So the relevance of such ideology is moot. Sometimes the tradeoffs dont make sense. But what makes sense or not depends on values. There is no one set of utilities (values) that people are optimizing. If two people are forced to work in busy jobs because of a needlessly expensive mortgage, then they are paying for a bad decision. A downgrade of their wants might help them achieve a better lifestyle, doing the things that matter.

I believe that women are optimized to be homemakers (via biological and cultural evolution) and many feasible, near optimal solutions, involve women in the homemaker role. Women are foremost nurturers.. u cannot reverse biology. Instead of the male ``fight or flight`` response to stress, women are more likely to ``tend and befriend``(research by Shelly Taylor). Give me an example of any society in the planet, at any time in history, wherein males did most of the homemaking (examples exist in other animal species). Even within science, women gravitate towards choices that are more compatible with their aptitudes and preferences. In society women use technology that is more in line with their innate femininity (who communicates more via cell phones ? Analyze the difference between how men and women talk; men are more instrumental. women are all about feelings.. men have much less capabilities when it comes to understanding feelings.. so if a man says that he loves you he probably doesnt have a clue about your understanding of love)

For feminists, all this is societal conditioning; a view, that ignores the science. This is why it seems to me that they are so out of touch with what we know about human nature and I have a negative opinion about feminist academics (as people who build airy-fairy theories to suit their prejudices) housed in departments like womens/minority studies. These academic ghettoes have dubious reputations. They can only gain credibility by divorcing ideology from scholarly inquiry and absorbing from other disciplines that are less ideological.

There is no brave new world where roles can be reversed (discounting genetic engineering advances.. apparently men may not be required in the future for the propogation of the species). Consequently ex-feminists are realizing that having babies and looking after them can be much more fulfilling than monomaniacal career pursuits, especially given the biological clock.

My point (as Godot`s was) is that from a human rights perspective, things like equitable health care and education are FAR more important in south asia than the freedom to be openly homosexual or wear skimpy clothes. Sure it would be a sign of a liberal society to allow such expressions. Real feminists^tm focus on fundamental human rights problems. These cannot be solved by legislation but depend on a sophisticated, sympathetic understanding of cultures. Western feminism doesnt have a whole lot to offer here. I hope my position is clear.

Echoboom Sahib,

I`m sorry you dont understand what I`m saying. I come from a Pakistani American community where fathers and mothers both had phds and worked and raised their children to be productive citizens of their communities and country. The uncles, cousins, and uncles I have arent snivelling insecure and useless men who need religion to give themselves an importance that they themselves have not earned. Its funny, my father adored my mother for every ambition she has, as have many menfolk in my community, including my husband, who btw, is a much better Muslim than you could ever fantasize about being. So I know this is all bewildering for you, your having crawled from the rock under which you live. Detroit, is it?

Having said that, I spoke with my moms this morning and relayed some of the ``opinions`` being communicated here. She commented that one reason she could not move to Pakistan was the unchecked chauvinism of Pakistani men. She would not subject herself to that when she, like many Pakistani American prof. women have worked for and earned respect and authority within their fields. So, here is yet another aspect that we are still waiting for Godot to be honest and intelligent enough to explore...

waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting...

What the PHd in ``F-for feminism`` couldn`t figure out was that why the femaled with four or five off-spring are so happy in the kitchen & the laundry. They sing, they dance, they invited other young bubbly mothers breast-feeding their fourth or fifth goloo-moloos . Glowing, bubbly, beaming with not a care in the world; happily carousing the world resting on the arms of their devoted & devout husbands (godesses upnee jagaa, God upnee jagaa--Yeh majaaz, voh Haque)

It rankled the PHd in ``F-for feminism`` why these godesses [ breeders!--she called them with covetted contempt) do not want to mould theselves into her image. She would have known the answer if she had looked herself in the mirror. She had ceased to look herself in the mirror ever since she was dumped by the third wooer who panicked when he spotted her broom-keys next to her mace-gun. If she had seen herself in the she would have seen a craggy & crumpled face more like a femalish W.H. Auden`s[Click auden] with some lipstick & mascara applied without looking into a vanity--one can imagine such a sight. Most of her students were terrified & in awe of her which she mistakenly attributed to her etals & ibids.

Thes e et als & ibids she had been collecting from the day she discovered that it is impossible for any human to be intelligent if he couldn`t read or write. This education she had acquired from the knowledge-factories which have sprouted in the western world once it was discovered that colonislism cannot continue until & unless the minds are controlled. The sheer numbers of the colonised ones was scary & they knew that the Blacks, the browns, and the yellows are going to get them one day. Democracy always counts, never weighs!. These Counts of Democracy were getting snared in the web of their own weaving so they came up with brilliant idea of the Industry called education. One cannot make a dog work, unless the dog( & btch) can understand the command in the masters` lingo. To this day all the brown, black, & yellow Top-dogs speak to the pups of lesser dogs in english.

The PHd in ``F for feminism `` contemplated a lot about the matters which made men run away screaming & ashen when they took a look at her. She thought that such men are weak. ``Can`t handle a PHd westernised south-asian--Haah``. Well men are after all men they are not ogres who should be expected to drool romance at the sight of a any female, even a female-ogre.

(to be continued)

correction:

are NOT resentful

Hamid,

And yet I know of Pakistani and Pak American men who have made career decisions that would allow them to play a much greater role in child rearing while their wives worked at their prof. jobs.

Its nice that Mrs. Hamid and you agreed to her taking those years off. But lets not idealize it. Many women (and I am related to, taught by, work with) love their children, but also find their prof. work as important as men are purported to do. I have one prof., a trailblazer in her field tell us she couldnt wait to leave the house and kids to teach her seminars. My advisor, a brilliant theorist and prof, runs our dept. and took a year`s sabbatical to have her kid. She`s back at work. Another myth I see constantly propogated by men (because it seems none of the chowk women think its worth it to get involved in these discussions-doesnt that make you think?) is that working wives and mothers are resentful of having to live up to the sacrificial and happy mother image. For all the women workers who CHOOSE to become homemakers, there are, in North America, thousands of desi prof. women who have continued to work AND raise their children with their husbands.

This is yet another aspect -what these couples think about ``feminism`` that get overlooked in the gross generalizations.

samina,

....... i don`t want to get in trouble with you again ...... as a result of our last little argument, i have been reduced to reading billy collins !

....... i can`t speak for other people but in our case mrs hamidm wouldn`t hear of it so she ended up taking many years off ....... i think breast-feeding had some role to play in this decision (one simple act that i found myself incapable of performing) and also the fact that she could not bear to be away from those sweet-smelling babies ........... we tried a baby sitter with our first one when she was six months old - it lasted one week because it made mrs hamidm feel like a monster .......... and, as hard as it might be to believe, we have never, not once, used a baby-sitter to go out for dinner and a movie ........... of course, this has led to a lot of dicontent amongst the patrons of places of fine dining and movie theaters who have been subjected to whining kids who don`t like goose liver pate and fellini movies ! ..... tough!

........ and i did my part by giving up on big-time consulting so that i could be home on most nights to change diapers, cook meals and fold the laundry (a task that ranks right up there with collecting tolls on the ohio turnpike) .............. so we ended up with two second rate careers and a fairly good family life - a choice we have not regretted .............

.......... but one thing has to be said - and i might get into trouble for this - a man is not an exact substitute for a woman when it comes to raising kids ........ even though i have done my share of changing diapers, giving baths, getting ready for school, helping with homework and watching cartoons, i still get yelled at for not knowing how to make macaroni and get dumped like a useless sack of potatoes the minute mama walks in the door ............ most nights the three of them are huddled up under a blanket on the couch watching queer eye and commenting on my wardrobe while i sit all by myself on the love seat - where did i go wrong ?

Godot: I assume this article was your new year`s gift to saminasha. ;-)

South America is in the ``west``, isnt it?

GUATEMALA:
Women`s Lives Are Worth Nothing, Say Anti-Violence Activists

José Eduardo Mora


SAN JOSE, Dec 23 (IPS) - Luz Marina Aragón, a 44-year-old Nicaraguan woman, was murdered and chopped into pieces, which were put into plastic bags and cardboard boxes and scattered around Guatemala City. While her case is especially gruesome, it is just one of the 489 murders of women reported in Guatemala this year.

Statistics provided by the Women`s Protection Unit of the Guatemalan Attorney General`s Office place the Central American country, with a population of 12 million, at the forefront of the rest of Latin America with regard to the number of female murder victims, ahead of Honduras with 171, El Salvador with 96, and Colombia with 297 so far this year.

``As women, our lives are worth nothing in Guatemala,`` lawmaker Alba Estela Maldonado of the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) told IPS.

The number of murdered women is even more frightening in view of the fact that it reflects an increase of 106 violent deaths in comparison with last year.

But there is a slim chance of more effective policies being adopted to ensure women`s safety and protect their rights, Maldonado added.

According to Regina Fonseca of the Women`s Rights Centre in Honduras, the situation is similar in her own country. ``This is an issue of no interest to the government and other circles of political power,`` she said.

The panorama is bleak throughout Central America, where human rights groups and other civil society organisations predict an increase in violence against women in 2005, in keeping with the trend observed in recent years.

The lack of specific government policies to address this matter and the impunity surrounding these crimes are the main factors behind these alarming rates of gender-based violence, said Maldonado.

``Despite all of the murders committed in 2004, only one person has been prosecuted, which demonstrates the impunity that prevails in our country,`` she added.

Last year, with a total of 383 women killed, only two perpetrators were tried and sentenced.

A lack of awareness and concern on the part of society and high rates of poverty and unemployment are also factors that contribute to a climate conducive to horrific crimes against women in Guatemala, Maldonado noted.

Many observers believe that the high rate of violence in the country, which particularly affects women, is a consequence of the civil war that tore the country apart from 1960 to 1996, as the army and paramilitary forces attempted to quash the left-wing guerrilla insurgents.

The war left some 200,000 dead and over 50,000 ``disappeared``, the great majority of them unarmed indigenous people in rural areas.

Violence against women has grown steadily over the years, as evidenced by the death toll of 303 in 2001 and 317 in 2002.

Maldonado said that one of her main objectives as a member of Congress is to give greater ``visibility`` to the tragedy that affects the daily lives of the country`s women, yet is practically ignored by both the government and the public.

A study by the Mutual Support Group (GAM), a local human rights organisation, revealed that most of the women murdered in Guatemala were also raped, tortured or dismembered. Many were killed by their husbands or partners.

According to the research study, the main causes behind these crimes are domestic violence, which accounts for 21 percent, youth gangs or ``maras``, representing 20 percent, and drug trafficking, linked to another 20 percent.

In Maldonado`s view, the government of President Oscar Berger has given no signs of interest in remedying the frightening vulnerability of Guatemalan women.

The murder victims have all been between the ages of 16 and 36, and the vast majority are from the poorest sectors of society. In addition, most of the cases have been concentrated in Guatemala City, the capital.

``When we report these crimes, there is still a sector of society that reacts with a `counterinsurgency` mentality and claims that the figures have been falsified. This is the typical response of our machista, patriarchal society,`` said Maldonado.

The government`s failure to adopt policies aimed at curbing violence against women is reflected in details like the fact that the bodies of female murder victims are often picked up by the fire department, as opposed to the police, Maldonado noted.

This is a task that should fall to law enforcement agencies, who ought to be investigating the crime scenes in an attempt to solve the crimes, she underlined.

The state-run National Coordinating Agency for the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women (Conaprevi) is provided with no funding whatsoever to combat gender-based violence, according to the non-governmental Guatemalan Network to Stop Violence Against Women.

For his part, Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman Sergio Morales accused the Ministry of the Interior of being completely incapable of providing adequate security for the country`s citizens, and especially its women.

``The state has violated the human rights of women, because the security forces have not succeeded in curbing the high rates of crime, and there have been no effective policies adopted to eradicate violence,`` said Morales.

The Special Prosecutor`s Office for Women acknowledged that up until November of this year, it had received 9,420 reports of violence against women.

For Fonseca, the main problem is that the tragedy of these murdered women remains ``invisible`` for most of Central American society.

``The most difficult part of the struggle we are waging is that women in the region are fighting alone, because this issue is of no interest whatsoever to our political leaders, or the business community, or even the Catholic church, which could help a great deal if it denounced these crimes,`` she maintained.

This year in Honduras, there were 21 more women murdered than in 2003, when 150 violent deaths were reported.

``In Honduras there is a law against domestic violence that is applied only sporadically in the cities, and is completely unheard of in the rural areas,`` Fonseca noted.

She added that all of the country`s law enforcement and security efforts are focused on fighting the ``maras`` or gangs, which means that an issue as important as the appalling vulnerability of women is completely cast aside.

``Violence in general is very widespread in our country, but it is the misguided actions of the males in authority, combined with factors like high alcohol consumption, that contribute to the murders of women by men,`` Fonseca stated.

In Costa Rica, although the number of women murdered decreased from 29 in 2003 to 19 in 2004, the National Institute for Women is still unhappy that a bill to criminalise violence against women, which it sponsored, has yet to be voted upon by Congress after a five-year wait.

The bill, which passed an initial debate Dec. 15, will have to be submitted to a constitutional review demanded by the Libertarian Movement, which represents the Costa Rican far right in Congress and is fervently opposed to the proposed legislation.

The bill establishes prison sentences of 20 to 35 years for murders of women, and supporters believe it will serve as a deterrent against gender-based violence.

In the meantime, violence against women is also a serious concern in El Salvador.

The Prudencia Ayala Feminist Coalition of El Salvador has called on the government to adopt policies that will counteract the ``machismo and misogyny`` that allow the murders of women to continue unabated.

Given the increase in violent deaths this year, women in Central America will undoubtedly be forced to fight even harder in 2005 against the vulnerability they suffer, and the struggle will be especially vital for women in Guatemala, where terror and impunity reign. (END/2004)

warpster,

but you havent answered my question-when an entire gen of Pakistanis left Pak AFTER Partition and got their doctorates and jobs in countries that would offer jobs to BOTH spouses, what ``foreign`` feminism was that?

samina

smile :-) I guess I havent grown up and wont do so; especially as a grand parent of two!

I dont have any problem with the article I ccnp`d. Yes, it is about choices. Risky choices. But more males than females are ``sensation seekers``; they thrive on risk and reap the rewards. And more men than women are on the far side of the distribution.. so there is no clash with anything. its a tradeoff.. would u live 10 years less for a more exciting life ?

.. at least I have hamidm on my side.. or so I am led to believe :-).. other men dont count

correction:

make that South Asian sheltered and insecure child. And for the record, I know South Asian men who would laugh their heads off reading your arguments...

Warpster,

And finally, you seem to be afflicted with the same stereotypes your brothers are. ``Foreign`` ideologies? When the women in my fam, pukka Pakistanis continue to work at their scientific, legal, governmental and medical professions throughout raising, rearing and supporting thru college their children, what ``foreign`` ideology have they embraced?

I`m beggining to think what it means to be a Pakistani man in Pakistan is to be a sheltered and insecure child. Dont come to North America-you wont be able to handle what your female compatriots have acheived here-with none of the bs you ascribe.

Warpster,

How do the following passages jive with your ``ideological`` and ``legislative`` complaints?

Farrell is eager to point out the ways men and women can up their earnings, but he`s quick to say he doesn`t necessarily endorse the most vexatious behaviors. Ultimately, he`d like to see corporations recognize what they`re asking of workers and find ways -- from job sharing to flex-time and other solutions -- to make the burden of work less crushing.

And if corporations don`t embrace these changes on their own, they may find workplace reforms thrust upon them when they begin competing for young talent. In a Radcliffe-Harris poll, 70% of men in their twenties said they`d be willing to trade money for a chance to spend more time with their children. The gender wage gap may someday be solved not by legislation but by the best and brightest people simply saying, ``Sorry, you can`t pay me enough to take that job.``