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Television > Education?

In any nation, especially India, one of the best ways that experts have predicted to solve the nation’s problems is education. Rape is one of those problems - with the lack of sex education in India, the denial of education to women, and the subordinate position that they are taught to have by means of the education they have, rape culture arises. However, it’s important to approach rape culture from different angles.

Many Indian ministers, lawyers, and chief officers in organizations such as the police happen to be strong advocates for rape culture despite being quite educated themselves. Knowing this, can we still call education a solution to the psychology that causes rape?

If I were asked this, my gut response would be that these people often have bogus qualifications that got them where they were, or that their inadequate form of education or those allowed into it are far from the education that advocates for it have in mind, for even in the poorest of villages can the gender gap between males and females in the mind be bridged through education. However, the one who says that media and the inescapable history of such in a country to blame is also correct, they just need to appreciate that the ideal form of education would solve the issues generated by the media (see my last post on media literacy) http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/politically-incorrect/mere-sapnon-ki-rani-not-to-be-wooed-but-raped-killed/?utm_source=facebook.com ^As it went in this link, a popular song and the like are part of the cultural influences on the minds of millions who think they should rape a girl because they deserve it. Much like a few pop songs from artists we do occasionally listen to in Western culture, it alludes to or involves visuals or lyrics that directly enforce the acts of kidnapping and rape. So in theory, bans on such pop songs would lower the frequency of rapes. Should we proceed with this?

As much as I’d like to stop rape, and as much I know I don’t have that overwhelming desire for justice that would compel, say, a rape victim, to enforce a ban on such songs, I don’t think it is as viable as I made it sound even though I wish it was, for three reasons. The first is that sex sells in a lot more than songs - rape is brought up in a similar context in other forms of media and entertainment, and even books, and these are supposed to be just that - entertainment. A person should have the freedom to entertain themselves in their mind alone and should be given the freedom of creativity to entertain others provided they are not exhibiting negative behavior because of it (oh what wishful thinking), which leads me to my second reason, that a human being is supposed to use their human brain to not interpret that they should start raping because they heard a song or watched a movie where the lead entity does so or submits to rape, for if one rapes because they heard a song, they are incompetent or would simply find something else to cause them to rape, such as alcohol, a common excuse for raping, for that’s their nature.

The third reason is what makes the whole theory of banning pop songs like the several decade old song from the above link notably relevant to India, because India bans a lot of content for cultural reasons and has faced criticism from its educated citizens and NRIs like myself for it. Here’s a short list of some bans, some of which are state-specific:

BBC’s Documentary India’s Daughter - It’s a film which covers interviews of the rapists of a well-known, gruesome rape in India, and an analysis on education and rape. It was banned so that India doesn’t have to deal with shame on a global scale. The filmmaker fled the country so there would be no threat to her life.

Ban on parties with foreign invitees without police supervision - The police must be allowed to photograph and videograph the foreigners.

Bans on several films with any kind of sexual content - Fifty Shades of Grey was banned even after the removal of much alleged nudity and sexually suggestive scenes.

Bans on homosexuality - Consensual intercourse and films depicting homosexual relationships are banned.

Bans on bikinis and kissing in public - India is not the Kama Sutra, never was and with this ban, it doesn’t want to be.

India’s ready to restrict its citizens and ban things such that problems are not solved. It bans what it need not and permits what should not. I’m going to end this post with one last look into the mind of yet another of India’s obsolete citizens, an example of something that should be stopped but some would rather derive benefit from... http://nypost.com/2013/11/13/indias-top-cop-if-you-cant-prevent-rape-you-enjoy-it/

#sapnonkirani #Sapnon Ki Rani

Gendered Media and Media Literacy

We are most of us aware already of the subordinate role that women are given in media - that it aids the perpetuation of those gender roles in real life, which has numerous consequences. The reports on this however usually exclude the news itself. News is a valid form of media if not more valid than the rest because of how it (mis)informs its audience, causing them to believe that which is unjust.

When a newspaper speaks of the skin shown by a public figure and feeds on the publicity generated by it for days on end *glares at Times of India*, many do not question the practices of the newspaper - it goes that those who work in the newspapers - the educated, literate journalists and editors - convey that it is socially acceptable to comment on the skin a public figure shows and call it controversial a dozen times. This substantiates the double meaning of Media Literacy, for it is important for both the people reading the newspaper to know when to challenge what they read, to not be swept by profitable media, and exercise their sense of virtue in exposure to the media and what they do if they choose to expose themselves to it. The other meaning of Media Literacy would be the literacy of those making the media itself. Many instances of the workplace are male-dominated (which is a different term than predominantly male, and one I should be careful of in usage), and the newspapers of India aren’t exceptions. If more females were able to work with newspapers, and if they didn’t face any opposition in their work such that they stay in their field of journalism, the media wouldn’t contribute the misogynistic traits of a society (in this case India).

The Truth About Gandhi

In a sentence, Gandhi, the Father of the Nation (India) was a sexist, and as the saying goes, sons follow their father’s footsteps.

India has a history of celibacy - sex was has been regarded as impure and the temptations to be associated were to be avoided, except in the holy realm of marriage. However, Gandhi conveyed to his followers that sex, even with one’s wife, was vulgar and it would be sagacious to avoid it as much as possible then as well. For a long time however, India has had a comparatively worse rape problem than much of the world. The question of how a country with celibate culture engages in forced intercourse - something impure in the majority of nations, arises despite this.

The answer to this is that the preachers of India contradict themselves in practice. We can take a bit of a detour from Gandhi to substantiate this with this link:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/newdelhi/asaram-bapu-booked-for-sexual-abuse/article1-1110760.aspx

As for Gandhi, while he didn’t encourage his followers to sleep with their wives, he slept with them himself, naked. One of his reasons for doing this, even more so for sleeping with his own nieces who were minors at the time, was to see whether or not he could control his temptations. No, he did not on every single occasion, or at least did not penetrate in the majority of the nights he “tested” himself. Furthermore, Gandhi was quite the advocate for rape culture. According to him, if a woman’s honor were to be destroyed in an assault, she would be given the strength to die before that honor is robbed if it adequate.

#gandhi

Facebook status of an acquaintance

“The fact that a woman who appreciates herselfand loves every inch of her body and her mind is perceived as arrogant and vain whereas a woman who struggles with self esteem issues is more or less the norm and seen as modest clearly shows how society is trying to belittle women and trick them into thinking that they somehow have to feel inadequate all the time”

LOVE COMMANDOS

Honor killings aren’t just executed when a female gets raped; there are many (nonsensical) reasons for them and one is marrying one of a different caste or religion. For example, one born into a “forward” caste can’t marry one born into a “backward” caste, and broad-minded Indians who’d marry a Pakistani are labelled the equivalent of a defiant by the narrow-minded Indians. The beliefs that cause this come from history, so from this we can realize that knowing the history of a country helps one see what causes present-day issues, because even here in the U.S., discrimination in history begets discrimination today e.g. in the case of slavery and black-skinned people today. So: “In India, there is a vigilante group called the Love Commandos that offers protection from harassment to couples from different castes who fall in love.”

I hope the people who seek the Commandos help on social media or their helplines are not lovestruck chaps who don’t really need help.

#Love Commandos

Counter-statistic

Earlier I made a post about the most misused law in India related to Dowry crimes. I will never invalidate that due to its truthfulness and importance but it’s important to see the other side in the broad sense, like what I’ve been doing, and also the narrow sense, which I missed: "One Indian woman is killed every hour in dowry-related crimes”

Numbers measure things y’know

http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2014/rankings/

^Taken from elsewhere on the WEForum site: “The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education and health criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups. The rankings are designed to create greater awareness among a global audience of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them. The methodology and quantitative analysis behind the rankings are intended to serve as a basis for designing effective measures for reducing gender gaps.”

Time is not wasted on evaluating how strong gender gaps are, because they serve to prove that they exist. Because a variety of social issues are present in the nations of today, they make each other invisible. For that matter, the social issues you can see with your own eyes depend on your walk of life, for many are blind to what someone a few dozen miles has to face.

The Indexes used for Gender Gaps were aggregated with care, for what goes into ranking are measures of different dimensions - features such as labor force participation and safety are analogous to width and length.

Numbers are irrefutable evidence for the presence of gender gaps. This isn’t to say that the peace of mind of one gender (the one on the lower side of the gap) is better off as they climb the ranks of this publishing, for that and one’s safety, and an individual’s own desires were dimensions to go toward the index, or too needlessly variable to bother with.

#WEF

More Michael

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs2wEy1SII4 ^This video is about the two required years of military service required of Korean males in their young adult years. Because males are endowed with a little more physical capacity, this service is asked from them. Michael mentions that students of a STEM program (Science/Tech/Engg/Math) can be exempted from military service, which is an argument toward the point that otherwise bright students who can bring advancements to the world would not be suppressed by this military requirement, but this still serves to differentiate many Asian countries from the West because those not in STEM regarded as a lot less and criticized by society. Also brought up in this video is the effect that military service has on a male when he goes to serve in it, that is, on his relationships on the like. From this we can say that military service can affect these males on a mental level, especially those who re-start life with an entirely new set of relationships they have to make. Some are forced to walk life in a new way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJt9VhFRXKk ^This video discusses Gender Equality in South Korea and is a little Korea-specific but not too broad. It’s less to the point than the other videos.

Yet another video by Michael Aronson, it explains what prospective English teachers experience when their skin color is not white when they seek jobs in South Korea. From this we can realize how important the laws that prohibit discrimination in employment that are in effect in the United States are.The scenario also described in this video also works hand-in-hand with one of my first posts on auto-discrimination, that is, discrimination against your own race or preference of another due to your walk of life, but in a way that devalues the walk of life.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB2hSJB9CHg^And this one’s less to the point video which explains the judgments that a black-skinned person gets.Even though South Korea is the example in both these videos, I only used these videos because they were well-presented and by a favorite YouTuber. Many countries have the same problems.

외국인이야

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osn5vJ0kgZM

^This video, with South Korea as an example, isanalogous to the nature of negative words found in other languages and the linguistic style of both racist and open-minded people from many countries. For example, Michael says gives a neutral example for the word 외국인이야, which shows how even those who are not racist must acknowledge the word or the common mentality in order to dismiss it and make a statement about a person, or claim that the person is not like a majority that exists in a country displaced from their own that makes their race look very bad.

#외국인이야

After some men’s rights issues, I’m back to women’s rights! But I’ll probably include more of both. There isn’t much elaboration on the 7 listed items in the link so I’m going to assess these slightly: 1) Despite my familiarity with India, I don’t know what to say about this. I would add that wearing long scarf-like objects is common and they can kill you if they snag something at high speed. 2) The fact that women can’t testify in all these situations enables not just rape in general but marital rape. And child marital rape. 3) Women not being able to vote enables male dictators or chauvinistic leaders to remain in power, creating an endless cycle of poor leader after leader. 4) This is a restriction on reproductive rights. 5) This is analogous to females being stoned or killed (honor killing) because their reputation is stained after they’ve been raped. There’s a quote that goes “rape is a crime where the victim is the accused” and this is the case in many such countries. 6) This enables full control of a woman and serves to invalidate the idea of putting in laws to protect women in the public domain. It also allows for marital rape. 7) Self-explanatory.

One of my favorite YouTubers Michael Aronson turned an inconvenienceinto creative strength to produce this cool video.

It was evoked by a racist news report that addressed a problem of Korean females getting STDs from foreign men. Valid as an issue it was the news report didn’t handle it properly - there were a few other approaches they could’ve taken.

#Michael Aronson

India likes banning human rights

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Film-on-homosexuality-Un-Freedom-banned-in-India/articleshow/46757288.cms It is illegal to engage in homosexual intercourse in India, and certain films that “oppose Indian culture” are banned. This, a film on hoosexuality, is now one of them. Homosexuals from India definitely hate the country of their roots more than I do.

Showing my appreciation

Here is a rose for the kind gentleman/lady who is my only follower right now Best of luck in this class whoever you are~

The Black Widow Spider’s Web

This is a follow-up on my previous post.

Men in India in an abusive marriage where theyare the victimized have but one option: to file for divorce. The laws that exist to stop marital harassment do not recognize men or their side of the family, and for that matter, anyone familiar with countries like India had heard the stories of apathetic policemen choosing a judge a female rather than assist her in perilous moments…the same officers would not act on domestic violence if a man were requesting they do because it isn’t in the officer’s handbook of the ineffectual law, so they either wouldn’t bother to help someone out of good will, or wouldn’t be sure if they should be helping in that kind of situation. For example, a man who faced daily harassment in his marriage went to a police station in tears, asking if he could be locked up indefinitely because he couldn’t bear to stay at his home. Unfortunately, he was made aware that the police had nothing they could do for him, so he’d have to return home. “So file for a divorce then” Divorces are granted by family courts, which like many other courts (in many other countries) are run by biased judges whose primary objective is lessening their own workload. The time between filing a divorce case and the first hearing for it is lengthy – sometimes a year or two, with judges looking to adjourn hearings for whatever reason they can validate at the time. The resolution for a divorce case is in the region of over five years, and there are reasons why this time delay is more of a problem than the lag itself:As mentioned in the previous post, a wife can file a counter-case such as a dowry case but not limited to that; there has been a rise in usage of (false) rape cases, which both cause the man to have all sorts of criminal names slapped on his identity by his community. However, the case that they are most inclined to file is a Maintenance Case. Maintenance is defined as (financial) provisions (to a wife), and different kinds of maintenance exist for different scenarios: there is maintenance for a wife throughout the duration of a marriage, or maintenance for a wife throughout the duration a divorce case goes on in the courts and some change – I believe the maintenance in the latter case is on the higher side. Therefore, the time taken for a divorce case to resolve results in financial extortion by the wife on the husband throughout that entire period.

In a case resolution from weeks ago, a court ruled that because a wife who was filing such a counter (Maintenance) case was qualified and had worked, she was not entitled to any such maintenance throughout the duration of the divorce or after that because she was sitting idle despite being able to depend on no one. This specific ruling is not due to a change in any law and as of now, is an improvement in how a specific court handled its verdict, but it was a celebrated one and it reveals a little more about who gets away with cases in which the verdict is the typical one.

This is why marriage for many is like getting caught in the web of the Black Widow Spider. However, on the global scale marriage is becoming a walk of life that is more about individuality rather than a requirement from society, employers, or one’s parents, so even if the law remains unchanged, the paths that people choose become wiser as we move into a modernized world.

Thank you mensrightsindia.net (MRI) for greatly improving my understanding of this issue.

#498A

498A - Converting Shield into Sword

This is a follow-up on my previous post.

Infamous Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code was intended to be an anti-dowry law that also serves to stop the cruelty and harassment within a marriage that the wife in particular is subject to by any one from the husband’s side of the family in particular; it was supposed to help India move forward from its systems of parochialism put into effect after it attained independence. Unfortunately, India has a tendency to solve one problem only to replace it with another, so it will take much more time for it to work out the kinks.

In recent years, 498A has been the most misused law in the history of India. While the fear of retribution suppresses the actions the actions of otherwise wrong-doing husbands, it is also used to control a faithful husband by a wrong-doing wife, because under accusation of this law, you are guilty until proven innocent. And so, hedonistic and decadent wives threaten to file a case under this law to get what they want in a marriage, such as financial provisions when they themselves need not put any labor toward the household, and the ability to have relationships or children with men other than their husband. This threat can be declared in a household as a late phase in a scam-like marriage scheme, or after a dissatisfied wife gets the idea after years in a marriage. The question of how often this scenario really arises – it sounds as if it’s simply a matter of proving that you are innocent after being proven guilty, but just as is the case with being a rape victim that must go to court in India, this is easier said than done.

To settle a case after it has been filed, you can either pay (usually an exorbitant amount upto the equivalent of 75000US$) or suffer fighting the case forever, but it would not just be you, for anyone’s who’d name is written as an oppressor the filing of a case must defend themselves as well, or be jailed indefinitely. The accusation and case itself can destroy families – a man will be branded a rapist among other things by his community when he has done no wrong, and among those on his side who suffer despite no wrongdoing are his parents, brothers, and sisters, and this is not limited to any age. Grandparents are forced to travel from their native place to a court far away countless times, and even a 2 and 4 year-old have been among accused under the Dowry Act. Is it very easy for one to be robbed of their dignity in India so as families are unable to live in peace due to their legal costs, the strain of the case, and their tarnished reputation in the community, so many husbands and entire families commit suicide after the case begins.

The unofficial term “498A blunder” exists as well. Just as a marriage is seen as child’s play to wives who misuse 498A, the law may come off as child’s play to those who are not informed on what they are doing by filing a case under 498A. 498A is a non-compoundable offense, which means that the withdrawal of a complaint will halt the lengthy police and legal procedures until a verdict is reached much later, so wives who think they can withdraw their case trap themselves in the fight as well – although the advantage indubitably lies with them.

It’s not such that a husband who is facing harassment in a marriage has many options for defending himself against his wife. That, and just one can counter-sue, a disgruntled wife can file a counter-case of 498A to retaliate against a husband who would try to defend himself, which is something to delve into in my next post.

(I can credit the origin of my understanding of this issue to Deepika Bhardwaj. I look forward to her documentary Martyrs of Marriage. I am not sharing her famous TEDTalk due to some problematic things she said.)

��

#498A

“It’s NOT Easy Being a Guy” – Precursor to Male Abuse post

This is a link to a poem to set the mood for this post and the follow-up, and I will have you know every aspect of it is relatable to some chunk of the male population:

http://wbenton.tripod.com/humor/Jokeindex445.html

One of the things I am typically detached from is the denial of men’s rights or the restriction of freedom that they deserve. With all the atrocities committed against females, it isn’t too hard for me to ensure I am never responsible for the harassment of a female or the induced feeling of such, and be conscious of the males I have encountered and expect them to behave accordingly. Because I am a member of the male gender and believe I have coped with any ways I was oppressed specifically by females, I sometimes simply expect other males to behave a certain way, and if they are unfortunate, well “bad luck happens to the best of us”. This is needless denigration however, and a mistake I only make in the form of thinking that in the realm of top-tier issues, men do not have all the problems.

However, I only need to gaze within my previous knowledge to know better. We have most of us males run into relationship problems where your significant other becomes manipulative despite being manageable prior to this, and done some of the worst they possibly could to you that was within the scope of a teenager. Had you and your significant other been older, you may not be able to bear the consequences as well as you did in your teenage years. When you think in this way, it is not hard to imagine being implicated by a future version of your so-called lover who seeks to ruin you for all you have, who today may only ruin your reputation for a few months or years, when you once thought of her as educated and open-minded.

In my coming post, I will bring to your attention a serious form of females oppressing males, one that only married adults will be subject to.

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