LAST MONTH, Kerala witnessed another incidence of violence against women. On June 19th Sunday, Thasni Banu was on her way to work in Kochi on a bike driven by her friend. Oh, how can I forget? Her male friend. And it was 10:30 pm. According to her statement in a Malayalam interview, Thasni was to reach office for her shift at 11pm. Since they had some time, Thasni and her friend decided to stop for tea. In search of a tea shop, they took a different route and did find one. When they realised that there was no tea in stock, her friend bought a cigarette and together they walked towards the bike which was parked in front of the shop.
An auto rickshaw driver who had parked his auto near the shop said to her friend in a degrading tone, “Drop the girl back home.” (Of course, translating the undertones from Malayalam to English is near to impossible). Her friend explained that he was dropping her off at her office since she had a night shift and that she is just a friend. At that point, another person came by and asked them why they were standing there. Her friend repeated his earlier clarification. Both the driver and this person were drunk. Further, they asked him his name, address and even details on where exactly his house was located. He answered all of it. [Read More]
The mirror hangs before me
My long face stares back at me
a pointed chin
whose rounding I dread
A tiny forehead
gleaned from the thick mass
of black hair surrounding it.
At the black hair
now streaked with red
I oscillate between
fascination and nostalgia
The hair, mostly helter-skelter
sometimes, precise in a bun
A glazed eyeball
with its bit of plastic-glas lens
A newly pierced nose–
a shade too large
showing off that li’l bit of green
My ears trying to seek attention
with their multiple studs and rings
which I regard as pets
And a moody mouth.
but on the whole, a face
I can live with.
My skin the colour
of burnt caramel
a thin, supple body
I am unashamedly
in love with.
Bottles and vials lined
in an array on the slab beside me
the daily ritual
of cleansing, toning, conditioning
the creams and the perfumes
the chief kohl that lines my eyes
the earrings in their silver box
the cupboard with its
greater assortment of clothes
than i could ever wear
the occupational hazards
of being a young girl.
Oh Pope, and other misogynists!
We love being Belindas
and Belindas we shall remain
with our bottles and our vials
our bibles and our billet doux
and we rebel against rapes
of our locks and otherwise.
our bodies and their vagaries
and tricks we play with them
are ours.
And not playthings or objects
for your phallus
or that inglorious phallic symbol
your pen.
A FEW MONTHS AGO, I was outraged by the French reaction to the Roman Polanski case. I am similarly outraged with the French reaction to Dominique Strauss-Kahn or DSK. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the powerful International Monetary Fund, is accused of sexually assaulting a housekeeping staff in the posh Sofitel hotel in Manhattan. The charges against DSK are extremely serious and if convicted he could face up to 25 years in prison. He has maintained his innocence and a recent poll indicates that 57% of the French public believe he has been framed. What further complicates this story is the fact that a few months ago DSK allegedly claimed that since he is running for French presidency, there will be attempts to discredit him. More specifically, he claimed that anyone could be paid 500,000 Euros to falsely accuse him of rape in a parking lot. He also said the fact that he is Jewish might work against him, against the backdrop of covert and sometimes overt anti-Semitism in Europe. [Read More]
WHEN THE VERY FIRST group of white men landed in India, they must have been regarded with overwhelming curiosity and incredulity; not to mention, awe. Awe, that mix of wonder and admiration, is the perfect word to describe an Indian’s perception of the white man. Never before had they set eyes on such pinkish, delicate, gossamer skin. Ever since dark-skinned Indians became aware of a fairer race, they readily took the inferior place while the fairer group comfortably felt superior (as a relevant aside, there is a poignant essay by James Baldwinthat describes his experiences as an isolated black man in Switzerland). This has more or less been the relationship between the conquering white race and the subdued dark-skinned race for eons. In the past, dark skin has been viewed with revulsion and frequently associated with baseness. Even Shakespeare portrays Othello in bestial imagery. We would find such racial associations deplorable in the 21st century. In fact, discrimination of any sort is not condoned in most progressive nations. But the issue of color is not only one of racial discrimination in India. It is also an important gender issue.
It is an unwavering belief in people’s minds that fair-skinned women are beautiful. One can derive several corollaries from this unstated yet popular axiom. The most obvious one is that dark-skinned women are not beautiful. Fair skin has several associations — beauty, superiority, confidence, self-worth, etc., and such desirable qualities are easier achieved by fairer women. This belief is deeply entrenched in millions of minds and continues to be a successful discriminating factor in both social and inter-personal relationships. What was perhaps historically an issue regarding races, of the mixing of Aryan and Dravidian bloodlines, now pervades the Indian ethos, regardless of race and caste. And the Indian media has played a significant role in successfully exploiting this.
Corporations, like HUL with their fairness products like Fair and Lovely, are active perpetrators of the fairness fixation by exploiting the insecurities and ‘shortcomings’ of their vulnerable targets, women. The prevailing notion is that a fair complexion makes the woman more ‘marriageable’ or as I would rather call it, marketable.
This commercial is one of the many advertisements promoting fairness products like Fair and Lovely(the very juxtaposition of these two adjectives, creates the semblance of an equivalence and sends a strong message supporting the desirability of fairness). Though there are virtually hundreds of such commercials for the same product, the content remains the same. One need not understand the language spoken in the commercial to gather the message that is delivered. The dark complexioned woman, wearing dowdy, unattractive clothes, with an equally unobtrusive style of her hair, is overlooked by a potential suitor. Her eagerness for a courtship is instantly quelled and along with it dies her confidence. Fortunately for her, she discovers the magic of Fair and Lovely. Not only does it transform the color of her skin, it also fills her with self-confidence, enabling her to make the transition from a frumpy unattractive plain Jane to an ethereal pink-chiffon clad ideal beauty. No doubt, she is now chosen to be a bride.
It would be disingenuous if I do not mention the ‘revolution’ that has taken place in the media and its perception of women. Majority of Indian women are educated and employed and a significant number of them follow fast-track career paths. The marriage context is now incongruous. The companies brainstormed a way of selling fairness to the independent, modern woman. The content of the commercial is modified to depict a modestly attired but ambitious woman, who follows her passion, only to be met with disappointment because of her dark skin. Once again, Fair and Lovely does the trick and her dream is eventually made successful by a man who selects her based on her newly gained fairness.
It is hard to believe that these ‘new-age’ commercials pacified protesters of such products, till the time companies devised new strategies to increase the market share of their products by producing fairness creams for men and also, by expanding into the global market. Additionally, these products now masquerade as holistic cosmetics, employing euphemisms such as ‘complete skin-care’, ‘blemish-free skin whitening’ and ‘glowing fairness creams’. These camouflaged fairness products are a big hit among employed women who continue to harbor insecurities about their complexion and resort to suppressing their trauma of possessing dark skin.
Fairness creams for men is a miniscule component of the elaborate marketing mechanism of fairness products. The men’s products are a fairly recent entry into the Indian market; this is merely a marketing technique to explore newer territories rather than an exploitative method targeting a preexisting social stigma. Globalizing these products has brought about a furor again but at the same time it is being misconstrued as racism.
Regardless of how these products and the media have changed over the years, these products still erode a woman’s self-worth and promote an unhealthy self-image, that thwarts truly liberated self-expression. Even if one does not care for conformities, it is a tough battle to continuously ward-off impingements by a discriminating society that identifies fairness with beauty and success.
She’s a study.
A truncated,
Curving,
Elusive
Prometheus
With the moment,
this very one,
As her rock.
She’s a tangent, if you will.
She
extends
Over the planes;
A circle within a circle,
Submerging
The curling,
straining ends
Of the magnetized tracks.
She’s a limit, if you will.
She
Pulls a weight,
one with a shape,
Down
With a symmetrical force
On an uncoordinated world.
A flat, common prison.
Such silence,
Such nothing as we can only approximate
Is whole.
She’s an angle, if you will.
She
Tends
Towards infinity.
Shuttling,
Tantalizing,
Terrorizing
Effervescence.
She’s nearly there.
A tangent
Come
Almost full circle.
She’s similar, if you will.
She’s
out of view.
A silhouette
Out of the corner of one’s eye
A earring,
Shadows make startling distortions.
She will not correspond.
She’s adjacent, if you will.
I WAS SEVEN when my mother enrolled me in a karate class. There were 50 boys and I was to be the only girl. When I complained that girls didn’t do karate, she said there was no activity or job meant solely for boys — or for girls. I went on to become a lover of not just martial arts but also of gender equality.
Of course, as the only child in an upper middle class, educated family, I never confronted the larger problems of discrimination faced by many others. The ones I did see troubled me tremendously. I did not identify as a feminist until I turned 16 but long before that, I was quick to point out (loudly and vociferously) any sexist difference or discrimination that I perceived. I also rejected everything that was ‘feminine’, considering it something imposed by society. I hated needlework classes, preferred the games lesson instead. I didn’t just pretend to enjoy the ‘masculine’ activities; I actually liked them but there definitely was a desire to not get involved with ‘the other girls’. I rarely wore skirts or dresses and while my peers were trying on make-up for the first time, I was falling off my bicycle or skates.
YOU WANT TO LEAVE the city for a smaller town in the hills, to walk in cooler temperatures and climb roads that meander into valleys. You want to buy a glass of steaming milk from the man who sells his dairy in giant pots that rests on a kerosene stove. You want to sip the sweetened milk and watch late summer tourists take horse rides around the central area of town. You want to be alone in crowded market areas where families seek small town pleasures before heading back to their polluted cities. You want to buy trinkets from shops selling cheap ornaments and overpriced sweaters. You want to take your booklet and your favorite pen and write a few lines. You want to write alone, in a town where no one knows you, observing things in seclusion, in indulgent isolation.
And so you decide to go. Take the night bus alone unlike the other passengers who are accompanied by their families; families consisting of cranky children, bored husbands and housewives in colorful clothes. There will be single men who take the bus too, plenty of them, and only one of you.
FOR THE LAST FEW DAYS, all those working on the issue of falling sex ratio have been waiting with bated breath for the release of the provisional census data. That the child sex ratio (CSR) ie the number of girls per thousand boys in the 0-6 age group will register a fall was a foregone conclusion but the anxiety was about how much. The data is out, the wait is over and we still cannot breathe easy.
The CSR is an important indicator not only because it reflects the pre-birth elimination of girls but also the discrimination against girls once they are born. It is true that more girls die during childhood than boys. Some under enumeration also has to be factored in as many families do not report the presence of girls in the family. (Although, let me clarify that it is not a major contributor to the CSR.) At the national level, CSR declined from 923 to 914 between the last two censuses. The decline of 13 points from 2001 to 2011 as compared to 18 points between 1991 (945) and 2001(927) may offer some consolation to all those working on the issue. But the fact remains that gender discrimination continues to be rampant.
I MET A YOUNG WOMAN a few years ago. She had come to New Delhi and had found a job as an assistant in a small shop. She was also in love and her conservative family had come around to accepting her adult choice of a life partner. They were coming to Delhi the following month to formalize her wedding. She was looking forward to it, since single lodgings in the city tended to be shabby, solitary and dreary. “Please do come for my engagement ceremony,” she entreated, as her eyes lit up with excitement.
I assured her of my participation and left my phone number with her so that she could inform me about the date and the location. A couple of months went by but there was no phone call from her. Not seeing her on a subsequent visit to the shop I enquired about her. Her employer told me guardedly that she no longer worked there. On my insistent questioning, the harrowing details were divulged. A week before her supposed engagement, her family had marched into the city. Her mother and maternal uncles had forcibly dragged her back to the village with them. She had made a frantic phone call to her employer who offered her support. The phone call was cut short. When the employer tried to contact her again, she was told that the girl was returning to her village and would not come in to work anymore. The phone connection was also abruptly terminated. Meanwhile her beau visited the employer. He confided that he had been knocked off his bike on a couple of occasions and had subsequently received phone calls telling him these were warnings. His family was also threatened. There was no news of the ebullient girl who had wanted to chart her own destiny. [Read More]
