कार्येषु मन्त्री करणेषु दासी रुपेषु लक्ष्मीः क्षमया धरित्री
स्नेहेषु माता शयनेशु वेश्या षट्कर्मनारी कुलधर्मपत्नी
Translation: Work efficiency like a counsellor, workability like a maid, as beautiful as goddess Lakshmi, forgiveness like earth herself, a friend like a mother, and at the end of the day like a courtesan – are the six anticipated virtue of a wife.
Translation: One who picks the quarrel, one who steals her own money, one with infidelity, one who talks about the faults of her husband, one who eats before her husband should not be accepted, even if she bore 10 sons for you.
Please note these were written roughly a couple of millenniums ago. So, please consider the social context before judging.
To be brutally honest, I did not expect Arnab would manage an entire interview without loosing his cool, especially, with none of his questions answered!!. I would have lost my cool on 3rd “RTI” or “empowerment”.
On interview itself, I was curious how strongly Arnab wanted “nation to know” on how strongly Rahul wanted “empowerment“. So, I pulled complete transcript from here and used Wordle to create tag cloud. This is what I found:
On 8th.. Women’s Day cards were getting distributed, written “happy women’s day” on them, I too got one!. Not sure what was so happy about it, perhaps the font and the colour (obviously stereotypical pink!). Women were in Saree (which I feel, itself is a symbol of oppression) and happy talk was all around, mostly about shopping. On TV Burkha Dutta was talking something like “should we have, have it at all, or No?”, Vidya Balan was also there, to promote her new filllem.. obviously. Not a single soul spent a day stressing the plight of subjugated women!
This is what happens in India, every cause gets converted into a festival with celebration, not much about the cause itself. ( Going forward, you can expect Ordering Pizza on world malnourishment day, and visiting temple on International AIDS awareness day – cause they are special days.)
Anyhow, there is some seriousness in other parts of world (where again, women are subjugated!). Bit Bizarre, but had to be done. Here this :
ON 8 MARCh 2 012, INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY, ThE NUDE PhOTO REvOLUTIONARIES CALENDAR was launched in homage to Egyptian atheist, student and blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy who posted a nude photo of herself, announcing the post on Twitter under the hashtag, #NudePhotoRevolutionary. She described her statement as ‘screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy’:
For More information, actual calender, video and fan pages visit Maryam namazie
I have a question for my readers and friends, on fundamentals of Feminism. While I am not sure how to put in a politically correct way, I am worried that I will end up offending a whole lot of them, especially women including my better half. (Update: Oh… No! She is already offended by the idea of this post).
It’s related to latest incident in Egypt, where a CBS correspondent Lara Logan was roughed up (to be specific, sexually molested) by celebrating Egyptian crowd (obviously men!). There is a whole lot of discussion happening in blogosphere. Was that right for an attractive white (read clearly distinguishable in Egyptian crowd) woman to report amidst frustrated (later celebrating) mostly men crowd of a male centred society (with less respect for women, officially!) without anyone to protect her. What happened was obviously wrong, but could that be avoided in the first place? She is Lara Logan not Lara Croft!
Now my question: Is “Asking for it” still considered as a factor, even a remote or tiny one?
I may look naive questioning like this, but please educate me. I guess, this must have been discussed over and over again in all forms of media, but there are still questions.
Here, let me provide an analogy, feel free to dispute it.
There is a high possibility that money left around will be stolen or robbed (depends where you leave it), even in an established social, political and religious (starting from 10 commandments) understanding that stealing is wrong, someone with a need of it will simply take it, like it or not! You would need a protection against it, that’s why we have a massive industry created just to protect your money! To this day we agree stealing is wrong, while we still protect our money from being stolen.
Well… this may not be a right analogy, but an attempt. Anyway, let me know your thoughts.
Update: I would like you to read one such post on the same topic “Is …” where he reasons out:
Women are the weaker, frailer sex. The average man is physically stronger than the average woman, and absent physical protection (in the form of other men, be they police, military or family) women are COMPLETELY at the mercy of men.
Egypt is a nation resistant to feminism. Egyptian men do not “ respect ” women, unlike the pale, porn-addicted, gelded fembois of America and Europe.
A riot, by definition, is an event defined by its lack of law and order – meaning that the structures that protect women from the predations of men do NOT exist.
Logan is a white foreigner, and is thus despised by the violent hordes who believe their government to be in thrall to hers.
The Bach 