Check Your Tamil/Des(h)i Male Privilege
By Gayathri, Mohini*, Ram, Sinthujan & in collaboration with the Tamil Feminist Collective (in alphabetical order)
The social, political, and economic arrangements of a society can place some people in a privileged position relative to others, particularly with respect to important goods, like institutional representation, economic resources, and even less tangible goods like “respect” and “welfare”. Since societal arrangements are not always brought into reflective awareness, it is unsurprising when even well meaning and well-intentioned members of privileged groups are unaware of how they may benefit from social arrangements relative to members of other groups. Many times have we experienced Tamil/Des(h)i men unable and unwilling to recognize the privilege they hold vis-à-vis Tamil/Des(h)i women in Eelam, South Asia, its diasporas and beyond. Sometimes they may well be aware of some of the difficulties faced by Tamil/Des(hi) women. Sometimes they may even work for the betterment of women in the island, South Asia and beyond, but this all too often doesn’t translate into wider acknowledgment of the privilege centred around their male identity and the impact that patriarchal systems have on the every day lives of Tamil/Des(h)i women.
The denial of these privileges is widespread. Often we find Tamil/Des(h)i men relativising the inequalities felt by Tamil/Des(h)i women, dismissing the undercurrent of patriarchy that produces systemic and sociocultural inequalities which continue to haunt the island, South Asia and its diasporas.
This list attempts to highlight some of the privileges provided to Tamil/Des(h)i men in Eelam, South Asia and beyond just because they are, yes, Tamil/Des(h)i men. Noting these privileges is not meant to antagonize or alienate Tamil/Des(h)i men but rather raise awareness and self-consciousness about how gender identities and their intersection with race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, etc., indeed do play a role in the way they perceive, interact, and ultimately, politicize women on the island, South Asia as well as its diasporas. It is also meant to show the extensive ways that gender identity can track inequalities in opportunity and welfare within a society. With this compilation we hope to ignite meaningful conversations and introspections into what it means to be a Tamil/Des(h)i woman and ultimately what it means to not be a Tamil/Des(h)i man in Eelam, its diasporas and beyond.
(Some of our points are directly referenced or influenced by Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”).
You can be ignorant towards the insidiousness of patriarchy whilst benefiting from being born as a man. You can be ‘unaware’ of your male privilege.
Appearance
Your wardrobe, skin tone, or hair does not routinely become a topic of discussion between your immediate and extended family, as well as society at large.
Your choice of clothes and hair style is not used to judge your morality, sexual practices, or ability to be a 'good' [enter caregiver role - father, husband].
Your body is not used as a symbol of your family's bank balance through being decked out in gold or expensive sarees (always sarees, not western clothes).
You do not need to bleach your skin (literally with "bleach containing" products) to increase your prospects of marriage.
You can cut your hair short, without your parents, family and the whole of Tamil society telling you are less of a man and no one will be interested in marrying you.
Your parents, family, society will never criticise your clothes as bringing your family into disrepute or as being 'asingam'.
You can wear your jeans with your underwear showing and be forgiven as 'just being a young boy' without it being used to judge your sexual practices and it affecting your reputation within society.
You are not compelled to wear expensive sarees, jewellery or masses of make up to all Tamil events or to public spaces, such as temples, in order to ensure that you look like a 'Tamil pombalai' and look marriageable.
You can “look good” without people thinking your intelligence is somehow deficient.
You can demand and expect women to wear traditional clothes at functions, visits or other occasions, otherwise how would tamil culture continue to be preserved? (and because shirts, ties, and suits have somehow managed to become the male equivalent to sarees and shalwar kameez/panjavis).
Your body is, unlike the female body, not used as a weapon to ‘protect’ Tamil culture from erasure and disappearance.
You won’t receive as much ‘advice’, ‘feedback’ and reprimands by literally anyone, immediate parents to strangers, if you choose to not adhere and adopt to your cultural norms.
Your parents won’t be policed by society for the choices you make to adhere, adopt or reject cultural norms of dress and appearance.
You will not have your identity as a Tamilan stripped from you by others who deem you ‘uncultured’ because of your appearance and attire.
Your looks, morality and worthiness of being a man and, especially worthiness of being [enter family role - father /husband/son], will not be relative to and constantly subject to comparisons with those of other men in the homeland.
You can engage in social activities in public or private, e.g. drinking or dancing, without ever becoming the target for gender-specific slander and libel.
You can tell/expect your wives, daughters, sisters not to drink alcohol or smoke whilst drinking and smoking yourself.
You can drink whatever alcoholic beverage you choose to, without it being used to judge your gender with (e.g. Tamil women may drink wine, but it would be frowned upon to drink whiskey, or beer).
Your actions will not be judged based on a false dichotomy of “good-girl” or “whore”.
You can walk down the street in whatever clothing you choose without being cat-called, threatened with sexual violence, or harassed.
You will never be blamed, judged, or told "you were asking for it" for being on the receiving end of harassment and unwanted advances.
You can police womens’ bodies and morals to your liking without ever being subject to the same type of scrutiny or policing.
You are more likely free to decide and choose for yourself without having to justify the repercussions it may have for anyone beyond yourself.
Your mistakes won’t ‘stain’ you for the rest of life and detrimentally impact your own so-called ‘reputation’ and that of your families'.
Your actions as a child/adolescent are not used to judge your ability to be a husband/parent.
You can do something wrong, such as cause physical harm against someone, without society aghast at how you could have committed this act.
You can objectify women by, for instance, calling them ‘figure’ (in Indian Tamil ‘figuru’) and reducing them to your voyeuristic gaze without ever being called out on this sexual practice.
You can claim not to police your daughter's / wife's attire and 'allow' them to wear whatever they want, whilst ignoring the fact that female members of the family and just society are doing this (for you).
Sexuality & Relationships
You don't have your worth as a human being dictated based on your relationship to others (son, brother, husband, father).
If you are a heterosexual male, your sexual activities and sexual preferences will hardly ever run in danger of becoming a public topic of conversation of family and strangers alike.
If you are a heterosexual male, your sexual activities and sexual preferences will hardly ever run in danger of being subject to judgments by virtually anyone.
If you are a heterosexual man, you can turn down a sexual encounter and not be criticised as being frigid.
In a heterosexual relationship, you are not told, raised to believe nor feel like you have to subordinate your aspirations, dreams and expectations for your female partner.
If you are a heterosexual man, you are allowed to have expectations towards women, whether aesthetic or behavioral, that you cannot meet yourself.
In a heterosexual relationship, you can have had multiple sexual encounters and expect your future partner to be a virgin.
In a heterosexual relationship, you can think that “letting” your partner work is a sign of progress. Who are you to “let” her?
Your sovereignty as a human isn’t challenged and claimed by your mother, wife and later daughters.
Marriage
You can be unmarried and an adult capable of your own will.
You can be unmarried and an adult when being addressed to in Tamil.
You can be unmarried and not be expected to display a mark of your relationship status on your body.
Your ability to cook is not considered an essential criteria of your eligibility for marriage
You can be married, work full-time and not have to do all the household chores and cooking; or if you do, you can expect to be praised for being such a ‘good husband’
You can be married without having to display cultural symbols of marriage, e.g. Thaali/Meti/Kunkamam, whilst expecting / telling your wife to.
You can often marry outside of your ethnicity/race without having to face visceral reactions by your family members and/or strangers.
If you decide to marry, you do not have to worry about all your prior sexual experiences.
You will never be expected to change your last name upon marriage or get questioned if you don’t change your name.
In a heterosexual marriage, you are not asked, whether symbolically or not, to leave your family’s home and become part of another family.
You are not automatically expected by others to become a caregiver for an ailing parent, spouse, family member or friend, regardless of the impact it has on your life, career, education, or health.
You will not be demeaned or judged for refusing to fulfill the above "duties."
Your parents are not required directly or indirectly to provide a dowry on your marriage.
You can say that you don't believe in dowry but accept it as a "gift" of money from the bride's parents.
You can say you don't believe in dowry yourself but your parents/family/society expects it, so what can you do?
You can say you don't believe in dowry but societal change can only occur very slowly, so you'll start it with your children (and accept dowry yourself).
You can say you don't believe in dowry but accept cars, houses and land from your wife's parents as 'not dowry'.
You can say you don't believe in dowry but (only) marry a woman whose parents are affluent enough to give their daughter plenty of jewellery and write a house in her name, because she comes from a 'similar family background'.
You can be in a long relationship with a woman and decline to marry her unless her parents give you a dowry, knowing that if she declines and leaves you, you will marry someone else with ease but she will struggle to.
You can claim to be a ‘westernised’, progressive second generation Tamil man and ask for dowry when you get married as it’s “Tamil tradition”.
You can marry who you like without your choice impacting on the marriages of your younger siblings.
You can pull out of a marriage or engagement and get married again with ease.
You can get married after your younger siblings without being told you'll be 'un-marriageable'.
You can turn down a prospective offer of marriage without being told you are being too picky or you should be grateful.
You can say you believe in gender equality and respect empowered women and then just happen to marry a submissive one.
You can decline sex within marriage and not have your partner guilt trip you into carrying out your ‘duty’ or force you into having sex, i.e. rape.
You can cheat on your partner and say 'that's what men do'.
You can cheat on your partner and be absolved of guilt by society, because you were, after all, 'seduced'.
You can cheat on your wife and be rest assured that society and her family will urge her to forgive you.
You can file for divorce and marry again more easily
Childhood, Adolescence & Upbringing
Your body belongs to you and not an entire family’s, society’s and nation’s expectations and needs.
You aren’t taught and raised since birth that your worth is often tied to your ability to get married and bear (male) children.
You are often not raised with expectations of being subservient, obedient and considerate at all stages of life towards others, particularly men.
You can grow up without the expectations of being the bastion for cultural expectations.
You can be ignorant towards how girls are met with gendered restrictions and prohibitions in their everyday life that detrimentally limit their mobility and freedom.
You can be ignorant towards how girls experience life and the world at a young age and how that goes on to shape their individual aspirations/goals.
You can say that women/girls want to be devoted to their families and are not interested in excelling in their careers/not interested in certain fields (eg. politics), whilst ignoring the social conditioning into gender specific roles that occurs during childhood.
If you are Hindu or Christian, your adolescence isn’t celebrated in the public realm as a first public step towards marriage.
You can be ignorant towards the different expectations that you are met with as a son compared to those of a daughter.
You can take pride in being told to ‘protect’ your sisters, cousins, mothers and other women without being conscious of how this constitutes a reproduction of the patriarchal order, in other words, in being the ‘man of the house’.
You are not considered responsible for your child's sense of morality. Any moral failing of the child is a reflection of how their mother raised them.
You can “explain” sexist attitudes as the result of other women’s actions or words without having to acknowledge how patriarchy can be outsourced to and guarded by other women, especially aunties.
Domestic Violence & Abuse
If you adhere to and practice physical or mental violence, it can be interpreted as a positive expression of ‘masculinity’.
You can think that non-consensual sex in a relationship or marriage cannot be rape but must be the ‘duty’ of a woman.
You can carry out domestic abuse knowing that all too often your victim will be too scared to ever speak out about it because of the cultural stigma attached.
You can carry out domestic abuse knowing that yours and her family as well as society will urge her to forgive you and ‘heal’ you with compassion.
When you hear of women who stay in violent and abusive relationships, you can simply assert that the abuse they incur stems from their own “decision to stay.”
When you hear of women who stay in violent and abusive relationships, you can simply assert that the violence occurred because the woman was irritating and/or deserved it.
When you hear of women openly talking about the violence and abuse they have experienced within the “community” or family, you can assert that they bring “shame” on the whole community and family.
Your grief, anger and rage are hardly ever dismissed as misplaced, ‘exaggerated’ or unwarranted for. They are mostly considered as a legitimate and serious form of expression.
Education & Employment
You can think of your parent’s aspiration for your (future) job to be completely isolated from century old patriarchal beliefs, traditions and aspirations they grew up with.
You can continue higher education into Masters and PhDs, etc., without being told you’re getting too old or too educated/qualified to be married.
You can become qualified without your future prospective partner feeling inadequate (and therefore ending the relationship) by your educational or employment successes.
You can be a heterosexual male and say you believe in gender equality but, consciously or subconsciously, choose not to marry a woman who is more educated/qualified/high earning than you.
You can point to the numbers of Tamil females in professional jobs as a sign of gender equality ignoring the fact that many work part-time, stop altogether after marriage/children or never reach certain fields.
You can aspire to do whatever you choose to do without being told by 'well meaning' elders some careers will make you out to be a social deviant or unsavoury for marriage (eg. female surgeon, lawyer).
You can choose to excel in your career and, at the same time, want children and a family life, without having to compromise on your career, (or risk being judged as a bad parent) and on the presumption that your wife will compromise on her career.
You can be sure that you will not be excluded from access and progress in education or the employment sector because of your gender.
You do not have to be taught and raised to be aware of the systemic nature of misogyny for your own daily physical and mental protection.
You can deny that gender-based discrimination in the employment sector continues to exist amongst Tamils, particularly amongst diasporic communities.
Religion & Culture
You can assume that Hindu cultures are women friendly because of the worship and prominence of female deities across Hinduism.
If you are Hindu, you can expect to be freed from performing certain ritual acts, such as lighting a ‘kuththuvallakku’.
If you are Hindu and Christian, you can ignore the problematic gender roles/expectations these acts are founded upon.
If you are Hindu, you can hold and practice misogyny while being a devotee of female deities and saints.
If you are Hindu, you can rhetorically dismiss patriarchy and misogyny amongst Tamil Hindus by pointing to the existence and widespread worship of Goddesses.
If you are Christian, you can rhetorically dismiss patriarchy and misogny amongst Tamil Christians by pointing to the worship of Mary and the widespread respect shown towards nuns.
If you are Hindu, you can be sure that society will accept you as a whole person even after your wife dies.
If you are Hindu, you are considered clean enough to worship at the temple and take part in religious events whatever time of the month it is.
If you are Catholic, you can be ignorant towards how the Catholic church dictates women’s reproductive choices.
If you are Hindu or Catholic, you can be nonchalant about the fact that the position of the priest and reverend is traditionally reserved for men only.
You can unthink, unsee and benefit from gender segregation that occurs in many religious spaces and practices.
If you are an male, you don’t have to question culture as a marker, whether upper or lower caste, that has historically undermined and marginalised your position.
You can deny that mainstream culture, whether upper or lower caste cultures, organise men at their centres and women at the margins or as their satellites.
Film & Music
You can uncritically listen and watch South Asian and diasporic music and movies that reproduces gender tropes as well as hypersexualised or romanticised images and ideas upon South Asian women.
You can enjoy watching women doing all styles of dancing and music whilst telling and expecting your wives/mothers/daughters/sisters not to.
You can express your everyday sexism through so-called ‘comedy’, ‘satire’ or ‘jokes’ without ever being called out on their misogynistic roots and your complicity in normalising them.
You can reduce women in popular movies and literature to mere lovers lacking agency, depth or the possibility to exist outside of the male and heteronormative gaze as well as its many sexist expectation and imaginations.
You can be silent about how women are objectified in South Asian film and music.
You can remain blasé about the fact that the South Asian film industry, the most prominent producer of imageries of South Asia for its diasporas, has one of the lowest amount of female filmmakers.
You can be untouched by the fact that almost no mainstream South Asian film would pass the Bechdel test. Literature & Journalism
You can write in the ‘female voice’, specifically in the voice of an Eelam Tamil woman, without ever being asked to qualify and authenticate the content of what has been written and your right to do so.
You can be a journalist or photographer without being told it doesn't fit your gender.
You can have a job in media without your role being limited to that of presenter
You can be a presenter without youth or high standards of aesthetic appearance.
Your writing does not have to be restricted to that of family or love or rape to be considered a valuable contribution.
You can employ only male staff writers and yet be considered as being representative of the ‘voice of the people’.
You can choose to ignore developments in women writing and women activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, you can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.
You can disregard women’s contributions to creative writing and intellectual thought.
Discourse
You can talk and engage in politics without ever being reprimanded, judged and/or isolated because of your political activities.
Your political work will not risk your prospects of marriage and other future relationships.
Critique or criticism of your discourse will not be gendered (You are "stupid. Never a "stupid man").
You can dismiss a woman being offended by a blatantly sexist remark as 'lacking a sense of humour' or being 'too PC'.
You can dismiss a woman talking about gender equality as a ‘feminist’.
You often feel entitled to talk about issues you have no expertise or stake in.
If you are a male, you are taught that you have a voice and a story waiting to be told and heard.
You can be opinionated and vocal without being called misinformed, being a ‘vaikaaran’ or to ‘stick to your métier’, i.e. motherhood and household chores.
If you are a heterosexual upper-caste male, you can be sure that your voice will not be dismissed as self-interested and being representative of ‘identity politics’.
You can talk without being interrupt, talked over or questioned.
You are never seen as speaking on behalf of your gender group.
You can remain ignorant to the fact that patriarchy is also discursive and gendered forms of discourses marginalise women.
Your opinions are valued, listened to and heard, irrespective of their merits, quality or your expertise to articulate them in the first place.
You can be assured that your ability to make decisions and aptness to do so will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.
You can dismiss womens’ opinions or expertise by calling them ‘emotional’, ‘irrational’ and ‘hysteric’.
Politics & Organising
You can be seen as the representative of an entire community whilst in reality only representing a subsection of it, namely, and predominantly, privileged heterosexual men.
You can have a political opinion and not be told it is because you are under the influence of someone else.
You can be a politician without having your attire the subject of conversation over your politics.
You can be a politician and be unmarried.
You can express emotion without being seen as weak.
You can choose not to display your emotion in public and not be labelled ‘stern’, ‘cold’ or some obscure reference to iron.
You can organise meetings, get-togethers and conferences without the input and leadership of women, yet remain to be seen as mainstream, normative, inclusive, sometimes even radical.
You can claim radical and progressive creds whilst being complicit in everyday acts of sexism and the exclusion of women from organising circles and taking ownership of issues and different platforms.
You can claim a desire for gender equality in your organisation but lament the lack of women coming forward to join or staying within the organisation whilst ignoring the societal and cultural conditioning of women and expectations placed on women that lead to this, or the sexism that is rife within your organisation.
You can claim gender equality in your organisation by pointing to a balance of numbers between women and men, whilst ignoring the glaring imbalance in distribution of power between roles held in the organisation.
You can claim your organisation values gender equality because it has a 'womens wing' but which in reality has no or limited powers and only partakes in so-called 'women’s issues'.
You can encourage women to join your organisation and claim to therefore believe in gender equality, whilst finding it unacceptable to work under a woman.
You can claim gender equality in your organisation whilst being ignorant to the sexist jokes used amongst (male) members to bond.
You can claim gender equality whilst being ignorant to the fact that functioning of the organisation, such as holding meetings far away/ late in the evening, etc., precludes Tamil women from having an active role due to the societal expectations placed on them.
You can bond, heal rifts, and do the real business of politics in spaces that - by the Tamil sociocultural expectations placed on women - exclude women (e.g getting drunk after meetings, smoking or when 'talking about football').
You can exclude women from political roles by gendering your household and family to the detriment of female participation and ownership.
You can be a Tamil nationalist activist and know that you can continue your activism after marriage.
You can instrumentalise women for your political gains by using them as tokens or virtual accessories to your campaigns.
You can instrumentalise women as literal objects, invited to political events to be there as mere bodies without any real involvement or (tokenized) speaking opportunity.
Women’s participation and leadership, however meaningful or substantial, can be no more than an afterthought to you.
And even then, it is only an afterthought to you because it will further your campaign and not because it was an actual thought or belief.
You can belittle and isolate issues in regards to women’s progress, development and leadership as minor, secondary if not tertiary to others.
You can relegate and limit women in politics to issues related to women, family and social care.
You can limit women in meetings, get togethers and conferences to the role of caterers or even ‘decoration’.
You can exclude women from being visible in the public by reproducing gendered-forms of labour.
You can claim that women are involved but ignore that their role is not influential on the outcome of the event, but limited to gendered forms of labour.
You can be sure of having your voice heard in a group in which you are the only member of your gender.
You can say structural discrimination against women doesn’t exist because you are unable to acknowledge and locate the practice and strategy of tokenization.
Your interrogation of gender and issues of representation can completely ignore the fact that even amongst women there are differences based upon class, caste, religion, region, sexuality, able-bodiedness, etc., that need to be taken into account and demand for greater representation of women of all walks of life.
You can be pretty sure that if you ask to talk to the “person in charge”, you will be facing a person of your gender.
You can elect patriarchal and misogynistic politicians and yet pretend to champion ‘equality’ and ‘women’s liberation’.
You can de-prioritise gender-related credentials of public figures as secondary to prove their progressive stances.
You can say gender-based violence isn’t widespread and structural because no one you have met talks about it, or you haven’t seen it at first hand.
You can be absolved from the act of interrogating and abolish the continuing inequalities that exist between both genders.
Feminism
You can denounce feminism as a "Western" concept that is contrary to Tamil culture while simultaneously adopting "Western" dress, attitudes, and values without apparent contradiction.
You can think that to say that you are against sexism and gender-based discrimination already translates into social change.
You can critique the existence of women’s only meetings as being exclusive and ‘sexist’ towards men without ever acknowledging the unequal influence and power between men and women, which create the need for independent and safe spaces for women.
You can think that gender-related issues are only women’s issues, which have no bearing on or relevance to men’s behaviours or attitudes.
You can talk about ‘gender-related issues’ and patriarchy in wider society without ever being asked how you yourself have realised and instituted gender parity in your own family, relationships and at home.
You can denounce the importance of feminist activism in diaspora because apparently “gender issues don’t exist post-LTTE anymore”.
You can instrumentalise and co-opt feminism by using it as a rhetorical tool to maintain your position in groups and organisations, and with it the patriarchal status quo.
You can unsee patriarchy and attack anyone who reads patriarchy into our everyday as being high on ‘gender theory’, being a ‘feminist’ or a ‘vaikaari’.
If you declare there is an issue of sexism or misogyny at hand, or there isn’t, your gender will lend you more credibility than a woman will have when doing so.
You can worry about sexism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
LTTE & Tamil Nationalism
You can interpret women to be the symbols of the nation and use their bodies to ascribe diverse set of meaning upon them.
You can reduce self-determination to the nation but not the individual, particularly self-identified women of all backgrounds and especially those from oppressed caste and class backgrounds.
You can instrumentalise Tamil women as 'innocent' or 'vulnerable' civilians, ignoring the military prowess and bravery of female LTTE cadres.
You can be ignorant towards how the discursive usage of ‘civilian’ in conflict is already gendered and limits possibilities to imagine women beyond traditional, patriarchal roles.
You can justify the comparative high regard for male LTTE cadre to female cadres within Tamil society citing their military prowess, ignoring the patriarchal conditions in which these women were raised (translating into lack of educational opportunity, etc).
You can take up arms and die for your country without being posthumously labelled as having resorted to this because of a tragic event in some way connect to your role as a husband / wife.
You can say that Tamil society valued female LTTE cadres whilst ignoring the fact that when it came to marriage, most civilian Tamil men (and their families) regarded these women as too empowered to be suitable wives.
You can say that Tamil society continues to value female LTTE cadres whilst ignoring the fact that many are today, post-war- social outcastes.
You can claim that the LTTE’s gender policies broke traditional gender binaries while ignoring their sustainability, depth, meaning and the wider societal change they evoked.
You can claim that the LTTE’s gender politics led to a general social consensus on the position of women in society.
You can essentialise the LTTE’s ideas on gender while dismissing the fact that they were equally exerting control over womens’ bodies by, for instance, codifying female morality.
During protests and in statements, you can speak in relation to gender-based violence by ethnic or caste outsiders of ‘our women’ without feeling the need to problematise such expressions of possession while patriarchy and misogyny continue to be intact and rampant.
You can say that Tamil nationalism has successfully eradicated gender inequalities without ever having to attempt to enquire into the lived realities of women, particularly former cadres and women of lower class and caste status, today.
You can expect to receive a pat on the back for progressive gender work done by the LTTE without having contributed to it nor continued to carry on and build on its legacy.
You can be certain that identity politics and politics of representation only matter in inter-ethnic relations, but not in intra-ethnic gender relations.
You can subordinate gender identity politics and politics of representation in intra-ethnic gender relations to ethnic identity politics and politics of representation in inter-ethnic relations.
You can use the issue of rape of women by group outsiders as a means to reinstate control over women’s bodies and freedoms.
You can decry gender-based violence perpetrated by ‘outsiders’ whilst being completely idle and silent about gender-based violence perpetrated by ‘insiders’.
You can deny that gender politics continue to be, in the form of female absence and subordination, part and parcel of electoral politics in the homeland and its diasporas.
Eelam & Diaspora
You can deny the historic, contemporary, physical and social violence of patriarchy amongst Eelam Tamils by pointing to the severity of historic and contemporary forms of gender-based violence in neighbouring India or Bangladesh, e.g. widow burnings and acid attacks.
You can claim that we all suffered the same without acknowledging that women, particularly women of lower caste and class status, were disproportionately and distinctly affected by war, violence, displacement and destitution.
You can overlook that forced migration sometimes meant for women of lower class and caste status the relative liberation from patriarchally-organised and caste-stratified societies, geographies and diktats.
You can overlook that many South Asian women were/are subject to gendered forms of labour, gendered expectations, and gendered-forms of vulnerability affecting women in their new countries of arrival distinct to the male experience.
You can ignore the fact that gender-based violence and discrimination continues to haunt South Asian women of all walks in diaspora.
You don’t have to struggle against or acknowledge the insidious intersection of racism, casteism, classism, homophobia and sexism.
History & Memory
When you are told about your national heritage or about your “civilization,” you are shown that people of your gender primarily made it what it is.
If you are an upper-caste and class male, you don’t have to question the writing of history of the ‘people’ because your presence won’t be unsettled or threatened by the current and dominant upper-caste male narrative.
You can laud this piece, share it and say you agree with all or some of it, and then continue to live your life just the same as if nothing happened, as if this intervention doesn't relate to men like you. * is an alias as the author, an Eelam Tamil woman, wishes to protect her identity due to the very prejudices detailed. You can follow two of the authors on Twitter @varathas & @Gaya_Naganathan as well as the Tamil Feminist Collective via @TamilFeminist












