We are getting the blame, these men claimed, while no one is paying attention to the actions of young women, who need to understand that they should not be out on their own at night. "Our culture is different," said Abhijit Harmalkar. "Girls are not allowed outside after six [pm] because anything can happen – rape, robbery, kidnaps. It is the mentality of some people. They are putting on short and sexy dresses, that's why. Then men cannot control themselves."
March 24, 2013
"Plenty of Indian men are committed to the cause of women's rights."
"But this discussion revealed the deep moral conservatism of some young Indian males, coupled with confusion about gender roles in a society where economic modernisation is outstripping social attitudes."
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71 comments:
I don't believe a word of articles written by Western feminists about Asian or Indian culture.
The Guardian is trying to export its feminist, homosexual agenda to people who probably don't want it.
I'm tired of rape hysteria. Have been for a long time.
Can't control themselves, or won't? Do they feel protective of their mother's and sisters? The extension of that is to also accept responsibility for the respect and safety of some other's family of females. We have the same problem in our culture as evidenced by the Steubenville rape of the semi-conscious young female hauled around to various venues of debauchery. Making it worse was the lack of conviction from the people who witnessed the crime to the extent they took pictures. No manly virtues evidenced in India and Steubenville, Ohio and Egypt.
Men who get caught up in the feminist rape hysteria out of chivalry are morons.
Equality! A man can wander the streets of any city without fear (may be other than being mugged and robbed). As a woman I would like to have the freedom to experience life without fear wherever, whenever, without being violated. They can take my material possession but not my sacred body without my permission. That ideal is far away from being realized, even here and especially in places like India (forget about middle east, they put women in chains there). Places caught in the middle like India, some want to put women in chains so the problem goes away. They don't understand the ideal I mention above.
Western leftists are blind to the fact that they are exporting their progressive sexual religion to other countries.
This is another area in which leftists have completely reversed their position in my lifetime.
Back when I was young, leftists called Western attempts to impose Western religion and ideology on other cultures "cultural imperialism."
Now that they're eager to evangelize, they've forgotten all about that. Because, you know, their religious dogma is "scientific."
"A man can wander the streets of any city without fear"
I don't think so.
My Filipino relatives assign a huge, tough teenager to accompany me wherever I go when I visit Cebu.
Kidnapping is a big biz. Kidnappers have been known to murder those who don't pay up.
Shouting Thomas said...
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Can you understand the ideal I mention in my previous comment? Why is that a feminist something, or even Western something? It is about freedom and to do what you want with your life and not out of fear, especially fear from social misfits. It is insulting to think it is all Western. You don't think they have brains to think for themselves? In India, right now there is a revolution going on -- most every 20 something middle class woman has a job and earning her own money. That gives them enormous confidence and desire to control her own destiny and it is natural that she wants more freedom to do what SHE wants. It is not a Western thing. Though as I always think, the Western, white world is about 20-40 years ahead of other economically challenged developing countries.
Can you understand the ideal I mention in my previous comment?
No, I don't want the kind of "safe" world you want.
It's fucking boring.
==>"A man can wander the streets of any city without fear"
I don't think so.
Of course he can. If he feels fear, that proves he's not a Real Man.
I used to believe that this crap was just about the isolated issues feminists told me they were addressing.
Now, 50 years later, white hetero men are commonly reviled and they are the subjects of punitive quotas in every aspect of life.
So, no, I no longer believe the feminist bullshit.
It's all lies.
pm317 wants to revoke the overwhelming force of the sex drive in young males so that she can experience a little more freedom of movement. Either that or she simply doesn't understand the power the sex drive has over young males. Good luck with revoking a natural fact. Every prudent society has put limits on womens' freedom of movement not because of the evil patriarchy but because of a recognition that you can't defeat nature. Of course now that Mankind is God all bets are off.
My advice to Indian men would be...
"Fight back furiously and bitterly against the feminists. Don't give them a fucking inch. They won't stop until they've made the women your masters."
It's fucking boring.
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the alternative is metaphorical prisons and chains for women. As I half joke, the most precious thing in my house is myself (or where ever I go).
Just the other day, my friend in India was talking about how she wanted to go see places on her own if need be..it sounds so mundane except for why it is not.
@pm317
Years ago, I bought your bullshit.
I've seen the results here in the U.S.
You're an enemy to be fought bitterly in every conceivable way.
I don't believe your lies.
ricpic said...
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OMG, you are talking like one of those half illiterate, economically challenged young men half a world away in that Guardian article. Thank you for illustrating that some on this side of the Atlantic have not evolved either.
OMG, you are talking like one of those half illiterate, economically challenged young men half a world away in that Guardian article.
People like you call their counterparts here in the U.S. "rednecks."
They hate you just as much as you hate them. And with good reason.
Hey, a Guardian article that doesn't blame the shitty behavior of non-Western men on the "legacy of colonialism" or "white male hegemony" or whatever.
I think of myself as an extremely sophisticated, cosmopolitan, intelligent and well-educated white man largely because I freely admit that some Indian women are extremely good-looking and that I'd like to have with them the sexual relations.
pm317: As a woman I would like to have the freedom to experience life without fear wherever, whenever, without being violated.
Nobody has that kind of freedom, pm, man or woman.
Yet women have a great deal more freedom of movement in some places and times than others. People get irritated with "egalitarians" and feminists and ideological types because they can never seem to be made to think clearly about how and where and why that is.
Mitchell the Bat said...
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I am sure you are enough of a considerate and evolved human that you don't force yourself on them..despite all your desires.
You're a bad case, pm317.
The most effective weapon in the feminist arsenal is appealing to men's chivalry.
When I was young, I got suckered into this bullshit. It doesn't work on me any more.
I've met and worked with a lot of Indian men. Good people. Humble. Best of intentions.
You're an underhanded sniper.
Nobody has that kind of freedom, pm, man or woman.
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Agree.. which is why I called it an ideal. I have experienced life on both sides of the Atlantic. At least on this side, women can lead a good and productive life without any other support and without any societal recrimination for having decided to go through it all on her own. I appreciate that freedom very much. I am sure there were times in human history that women had more control. But what is it today? In places like India, it is a bit of a chaos and mostly fueled by the opportunities women are getting. In my generation, there were a handful of women who went into engineering and other professions wanting to have a career and money. Now all my nieces are professionals making big money and their aspirations are different from the generations before. As my Indian friend astutely put it, an Indian woman today is looking for a partner (in marriage) but the young man who sees her is still looking at her as a wife who will have his dinner ready when he comes home. This is growing pains. All this rape stuff is a diabolical manifestation of evolution and progress, for the society at large to think what is right and what is wrong.
Another installment in the continued exploration of the sexual psychopathologies of one "Shouting Thomas"... at a blog called Althouse.
I'm sure a lot of young Indian males get the wrong idea when some sweet young thing does the slut walk she learned at Oxford or Haavahd.
It sounds, though, as if young Indian males expect, if they're going to restrain themselves, they expect women to do the same.
Shouting Thomas said...
Western leftists are blind to the fact that they are exporting their progressive sexual religion to other countries.
There are a couple of countries that don't need sex exported to them and Inja is one.
Hinduism has a great deal in it glorifying sex.
But, multi-culturalism! Gandhi!
I've met and worked with a lot of Indian men. Good people. Humble. Best of intentions.
Sure, can't disagree with that. Even in that article, one young man when he talks about putting all restrictions on women, he is saying it to protect them -- he gets worried when his sister is out at 7 pm. It is easier to reform these guys to want to think that it is just plain wrong to rape a woman, instead of hiding the woman. That is the goal.
While I was growing up, there was a lot of what used to be called eve-teasing (ugh..) and unwanted touching in crowded or otherwise places. All women could do was glare at these neanderthals. Now 30 years later, no one does that -- my nieces and nephews will be appalled that someone of their age did that at one time. This rape thing will get under control too as the society collectively comes to a conclusion that it is just plain wrong. During the reformation though, we have to put forward all the right arguments, men and women and bottomline, everybody should realize that it is plain wrong. Western society for most part realizes that.
Palladian said...
Another installment in the continued exploration of the sexual psychopathologies of one "Shouting Thomas"... at a blog called Althouse.
Yes. There are some serious problems here.
Sheesh ST, do you really believe what you shout? Or are you just being a drama king?
ricpic: Either that or she simply doesn't understand the power the sex drive has over young males. Good luck with revoking a natural fact. Every prudent society has put limits on womens' freedom of movement not because of the evil patriarchy but because of a recognition that you can't defeat nature.
Yes, but those limits very greatly. And the better ones expect some measure of self-control on the part of the young men, too. I don't have any trouble calling the ones that don't barbarians.
I doubt very seriously that even at your youngest and randiest you thought a cute girl walking down a city street without a male chaperone was "open season", or your responses were "uncontrollable". Nor was my experience as a young woman at all comparable to that of the average woman in any city in India. As long as I exercised minimal prudence and wasn't being a jackass myself, I could expect men to behave themselves, even if I was out at all night partying. Which, btw, didn't even approach the boundaries of "unladylike" in anybody's book. And I sure didn't grow up in a swingin' liberal social milieu. Nor were the young men eunuchs or metrosexuals.
Heh - I am rambling toward a point here, but I notice that everybody in this thread is really talking about different things. Pity. Interesting topic, really.
Anglelyne said...
Nor were the young men eunuchs or metrosexuals.
I think you undersell modern young men. One of my sons is an amateur fighter. It is hard to imagine a more macho pastime, yet he embodies all the attitudes that feminist sympathizing young men can have and that FT apparently sees as such a threat.
You do not have to be a wimp in order to respect women.
Palladian: Another installment in the continued exploration of the sexual psychopathologies of one "Shouting Thomas"... at a blog called Althouse.
Eh, you're taking the wrong approach, Palladian. Never read more than the first one or two of ST's comments in any thread. In those, he's likely to make an interesting objective comment. E.g., in this thread, he does make an interesting, discussion-worthy point about Western progressives trying to export their own agendas. After that, he lapses into his ruling psychopathology, which isn't sexual but rather narcissism combined with the uncontrollable impulse toward bar-room bloviation. ("Enough about this topic. Let's talk about me.")
Best leave him to Ritmo at that point.
Indian culture appears to be run by savages. ST - you seem to be under the impression that this is all feminist propoganda but I will note that that famous feminist Charles James Napier had to tell these animals "Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs"
ARM: I think you undersell modern young men.[...]
You do not have to be a wimp in order to respect women.
I think you've misread me, ARM. I did not mean to imply any such thing. Quite the contrary.
Personally, I feel that men who make the argument that "men cannot control themselves" should be castrated, as by their own admission they are a public danger.
I note that in Japan, mixed nudity in the public bathhouses is normal - and has never caused a problem with rape.
And Japanese men are as horny as anyone else.
Rebecca said...
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heh, the evolved, white man to the rescue.. don't we get tired of saying that? Pathetic.
Pathetic - your moral equivalence is showing. Some cultures are more equal than others. If your culture believes that you should burn widows, if your culture believes that blowing yourself up in a crowded market, your culture is frankly backward and disgusting and if you beleive that we are not better than them frankly that is what is pathetic.
Anglelyne said...
I think you've misread me.
Sorry but I felt you were being unnecessarily apologetic.
Amongst older men there has been a tendency to view feminist leaning young men as wimps, who can't get laid any other way. These stereotypes are no longer true, if they ever were. Just as we now get gay pro hockey players there can be roughneck feminist men. Attitudes towards women and/or heterosexuality are poorly correlated with physical and moral bravery.
"the evolved, white man to the rescue.. don't we get tired of saying that?"
But pm, didn't you essentially just say that yourself? To wit:
"Western society for most part realizes that."
Western society. Now, why do you suppose that is? (Not a leading question, I have no idea why). How possible is it to graft philosophies and mores of one culture onto another?
pm317: heh, the evolved, white man to the rescue.. don't we get tired of saying that?
White men rock.
Pathetic.
Which part(s)?
Rebecca said...
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get some education.
Paco Wové said...
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Yes, I said it in a self-critical way and cataloging the changes and advancing an argument for what could be. The other commenter seems to come from hate calling Indians savages and belittling that culture. BTW, Indians don't blow themselves up in markets, that is a different culture.
ARM: Sorry but I felt you were being unnecessarily apologetic.
There's no apology in my comment. I was describing the particulars of a specific place and time. You're reading in a commentary on young men now that isn't there.
Amongst older men there has been a tendency to view feminist leaning young men as wimps, who can't get laid any other way.
And there is a tendency among liberals to paint all conservative men as neanderthals who want to repress women. (They're both right some of the time.) But none of this has anything to do with my original comment.
Shouting Thomas wrote:
Back when I was young, leftists called Western attempts to impose Western religion and ideology on other cultures "cultural imperialism."
Now that they're eager to evangelize, they've forgotten all about that. Because, you know, their religious dogma is "scientific."
That's because they only thing its imposing values if its done militarily or by missionaries and it's Christians spreading the values.
But we all know that Hollywood spreads its' values aroudn the world a lot more efficiently than any missionaries. So what does Hollywood teach? Rampant sex and violence.
Back when I was young, leftists called Western attempts to impose Western religion and ideology on other cultures "cultural imperialism."
Yes, but it was all bullshit designed to indict Western Free World countries for what the International Communist movement was actually doing thru fomenting violent revolution; spreading their European leftwing cultural preference for slavery to the State. It was just a tactic.
During the New Deal, the Democrat Party was the party of white segregationists and Northern liberals. Now the Democrat Party is the party of feminists and third world rapists.
Paco Wové said...
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One more point about the hateful commenter -- he is talking about some practice that was going on 150 years ago in India that British (read evolved white men of the West) purportedly came and abolished. Lot of bad things were going on everywhere in the world 150 years ago.
Getting men at each other throats over rape hysteria!
Been going on my entire life. It's an oldie but goodie for feminists.
Never fails to get the moron chivalrous men competing with one another to prove that they are the "good men."
This is the purpose of the tactic.
Shouting Thomas said...
Getting men at each other throats over rape hysteria!
Been going on my entire life. It's an oldie but goodie for feminists.
Never fails to get the moron chivalrous men competing with one another to prove that they are the "good men."
This is the purpose of the tactic.
Let's think of this another way. I have a daughter. Aren't I simply acting in the best interests of my family to promote behaviors that respect women? Isn't this in fact the rational thing for any father to do?
pm317: One more point about the hateful commenter -- he is talking about some practice that was going on 150 years ago in India that British (read evolved white men of the West) purportedly came and abolished. Lot of bad things were going on everywhere in the world 150 years ago.
Tell you what, pm. You get all the haters who keep banging on about the purported sins of the white man lo those many years ago to put a sock in it, and it'll be mum's the word on good old Charles Napier. Deal?
Let's think of this another way. I have a daughter. Aren't I simply acting in the best interests of my family to promote behaviors that respect women? Isn't this in fact the rational thing for any father to do?
And?
You might want to go up to my first comment. I don't believe a word in any article in the Western feminist press when it comes to Asia or India. The notion that India is in the grip of a rape crisis is probably just bullshit.
Feminists in the U.S. keep harping about a purported "rape culture." And, they're just bullshitting.
Sadly both sides take this too far. While I disagree with ST's presentation I hardly think he hates women or wants to see them ill treated. What the enlightened womenists on this thread don't understand is how feminists have pushed this so far that men are being alienated. But I would bet ST would be more likely to admit women should be equal than the womenists here would admit that they have gone too far.
Palladian, Shouting is (imo) a valuable member of this community, but on this particular subject he is quite literally insane--having a very poor grasp on reality and a complete inability to understand other's POV.
And good grief, why all the vitriol directed at pm? She's just saying yes, it's a real issue, which not the same thing as as signing on to The Grauniad's entire (tiresome but destructive) agenda.
@Kirk,
No, I am the only person here making any sense.
Rape hysterias are the classic propaganda tool for driving a country into war.
Feminist rape hysterias are the lowest, shittiest, most corrupt political tactics of my lifetime. Designed to undermine all resistance by positing a position that only an "insane" person would oppose. That's precisely the propaganda tactic.
Who but a "savage insane person" would oppose such a propaganda hysteria? After all, the instigators of the hysteria are operating on pure and holy motives.
You're falling for the bullshit. What a crock!
PM to me: get an education.
I guess you are right pm they don't routinely blow each other up (except for the occasional bus - see 2010 Dantewada bus bombing or the hotels in Mumbi). Maybe you should educate yourself.
While we are focusing on the rapes what about the fact that the two most infamous rape cases recently involved groups of men attacking couples. The women were raped but the men were brutalized as well. I think they are asking the wrong question - what is it about your culture that promotes groups of men to believe they should be able to brutalize anyone.
I rest my case; thanks for the confirmation!
To the rest: yes, it actually is possible that both things are true at the same time: there is a bit of a problem here AND the lefty feminists are spectacularly wrong about it and their advice would likely lead to something worse.
Great Ghu, Rebecca: the attack on Mumbai was carried out by the Pakistani Islamist group Laskar e Taiba, with the complicity/Assistance of the ISI.
In every conflict throughout human history, each side in the conflict has traditionally dragged out the rape hysteria to justify its crusade against the other side.
The secular West is engaged in what might ultimately explode into a Holy War with those in the East who still believe in God and tradition.
The rape hysteria is a propaganda offensive... and the offensive is employing the oldest propaganda strategy.
Kirk - and your point is ????. I maintain that if your culture condone and encourages violence than your culture is crap. PM brought up the "White" culture. I am saying that American culture is the worst cultural system except for all the others.
The Mumbai atrocity was not a "fault" of Indian culture any more than the 9/11 attacks were the fault of American culture. That should be obvious.
Kirk Parker: And good grief, why all the vitriol directed at pm? She's just saying yes, it's a real issue, which not the same thing as as signing on to The Grauniad's entire (tiresome but destructive) agenda.
Ah, c'mon, Kirk. Nobody but Gasbag is being vitriolic or denying it's an issue. It's precisely her being Grauniadian in her approach to the (real) issue that has everybody else criticizing pm.
Being an Asian who has lived in the west for decades and has visited India 3 times (I came to love India), let me make my comments and observations.
(We don't have to become racist when discussing this thread).
I think Shouting Thomas is wrong for running his usual rant against feminism and leftism regarding this post.
I agree that not all cultures are equivalent. Some cultures have evolved for the better but others will evolve for the worst.
I believe there are things the west can learn from the east.
I think India needs a bit of overhaul of its cultural mindset and not just merely educating men that rape is wrong.
I don't know if femicide contributes to this high incidents of rape or sexual molestations of western women by Indian men.
India and China experience femicide differently due to high levels of sex-selective abortion and infanticide of girls because of their cultures strong preference for male children.
I read that in some places in India there is a sex ratio imbalance.
From Time magazine, By Erika ChristakisJan. 04, 2013
India’s 2011 census showed 914 females to one thousand males, the most skewed ratio since India’s independence in 1947. In some regions, such as the Northern state of Haryana, there are only 830 females to 1000 males. More than twenty years ago, Nobel prize winner economist Amartya Sen warned of more than 100 million “missing” girls from India as a result of this preference for male children.
Having referred to my premise, I think people from the west when going to the east should show a bit of respect to the values the east hold.
When we go to India, our leaders remind us to be modest in the way we dress and behave. I think that is a very useful advise.
I have no definite conclusion in this matter, however. When I was in India in 2006, I was groped on the breast 2 times in the same week inside a temple who I thought was a safe place.
But on the other hand, in 2008 when I arrived in Calcutta airport at 12.30 past midnight I planned to wait till daybreak to travel to my destination but being a person who gets bored quickly I decided at 3.00 AM to take a 3 hours taxi ride alone to my destination. My taxi driver told me that where we were travelling was one of the most dangerous areas in the state. I arrived safe and sound. Perhaps that's just my lucky day.
My other experience in India was weird as there was this couple who was pairing me up (a 50 year old (then) woman with their early 30s son.
But again, on the other hand, here in Australia, I was in his dental chair when this dentist did something weird; he didn't touch me but it was implicitly sexual.
I'm laughing while typing these comments as thinking about it, I really have no definite conclusion about this sexual molestation thing between cultures!
Short sexy dresses don't make it so men can't control themselves....
Short sexy dresses are *language* that says "I'm available, did you hear that AVAILABLE."
How short and how sexy, being related to whatever the cultural expectations for "modest" and "immodest" are. Which varies.
Synova: Short sexy dresses don't make it so men can't control themselves....
Short sexy dresses are *language* that says "I'm available, did you hear that AVAILABLE."
How short and how sexy, being related to whatever the cultural expectations for "modest" and "immodest" are. Which varies.
Synova, I don't know if you were referring to the "show a bit of respect to the value and be modest" line in my comments.
Firstly, how sexy or short in the particular culture can be easily determined. Just look around!
I know that advice from people I know is not fool proof. But if you are in the middle east for example, are you going to fully behave like you are still in the west?
In Dubai, there are cases of British expats who got jailed because they were having sex in the beach or drunk and kissing in a taxi.
Everyone to some degree adjusts their behaviour when in a different place, what more if you are in an alien culture.
Thanks, Kirk Parker!
I didn't even know what "The Grauniad's" was until I googled just now, let alone know their agenda and go along with it -- I don't read The Guardian. I just made a few comments in good faith from what I know of there and here.
Nini, I posted without reading any of the comments. (I read them after.)
I was responding more in general terms to our insistence in our culture that we not blame the victim because of the way she's dressed/the video the other day where the lady was talking about who makes the first move in human sex seeking behavior (the women indicates she's receptive)/and the (seemingly) often voiced idea that given a good view that men can't control themselves.
How we dress is one of the primary ways that women indicate that they are receptive (and that would be different in the US than in India... the same language, but different "words".)
If I'm in a bikini on the beach it means one thing, if I'm flashing bikini undies at a club that means something else.
But I don't think that men *lose control* because they see a boob (or even just a woman's hair). But some of them react badly when they perceive messages of receptivity.
My experience of Indian men is that they are in a class of their own with regard to how pervy and chauvanistic they can be. They have an attitude that women are property and it shows.
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