How Manosphere is Radicalizing Young Men

[First published in Women’s Web as Why Andrew Tate’s unprovoked attack on Greta Thunberg shows growing insecurity in men]

Two days after Christmas, former Kickboxing World Champion and ‘manosphere’ influencer, Andrew Tate decided to take a random dig at environmental activist , Greta Thunberg on Twitter-

“Hello Greta Thunberg. I have 33 cars. My Bugatti has a w16 8.0L quad turbo. My TWO Ferrari 812 competizione have 6.5L v12s. This is just the start. Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.”, he tweeted to his 3.4 million followers.

Twenty four hours later, when the unprovoked post started going viral with over 182K likes and 23.8K retweets, Greta Thunberg gave a fitting reply -

“yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com”.

Though both posts had roughly the same number of views, Thunberg’s putdown garnered over 2.5M likes and 500 K retweets, with people calling it the greatest burn of all times.

An enraged Tate then went ballistic. He first responded with “How dare you”, then tried an extremely puerile-

Beyond the smooth comeback, Greta Thunberg maintained a dignified silence, but Tate continued interacting with his fans indicated that Thunberg needed to be f***ed by Tate, and he saying that she wasn’t ready for him yet. All round it was a pathetic display of immature taunting, insecure boasting and gross male entitlement. That the unprovoked taunting and the subsequent meltdowns took place so publicly also opens up a debate on the corrosive influence that such ‘manosphere’ influencers might have on adolescents and young men who are struggling to find their place in the world and articulate their views on gender.

Tate is probably the best known voice in ‘manosphere’, a virtual space where men allegedly talk about “men’s issues” like fitness, dating, relationships, finance, and father’s rights. While all these are important topics and men certainly need a supportive ecosystem where they can discuss them, ‘manosphere’ doesn’t stop at offering guidance and support. The ‘manosphere’ actively promotes an anti-woman and anti-feminist ideology, where establishing the inherent superiority of men seems more important than helping young men negotiate a world which is striving towards gender equity.

Tate, for instance, describes himself as “absolutely a sexist” and “absolutely a misogynist,” and has gone on record saying that women “belong in the home” and that they are “given to the man and belong to the man.” He promotes a lifestyle that promotes the traditional form of masculinity which describes the male as protector, provider and patriarch, and restricts the role of woman to property which exists only to serve the man. He has, in the past, been removed from a reality show after a video surfaced of him hitting a woman, and he was recently de-platformed from many social media platforms for his extreme misogynistic views. Parents and educators are concerned about the growing popularity of ‘manosphere’ influencers like Andrew Tate, and have expressed their fear that by endorsing male superiority, they are radicalizing young men and challenging the struggle towards gender equity.

With more women asserting their right to greater gender parity at home and in the workplace, men are starting to feel that they are in danger of losing their social status and privilege. The demand for equality challenges privilege, and instead of embracing a more equitable world, many young men are starting to believe that feminism is a part of a global assault on masculinity. ‘Manosphere’ influencers like Andrew Tate work on the insecurities of these men and convince them that feminism will ensure they are emasculated, disposable, disrespected, discarded or even forgotten. They then radicalise the men with their clarion call towards reclaiming their “lost” masculinity and reasserting masculine sexual, physical and emotional authority over women.

This is an extremely worrying phenomenon, because in the guise of empowering them, ‘manosphere’ influencers like Tate are actually radicalising young men. Young men are being taught that it is weak to express emotions, that they are failures unless they have a subservient girlfriend, and that ‘real men’ have the right to exercise coercive control and inflict sexual and physical abuse on women. These radicalised young men feel threatened when women (and men) speak of gender equity, and perceive women’s empowerment as an erosion of their masculine superiority. For them, feminists are the enemy and feminism is ideology to be fought. Their belief of male dominance and female subservience is at odds with the quest for gender parity.

The ‘manosphere’ ideology can only be countered by a two-pronged approach.

Social media platforms should actively prevent the dissemination of problematic views expressed by Tate and other ‘manosphere’ influencers like him. While one can argue that censoring certain kind of content goes against the premise of free speech, it must be realised that freedom of expression cannot extend to hate speech, and extreme misogyny is a form of hate speech. Routine offenders like Tate should be de-platformed, and the reach of their old videos should be restricted.

In the long term, however, the only counter is through behaviour change communications. It is not sufficient that girls and women are empowered, it is equally important to enable boys and men to find their place in a society moving towards greater gender equity.

In a gender just world, men and women are the natural allies of each other. Young men should be empowered to understand that while it may appear that their privileges are being taken away, in reality, equity will enable people of all genders to be themselves instead of being forced to confirm to gender demarcated roles.

While Twitterati largely swooned over Greta Thunberg and the befitting response she gave Andrew Tate when he launched an unprovoked attack on her, his core group of followers still enjoyed how he “put her in her place”. This radicalisation of young men is not healthy, and needs to be recognised and countered.

“Thank you for confirming via your email address that you have a small penis. The world was curious. And I do agree you should get a life”, while also releasing a video of himself smoking a cigar and describing Thunberg as “a slave to the Matrix”

When will the so called 'honour killings' end?

[In a patriarchal society, the purity of caste, class and religion is rigidly maintained by controlling the sexual agency of women. First published in Women's Web.]

Trigger Warning: descriptions of extreme violence

Nagaraju and Syeda Ashrin Sulthana, a newly married couple were traveling on their two wheeler in a Hyderabad suburb when they were forced to pull up. In front of Ashrin’s eyes, the assailants attacked her husband with steel rods. She tried to shield him with her body, but she was pushed aside. She screamed and begged bystanders to intervene, but nobody came to her rescue. The assailants stopped only after Nagaraju was dead.

A dazed Ashrin later named her brother as one of the people who murdered her husband. It was what is called an “honour killing”.

Though we often hear of “honour killings” in India, this gruesome murder sent shockwaves because of the audacity with which it was conducted on the busy streets of a city, in full view of the public. It also shone the spotlight on how dangerous it can be for a couple to marry outside their prescribed faith and/ or community.

The crime can be looked at in multiple ways

Their’s was an interfaith union- Ashrin Sulthana was Muslim, while B. Nagaraju was Hindu. It was also an intercaste union- though Islam doesn’t have a formal caste system, Ashrin was a Syed which is considered one of the ‘highest’ communities, and B. Nagaraju was a Dalit.

In a statement made to the press, Ashrin stated that Nagaraju was willing to convert to Islam to marry her, but her family made it clear that they would not permit them to get married even after conversion. To her family, according to Ashrin, Nagaraju was an unsuitable suitor because he was from a lower caste. This is borne out by some of Nagaraju’s relatives who say that he was willing to convert so he could marry Ashrin, but her family was still not willing to accept the union. Even after the wedding, Ashrin feared for Nagaraju’s life, and her worst fears came true when her family killed him in an extremely gruesome manner.

Women ‘owned by their families and community’?

Regardless of whether Ashrin’s family killed Nagaraju because he belonged to a different religion or because he belonged to a different caste, the root cause of the crime is patriarchy.

It is the belief that the woman is the ‘property’ of the family and the community, and that she somehow brought shame upon them by marrying someone they deem unsuitable. For the family, the only way to restore their “honour” is by eliminating the man who dared make “their” woman fall in love with him.

Honour killings are not unknown in India, nor is it restricted to any one community. Whenever a couple ignores the barriers of caste, class or community and falls in love, they find themselves pitted against the might of their community.

“in every house is a life bomb that can erupt at any time. Do you know who that is? Daughters are the honour of the family and the community, and to protect them is our … duty and … culture.”

This statement was made by a VHP leader as quoted in Kavita Krishnan’s book Fearless Freedom, but it could well have been uttered by Ashrin’s brother, or by the families of the countless other women who fall in love with a man outside their community, and are willing to defy their family to marry him.

In a patriarchal society, the purity of caste, class and religion is rigidly maintained by controlling the sexual agency of women. When a woman chooses to fall in love with someone outside her tightly controlled community, she threatens the established order of things. Her family perceives that their “honour” is challenged when a man who is deemed unsuitable because of birth based limitations succeeds in winning her affection.

Everything is tried to break up a couple like this, including violence

When the family finds out about such a relationship, they exert tremendous emotional and physical pressure on the woman to give up the man she has fallen in love with, and marry someone who they deem suitable. Most women give in to this intimidation or are tortured into submission. It takes extraordinary courage for the women to defy the community and marry the man they love.

Even after the couple has got married, the family feels compelled to restore their lost prestige by breaking up the couple. The family attempts to intimidates the couple through emotional blackmail, or by threatening violence. Often, the family of the woman even file false cases of rape and abduction against the man to coerce him into walking away from the relationship. For instance, while analysing all the cases of sexual assault that came up in the sessions courts in Delhi in 2013, it was found that 40% of cases involved parents filing cases of kidnap and rape against young men who their daughters had eloped with- most of whom were inter- caste or interfaith couples who chose to defy parental opposition to the relationship. The family resorts to honour killings when such intimidation fails.

Nothing can get back the dead – what justice?

Ashrin’s brother and his associates have been arrested for the gruesome murder of Nagaraju, and the police has promised to fast track the case. In this case, since the politicians and civil society have condemned the crime and demanded justice, and the entire crime was caught on video, it is likely that justice will be served. In other cases, however, the perpetrators often get away because with her husband gone, the woman succumbs to grief and emotional pressure and doesn’t push hard enough for conviction.

While Ashrin may get justice, that will not bring Nagaraju back to life. Ashrin will not only live with the guilt that it was her love that got her husband killed, she will have to face a family that will continue to blame her for “bringing dishonour upon them” and indirectly causing the imprisonment of her brother.

It is not enough to merely respond to an honour killing after it has taken place. We need to create and maintain networks that support people who are in inter caste and interfaith relationships. This should include proactively ensuring the safety of such couples, but enabling them to file a formal complaint against families that threaten their safety. If required counselling support should also be provided to the families of such couples to help them accept the relationships.

Most importantly, those of us who believe in the right of young women and men to love without fear should stand up against patriarchy, and against a system that seeks to maintain caste and religious purity by breaking up such unions. Till the larger society starts to accept the agency of women to love who they want, such tragedies will continue to occur.

Book review- Inferior, by Angela Saini

Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story, 2017

As a woman who speaks about gender equity, I am often gaslighted by people saying "but you cannot deny that there is an intrinsic difference between men and women. Women are meant to be nurturers. Why would you want to claim equality when you are actually superior."

While my response to them is to attempt to explain that except child bearing and lactation, everything else is gender agnostic, 'Inferior' adds to my arsenal by giving evidence that the psychological differences that we see are largely shaped by culture and not biology.

Everything that Angela Saini says in the book, Inferior, is in public domain. What she does it put it all together in one place in a manner that is easy to digest and refer to later. The chapter I particularly liked was on Women, the Gatherer, where she gives examples to show that even in hunting, which is considered the one profession that was the exclusive preserve of men, women were more effective in bringing home a regular source of hunted meat.

It was almost frustrating to read about the sexist attitude of people like Charles Darwin who really should have known better-

"I certainly think that women, though generally superior to men [in] moral qualities are inferior intellectually, and there seems to me to be a great difficulty from the laws of inheritance (if I understand these laws rightly) in their becoming the intellectual equals of man."

You can feel her pain when she says, about how women in science- 

"science has failed to rid us of the gender stereotypes and dangerous myths we've been laboring under for centuries. Women are so grossly underrepresented in modern science because, for most of history, they were treated as intellectual inferiors and deliberately excluded from it. It should come as no surprise, then, that this same scientific establishment has also painted a distorted picture of the female sex. This, in turn again, has skewed how science looks and what it says even now."

While she talks at length about science, the same holds true in almost every profession. Women need to overcome many invisible challenges to enter and compete in most professions- to then use the fact that women are underrepresented to draw the conclusion that women are not suitable for the profession is an insidious self-reinforcing fallacy.

Angela Saini calls out the establishment that selectively uses data that reinforces their claims, while underplaying data that could discredit it. However, there are times when her own personal biases against certain researchers comes through- you certainly agree with her, because those people ended up doing a lot of harm, but the book would have been more powerful if she had let the data speak instead of sneaking in a few sly points. 

Overall, a book I am going to return to often, and one which I hope more people read before with an open mind. 

To end, a quote from the book- 

"equality isn't just a political ideal but every woman's natural, biological right."

Women deserve their own headlines

[First published in Women's Web as World Squash Champ Dipika Pallikal Is More Than A Cricketer’s Wife, So Let’s Not Say ‘Wife Of’ In News Headlines!]

"Dinesh Karthik's wife Dipika Pallikal powers India to HISTORIC World Doubles Squash C'ships titles", screamed the headline on Zee News, after the 30 year old squash champion teamed up with Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa to win both the mixed doubles and women's doubles titles at the World Doubles Championships in Glasgow.

30 year old Dipika Pallikal gained national prominence after she powered her way to three WISPA titles in 2011, and broke into the top 10 the following year.

Her career is peppered with many firsts- first Indian squash player of either gender to reach the finals of a ‘Silver’ event and the first to reach the semi finals of a ‘Gold’ event.

She, along with Joshna Chinappa, won the Squash Women’s Doubles Gold Medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2014, and has been a part of the gold medal winning team at the South Asian Games in 2016, the silver medal winning team at the Asian Team Championships in 2016 and the silver medal winning team at the Asian Games in 2014.

Dipika Pallikal was the first female squash player to win the Arjuna Award in 2012, and had the Padma Shree conferred on her in 2014.

Anybody who follows sports in the country knows Dipika Pallikal, and how she has literally redefined squash in the country. Dinesh Karthik, on the other hand, though a decent cricketer, has lived in the shadow of his more illustrious teammates, and never achieved the kind of heights she did.

Yet, Zee News thought that the most appropriate way to headline an article about her success was by mentioning her cricketer husband.

While one can certainly argue that cricket is almost a religion in India, and even cricketers who are merely a part of IPL squads have greater brand recall than international level sportsmen in other sports, that is not sufficient reason to describe a person as someone’s wife, and certainly not in the headlines, which should celebrate her achievement, not his name.

When this was called out on social media, the responses ranged from the blatantly misogynistic. From “People don’t want to know what Dipika does. She is just Karthik’s wife”, to the absolutely inaccurate, “Physical differences between men and women makes it that way. Nobody likes a less physically dominated event”.

There was even a person who made a blatantly arrogant statement like “Women should stick to beauty contests”, despite the fact that women’s sport is as physically demanding as men’s sport, and that female sportspersons need to work as hard as their male counterparts to compete at the international level.

While most of the people defending the headline are seemingly unaware of the existence of any sport other cricket, it is also a case of blatant male arrogance which decides that women need to be defined in terms of a relationship. Zee News used Dinesh Karthik’s name in the headline because in India, a woman’s identity is defined in terms of being a daughter, a wife or a mother.

Happens EVERY time!

There was the time when an Indian publication referred to the economist Esther Duflo as Abhijeet Banerjee’s wife, conveniently ignoring the fact that Banerjee and Duflo shared the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2019. While Banerjee is certainly more senior than Duflo, her identity is and should be independent of that of her husband.

Tennis player Sania Mirza brought laurels for India long before her marriage to a Pakistani cricketer, but his name is always mentioned in any article about her- the reverse is almost never the case.

This also manifests itself in small acts of internalised misogyny, in daily life.

When I speak to a school teacher, I introduce myself as the mother of their student. My husband, on the other hand, first introduces himself by name, and then mentions the name of the child. I used to think it was quite ridiculous, because the teacher doesn’t care who we are, but is concerned only about the student whose parent we are, but now I wonder if by not introducing myself by name, I am subconsciously negating my identity.

In a society which seeks to reduce women to relationships, maybe each of us should insist on maintaining our own individuality in every setting.

On the issue of Dipika Pallikal being headlined as Dinesh Karthik’s husband, however, there is hope. Noted cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle called it out on social media and said that the headline was demeaning to a campion like Dipika Pallikal.

Though a number of people accused him of being a ‘pseudo feminist’, the post was immediately retweeted by Dinesh Karthik.

More importantly, though it took them a few hours to do so, Zee News did edit the headline to ensure that the spotlight remained on Dipika Pallikal and her amazing success in winning two gold medals at the Doubles Championships.

We can only hope that in future media houses are more careful in how they refer to women who, despite being married to successful men, are also successful in their own right.

Author’s note: Screenshots here are of the original headlines, since they were subsequently changed.

When Will Smith Slapped Chris Rock, Did He Consider What Jada Pinkett Smith Wanted?

 [First published in Women's Web]

The Oscar Awards, 2022 will not be remembered for the Best Movie, the Best Actor(s) or the Best Director. It will go down in history as the ceremony where a Best Actor nominee slapped the person anchoring the show.

By now, we would have all heard the sexist, ableist and distinctly unfunny “joke” that Chris Rock cracked about Jada Pinkett Smith and her struggle with Alopecia. And we would certainly have seen Will Smith stride onto the stage, place a resounding slap on Rock and continue to utter profanities well after he returned to his seat. Maybe we would have heard Will Smith’s speech after accepting the Award for Best Actor, where he said that “love makes you do crazy things.”

The so called joke made fun of a medical condition, and was in extremely poor taste. Thankfully, nobody is defending the crass joke, but there are still three main reactions- 

• people defending Will Smith for “protecting the honour of his family”
• people condemning Will Smith for resorting to a public act of violence, instead of calling it out with words
• people calling out the people calling out Will Smith, though their reasons for doing so are not clear

Let us leave the last category out, and look at just the first two.

The people in the second category agree that the “joke” was sexist and ableist, and that ideally it should never have been cracked. However, they firmly believe that violence is not an appropriate response, and that if Will Smith wanted to be seen as doing something, he should have taken the mike and called out Chris Rock in no uncertain terms. As a public figure, Will Smith is, willy-nilly, a role model for young people, and this sends out the message that violence is justified when you perceive that the honour of “your” woman has been questioned.

Will Smith’s acceptance speech after winning the Award for Best Actor, they say, is quite problematic too. While he apologised to the Academy and the other nominees for the violence, when he said, “love makes you do crazy things”, he was in a sense justifying the act of violence. Violence is never an answer, yet Will Smith’s action and subsequent reaction send out a clear message that when you perceive that the honour of your family is threatened, you are allowed to indulge in acts of violence.

The people in the first category are drawing on their own experience of times when they were called upon to defend their loved ones to justify what Will Smith did. Though they say that they will not themselves slap someone in public, they argue that when you are enraged, you can be excused for over-reacting. There are people who are sharing stories of their loved ones who suffered from the same medical condition to tacitly justify his action. What this category of people doesn’t seem to recognise is that nobody is denying Will Smith’s right to be enraged; all that people are questioning is the manner in which he acted on that anger.

There is no justification for the physical and verbal violence unleashed by Will Smith, and people defending the action do not seem to be aware of the strong message that he has sent out to young people. Also, the only reason he was able to get away with it was because he is a top actor who was nominated for Best Actor- had it been a relatively unknown person, would the organizers or the audience be as charitable in defending him? 

If you look closely at the video, you see that when Chris Rock cracked the “joke”, Will Smith’s immediate reaction was to laugh. The camera was panning him, and he was enjoying the moment. It was only when he saw Jada Pinkett Smith roll her eyes and glare at him that his smile disappeared and he got up and strode to the stage. While it is possible that the laughter was not because he found the “joke” funny, but because the ‘Bro Code’ kicked in, the fact that he laughed undermines his future action- if you laughed at a “joke”, do you have the moral right to object to someone else cracking it? 

“Don’t you want a partner who will defend you the way Will Smith defended his wife?”, some people ask. 

Actually, no. I do not want a partner who first laughs at a ‘joke’ made at my expense, and then flexes his muscles to defend me. 

What Will Smith did was indulge in toxic masculine behaviour. By walking up and punching Chris Rock he behaved exactly like men throughout history have behaved when they perceive that their property is in danger. He didn’t really care about what Jada Pinkett Smith wanted - at that moment all he wanted to do was to show the world what a wonderful man *he* was, and how well he could protect *his* wife. 

That was certainly not how Jada Pinkett Smith would have wanted to deal with the issue. Her eyeroll was evocative. She would have certainly followed it up by either a sound byte, or an article or an interview where she would have spoken about the medical condition and how such jokes were inappropriate. The focus would have been on the condition and how such jokes were insensitive and potentially triggering. By choosing to walk up and punch Chris Rock, Will Smith actually appropriated his wife’s pain and made it about himself.

In his Acceptance Speech after winning the Oscar, though Will Smith apologised for the violence, he justified it by saying “but, love will make you do crazy things”. As an A-list celebrity who is a role model for young people, Will Smith should be aware of the impact of a statement like that. “It is love that made me do it”, is the standard excuse used by every perpetrator of domestic violence. By saying it on a global stage, Will Smith provided legitimacy to the standard excuse, and that is something women do not need.

The entire incident has exposed the fault line in how men perceive women. Unlike what men believe, women do not need knights in shining tuxedos to save them. Women are perfectly capable to defending themselves; all that they want from men is for men to back them up when required. Men, if they want to be allies, should take cues from women instead of appropriating their struggle for personal glory.

Is Bismah Maroof Bringing Her Baby To The World Cup Really A Statement Of Gender Empowerment?

 [While praising Bismah Maroof for bringing her baby on tour, gender stereotypes are actually being reinforced. It's assumed that as the mother she is the primary parent, something we never assume for male sportspersons. First published in Women's Web]

Photographs of the Pakistani cricket captain Bismah Maroof arriving in New Zealand for the ICC Women’s World Cup with her six month old baby in her arms went viral on social media. People went crazy hailing it as a “powerful picture”, the “best picture of the day” and “powerful statement”. Some even expressed the desire that it be “normalised in sports”.

While one, without reservation, admires Bismah Maroof’s achievement of getting back to competitive sport so soon after pregnancy and childbirth, is the fact that the cricketer had to take her baby on tour with her really the statement of gender empowerment that it is made out to be?

While praising Bismah Maroof for bringing her baby on tour, gender stereotypes are actually being reinforced. It is being implicitly assumed that mother is the primary parent for a child, and that once she gives birth, anything else that a woman might want to do can only be taken up after fulfilling her role as a mother. This has always been the case at least in the subcontinent, and what she has done is merely in keeping with the old patriarchal traditions.

Playing international cricket, especially as captain is a full-time job. You have to practice for long hours, lead strategy sessions, play matches, give post-match press conferences and provide moral support to the rest of the team. To do all that, and also be a caregiver for a child is to demand too much from anyone. And that is exactly what Bismah Maroof will be forced to do.

In an ideal relationship, parenting will be gender agnostic. It would be a responsibility shared equally by both parents, and at any point, the one who is better placed to be the primary caregiver will take on that responsibility. In such a relationship, either the child would have been left home with the father, or if she is still breastfeeding, the father would accompany the baby, and be accountable for its well being. Here, however, the father is conspicuous by his absence, and it is Bismah Maroof and her mother who are taking on the entire responsibility of caring for the baby in an unknown location.

This is patently unfair on her. It is not the duty of the mother to take sole responsibility for parenting. While biology dictates that pregnancy and childbearing is the sole prerogative of women, child rearing is merely a role thrust on women by society. By expecting the women to be the primary caregiver, the father is effectively being let off the hook, which he should not be. It is his child also.

While praising Bismah Maroof, people are hailing her as someone who “has it all”- a woman who is leading her national cricket team, without compromising on her responsibilities as a mother. But does she really “have it all”? By praising her for being a hands on mother, she has effectively been guilt tripped into taking on much more than her fair share of the burden.

Let us try to gender reversal. Imagine MS Dhoni taking his daughter to a world cup tournament, without the mother of the child accompanying them. Imagine him gently rocking the child to sleep while explaining batting strategies to the team. Imagine him fielding, with half his mind on the child and whether she can wait a little longer to have her meal. Imagine him spending the lunch and tea break coaxing the child to eat something. Imagine him not partying or socialising with his teammates because he needs to give his child a bath, read a bedtime story and put her to bed. Imagine him waking up a couple of times at night because the child was restless, and yet waking up early in the morning to go to the nets for practice.

We struggle to imagine any of this. We know that even if his family accompanies him on tour, it is the mother who looks after the child while the father plays cricket, and all he does is occasionally play with the child and maybe carry her with him while going out for the toss.

Why then do we presume that there is nothing wrong in the mother being the primary caregiver for her child? When no male sportsperson at the international level has ever taken a child with him to a tournament without the presence of the mother, why do we take it for granted that a mother who wants to continue to play cricket will take the child along on tours?

Much has been made of the fact that she has often and publicly thanked her husband and his family for “supporting her ambition” to play cricket for the nation. But what is the nature of “support” that she has really got when neither her husband nor anyone from his family thought it fit to accompany her on tour to look after the child?

This can only be understood as a phenomenon unique to the subcontinent where a woman is conditioned into thinking that the sole responsibility of caregiving vests with her, and she is not supposed to work outside the home. If her husband and his family “allow” her to work outside the home without doing anything to reduce her workload at home, she should remain eternally grateful for the concession. Women in that position do everything it takes to ensure that there is no room for any complaints on the caregiving and housekeeping front, since that is the price that is to be paid for being allowed to work.

Yes, Bismah Maroof is lucky that she was granted maternity leave, and the Board allowed her to bring her mother and daughter along to the tournament.

But that throws up a different question- what if her employer was not supportive? Would her husband and his family have taken on the full burden of caregiving so she could leave the child at home and go on tour?

Most unlikely. In all probability, she would have either delayed having the child, or given up her job. Is this even something a man would consider? Becoming a parent doesn’t disrupt their lives as it does the lives of the women.

While we can, and must, hail Bismah Maroof for bringing her six month old baby on tour, we must also recognise the fact that this incident shines light on the fact that we in the subcontinent have a very long way to go before we achieve gender parity within the family. Child rearing is gender agnostic. Fathers should take on an equal share of parenting.

“I Want To Be Like You”: That Woman Who Inspires

[Every young woman needs that someone who shows her what she can be. Each of us has it in us to be that someone who shows another what they can be. First published in Women's Web]

I was in grade 5, when Lekha joined as a Management Trainee in the Company where my father worked. Till that point, I had been an overachiever academically, but I had only the vaguest idea of what I could be.

Lekha changed that.

Lekha dressed differently from the other women. She laughed with more confidence. When men spoke about her, they spoke with a deference not normally accorded to other women. When women spoke about her, it was with a tinge of envy. Above all, she lived alone in her own tastefully done up studio apartment with white net curtains.

I had no idea what Lekha did. But I wanted to be like her.

I wanted to be independent.

I wanted to take my own decisions.

I wanted to be someone in my own right.

Like Lekha.

“The idea of possibility, the idea that I get to live my dreams out in public, hopefully, will show to other folks that it’s possible.” – Transgender activist Laverne Cox

Lekha is an engineer. I didn’t follow her career path. But she showed me what I could be.

She was the inspiration a pre-teen me needed.

Many years later…

I was staying in a guest house while advising a PSU on its potential divestment. In a place reserved for middle and top management, I was the object of curiosity both because of  my relative youth and because of my gender.

One night, at dinner, a family that was also staying at the guest house befriended me. I was bombarded with the usual questions – why was I there, who was I with, where did I work, was I married. After fielding the questions, more out of curiosity than anything else, I asked their teenage daughter what she wanted to be.

“I want to be like you”, she said.

Life had come a full cycle.

She had no idea who I was, what I had studied or what work I did. All she could see was an older woman who was someone in her own right, undefined by her relationship to a man.

That independence appealed to her. And she wanted to be the same.

“You cannot be what you cannot see.”

Female role models are important. When young girls see women doing well on their terms, it empowers them to work harder against gender biases, institutional barriers and negative stereotypes and achieve more.

Be that role model if you can.

Should the legal age of marriage be raised to 21?

 [On the face of it, Yes. But there are nuances that need to be considered. Published in Women's Web]

The Union Cabinet has cleared a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21, and will be introducing a Bill seeking the Amendment soon. On the face of it, it seems like a great move, but if you look at the ground reality, is it really such a good idea to raise the age of marriage for women from 18 to 21?

As per current statistics, upto 30% of women in India were married before the age of 18*, despite the fact that the legal age for marriage was set at 18 years in 1978. This conclusively proves that the law alone is not a deterrent against child marriage.

Many of us believe that child marriage is due to lack of awareness about the minimum legal age of marriage. However, the causes are actually much deeper. It is for convivence, out of concern for the safety of the child, or because of societal pressures.

In families/ communities where women are not encouraged to go out to work, there is little to be gained by educating a girl beyond a certain level. Such girls are married off as soon as a suitable groom is found. Typically in these families the search for a groom begins after the girl attains puberty, and she is often married soon after completing her class 10 board exams.

In households where both parents engage in labour, even if the girl is sent to high school, she is forced to stay alone at home for a few hours every day after school. Parents perceive this as a risk, so unless there are safe after school activities, they get the girl married off as soon as possible. Typically, such marriages take place after the girl graduates from the local school, and needs to travel to another village for further studies.

In many communities, traditional livelihoods require a woman to assist her husband in a part of the livelihood process (to give a few examples- toddy tappers need wives to make jaggery, weavers are assisted by their women in the preparatory process, sugarcane harvesting requires a couple to work in tandem). In such communities, girls are necessarily married off early since their economic value is unlocked only after marriage (in some communities which rely on entertainment as a source of income, even girls as young as 14 are married off).

Once a girl attains puberty, her “safety” becomes of prime concern to the family. If the family suspects she may be in a relationship, or that someone “unsuitable” is interested in her, she is typically married off to the first man the family can find. The legal age of marriage then works against her, because she needs to wait to attain that age for fear her parents will have the marriage annulled otherwise, but the family has no such fear.

Though we often think that child marriage is a product of poverty, it is not. Even in “well to do” and “well placed” families if a suitable match is found, the girl is engaged to be married, and the wedding solemnised as soon as she turns 18. If the match is extremely “good”, and if the groom’s family is unwilling to wait, the wedding takes place even before the bride turns 18.

All these factors ensure that the rate of “child marriage” in India is between 27% (UNICEF) to 47% (ICRW), despite the fact that the legal age of marriage was set at 18 more than 2 generations ago.

What, then will happen if the legal age is raised to 21? It will not necessarily delay marriages. All that will happen is that the percentage of women being married before legal age will shoot up, making the woman far more vulnerable than she now is.

Assuming a family allows the girl to study upto Class XII, she will graduate high school at the age of 17/ 18. What after that? Most families do not want their girls to travel long distances either to work or to go to college, so unless there is a college that is perceived as “safe” in the neighbourhood, she will be kept at home for 3 years.

OR, she will be married off. Regardless of what the law says.

If the law refuses to recognise a union conducted before legal age, then the “child-bride” will not have any legal rights in her marital home. She will be far more vulnerable to emotional, physical and sexual abuse than she is now where the law is on her side. In case of pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies, she will be subject to unnecessary harassment, and this could even lead to unsafe abortions.

The law will also work against women who want to marry partners who are deemed “unsuitable” by their families. They will necessarily have to wait till she turns 21 for fear of the family using the law to pull them apart. But if the family suspects such a union, they will get her married before legal age since they do not have any such fear.

What then is the solution?

Education

Awareness

Empowerment

What is needed is to work at the community level to create awareness on why child marriage is not desirable both from the health perspective and from a social perspective.

What is needed is for the community to recognise that a woman is as capable as a man in creating economic value, she will no longer be seen as a burden which is to be set down at the earliest possible.

Once this happens, the age of marriage will go up organically.

I have personally witnessed this in two communities where we worked over a sustained period.

In one rural community, the average age of marriage for girls was 14, which coincided with the end of schooling in the local government school. Once the community realised the value of continuing the education, and began sending them to high school in the nearest town, the number of child marriages dwindled. After graduating from high school, many of the girls who would otherwise have been married at 14 enrolled in technical/ vocational courses, and the community was determined to not get them married till they were economically independent.

The experience in an urban slum community was equally dramatic. Girls were earliest married at the age of 15 or 16, but after a few years of intervention, the average age of marriage shot up to above 20. In that community it is common to see families where the first born girl(s) were child brides, but their younger siblings are in college, and where the mother proudly declare, “we will get our daughter married only when she wants it.”

History has shown that enacting a law alone has not been enough to deter child marriage. What is needed is sustained behaviour change communication at the community level to ensure that the community recognises the value of educating and empowering the girl child.

Lokmanya Tilak exemplifies this contradiction between the legal and the personal. At a time when girls were married before puberty and many died at childbirth when the marriage was consummated, he opposed raising the legal age of marriage to 14. It was his belief that the law should not “meddle” in the personal life of people, and that we should, instead, focus on changing behaviour. He followed up by ensured that his own daughters were not married before the age of 16.

One can challenge Tilak’s position on the grounds that a law was needed to save the lives of the child brides who’s bodies were ravaged by pregnancy and childbirth before they were ready for it. However, that is no longer the case today. While it is desirable for a woman to get married at 21 rather than at 18, the lower age of marriage is not a health risk. Hence, it is better to lead the change from the social perspective.

Before talking of raising the legal age of marriage for girls, let us first ensure that the existing law is implemented.

* this is an approximation. Studies from reputed agencies show the figure as anything between 27% to 47%.

The Objectivisation of Women in Sport

 [This article has been published in Women’s Web under the title “2021 Olympics, When Women Athletes Refused To Play By Objectifying Rules Made By Men”]

Think gymnastics, and the first image that comes to mind is of a young woman clad in rhinestone studded leotards performing gravity defying moves. Her make-up is prefect, her hair neatly coiffured, and her leotards cut suggestively to make her look sexually attractive. Think specifically of the male gymnast, and he is either in a full body suit or shorts. When routines are rated entirely on the complexity of the move, and the skill in performing them, why is the female gymnast expected to look pretty and smile, while her male counterpart can get away with just executing the routine.

The rules of the International Gymnastics Federation clearly specify that female gymnasts can wear full body leotards which cover the legs, yet sexy leotards are so normalized that regardless of what they wear while training, every gymnast picks one for competitions. You could argue that she is “choosing to wear” leotards with a racy cut, but the reality is that most people find it hard to go against what has been deemed acceptable traditionally. Recently, the German gymnastics team made headlines when they chose to wear full body suits in competition to unitedly take a stand against the overt sexualisation of the sport. Had only one gymnast attempted to do so, she would have certainly faced a lot of pushback.

Beach handball and beach volleyball, unlike gymnastics, do not even attempt to hide the fact that the female athlete is sexualized. The rules clearly specify that while the can compete in shorts, women are only permitted to do so in bikinis. When the Norwegian beach handball team chose to swap their bikini bottoms for thigh length shorts, they were fined and threatened with expulsion. This despite the fact that many women who play the sport have said that wearing shorts instead of bikinis will permit them to concentrate on the game without worrying about the uniform slipping.

The official stance by the authorities is that the uniform specifications have been framed in order to ensure that the athletes have the full range of motion. But when men can play in loose fitting knee length shorts and tank tops, why can’t the women? Clearly the guidelines on competition wear have been framed presuming that spectators are more interested in watching beautiful women in bikinis than in watching competition level sportswomen in action.

In case we think that beach volleyball and beach handball are the only sports that blatantly sexualize and commodify the bodies of women athletes to boost viewership, think again. In 2011, when professional badminton saw a decline in interest and viewership, the regulators came up with the perfect solution to bring back spectators- show more skin. The Badminton World Federation passed a decree that ‘to create a more ‘attractive presentation,’ women must wear skirts or dresses to play at the elite level.’ This was revoked after major push back from female athletes, especially Muslim athletes who compete in professional badminton in large numbers.

Tennis has similar rules. Many tournaments specify that women should wear skirts or dresses, even though most women tennis players train in shorts. A top ranked player, Eugenie Bouchard, was asked to twirl and describe her outfit after she demolished her opponent in less than an hour; is a male tennis player similarly asked to flex his muscles?

This sexualisation is not only at the elite level. It permeates all the way down. A couple of years back, when I went to the showroom of a popular sports brand to buy running shorts, I was asked to choose between itsy-bitsy ‘barely there’ shorts, and skin tight cycling shorts. The male section had the loose fitting shorts I wanted, and I have stopped even stepping into the ladies section now. Yes, there are women runners who genuinely like the racy shorts and tank tops and believe that they aid their performance, but shouldn’t the women who are not comfortable wearing those clothes be offered a choice without having to sneak clothes out of the men’s section?

The overt sexualization of sportswear is symptomatic of a larger issue. Instead of respecting the talent, hard-work and dedication of the sportsperson, the worth of a woman is reduced to the viewership she can draw on the basis of her physical appearance and her on and off court personality. There has to be a change in how the media portrays womens’ sports- the focus has to shift from overt sexualisation to sporting prowess.

Also, all sports should offer a broader variety of uniforms to choose from, so all sports persons can choose the one they are most comfortable with. This would empower women to choose how they present themselves to the audience.

Seeking Perfection

 

“Are you a vegan?”, I asked a friend who is a great believer in leading a sustainable lifestyle.

“I call myself an imperfect vegan”, she replied before going on to explain how she had largely shifted to soymilk, but that she still occasionally consumed dairy products.

It obviously led to a much larger discussion on sustainability. On the carbon footprint of many food items which serve as substitute for dairy products. And on how soybean production may force farmers to shift from food crops to cash crops, and to clear more forest land for production.

It is not just about the crop. There is also the issue of the tetrapacks in which the soymilk is marketed; till they can go for recycling, the addition to landfills would have to be factored in before shifting to the alternative.

Towards the end of the discussion we concluded that perhaps the most effective way to turn vegan is to give up all milk products and milk substitutes, but that is not easy for most.

Therefore, we concluded, it was best to remain ‘imperfect vegans’. People who would like to embrace the vegan lifestyle, but who are not able to turn fully vegan just yet.

Which reminded me of another similar conversation that was initiated on Twitter a couple of weeks back- on how many of were ‘imperfect feminists’, because there are times when we consciously or unconsciously look away when some slightly ambiguous aspects of feminism crop up.

There are also the small and big compromises you make. The rituals you go through to maintain peace at home, even though you do not approve of it as a feminist. The toe ring or the loha-banda you may wear after marriage even though both have their symbolisation in women being treated as the property of her man. Doesn’t all this make you an imperfect feminist?

I held (and continue to hold) the contention that as long as we were committed to the general premise of personal, social, economic and political equity of the sexes, we are worthy of calling ourselves feminists. And as long as we are feminists, we shouldn’t worry too much about whether we were ‘perfect’ or not.

There are times, especially while discussing intersectional feminism, when we are forced to choose between two radically different viewpoints, and which we choose shouldn’t negate the fact that we are feminists.

There are many such examples, but an example that comes to mind is whether or not transfemales should use the washrooms meant for ladies. If they have had or in the process of having sex reversal surgery, certainly. But what if they have not initiated the process yet. Wouldn’t women who menstruate be uncomfortable with having someone who they consider a man using their washrooms? You can argue both ways, and it is this ambiguity which makes it difficult to define which position is more perfectly feminist.

During that same discussion, someone pointed out that ‘evolving feminist’ may be more descriptive than ‘imperfect feminist’. As long as we are open to listening to more viewpoints, and adopting from them what we need to, we are evolving rather than imperfect. That certainly made sense to me, and for a few days, I was tempted to start calling myself an evolving feminist.

Imperfectly Perfect

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that imperfection is not a flaw.

Imperfection is an acknowledgement that we are on the process of getting closer to perfection. It recognizes a journey, and gives due weightage to it.

Perfection, in that sense, is static. Once you decide you are ‘perfect’, you close yourself to exploring further nuance. You hammer your thought process down on others, without making any attempt to listen to theirs. Your way becomes the only way, and any further refinement is closed, because you cannot improve perfection.

Acknowledging imperfection is a sign of a maturity. Of accepting that we are not perfect and might never be perfect, but that at the current moment we are as perfect as we need to be.

Imperfectly perfect. That is what I aspire to be.