How society and the big media systematically denegrate women

Victimized women are always on fire for doing the wrong things!? Whenever there's a rape or molestation, the media and society jump in almost immediately to the conclusion that the victim was wearing short skirts, went out all by herself in the dark night, was dead drunk or whatever they could imagine of - to such an extent that the audience would even sympathize with, or justify the attacker. Worse still is the case of domestic violence. Women are supposed to take in all their husbands' egoism and chauvinistic sadism with meekness and quietness - for the sake of the so-called family honour. Its so obnoxious that makes one wonder how honourable can 'family honour' be when its blind to the honour of a woman - the mother of the family. Damn!

Recent days have shown to how far the media can go and denegrate women. Two women have been favorites for several news media - Sania Mirza and Sunanda Pushkar. Case 1, Sania might have done the worst possible thing in marrying whoever she is now married to, but isn't that her right. There is no real reason as to why she shouldn't marry a foreign national. Honestly, she was in the news for no fault of hers. And she in fact deserves appreciation now, that she's announced that she wouldn't be dropping her maiden name. I've no idea if she's a feminist, but certainly its a good start.

Case 2, Sunanda might be innocent or not. I have honestly no means of finding out if she used her relationship with Tharoor to win the bid - in fact, no one knows! She might have and I'm in no mood to defend her. However, the way the media has treated her is horrible. It seems the media just cannot accept that women can be successful in business. They went to the extent of projecting her as a slut. Its so unfortunate that media in a country like India, which has seen women like Kiran Shah, Indra Nooyi and Kiran Bedi still struggles to accept women as independent and capable of succeeding in business all by themselves.

Obviously things get worse when these attitudes are reflected by law. The recent judgement of a Bombay court that forbids abused women from filing cases in police stations other than the place of abuse has raised eye-brows. People end up wondering if there is any point in asking a woman who had just escaped a place of torture to go back to the same vicinity to seek justice. Families also contribute to this jeopardy. Young women are taught to obey their husbands and in-laws too.

Here's a typical scenario. When a couple get married, say the wife prepares tea for her husband. He thanks and appreciates and even makes a godess of her. Next day when she prepares tea again, he might thank and appreciate. Day three, he merely thanks her. Day four, he asks her to leave the tea on the table. Day five, he doesn't even care. Day six, she is now supposed to prepare tea. Day seven, she's got headache and needs someone to prepare tea for her. This guy calls her mom and rants 'your selfish daughter didn't even give me a cup of tea!' If your planning to marry, I think I should advice you to let your husband prepare tea for himself from day one.

With dipping sex-ratios and a male-dominated social setup, feminism in India has a long way to go. Yet, this is what I believe in the core of my heart - if you are female, if you are feminist you are FREE!

Women can choose to be free

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.
- Roseanne Barr

The Women's Reservation Bill has caused much controversy in the Indian political scene. While I do support the reservation, it should be understood that India is actually trying to build a palace with no foundation to lean on!!!

Its only too unfortunate that this nation has a long way to go in terms of women emancipation. Topping the list is the dowry business, as someone famously said, "Indian Marriage is a market where parents do the shopping," besides abuse, beautification, domestication, incest, purification, subjection and virgin-ism. In spite of all the progress India claims currently, most govt. applications always define women in terms of their relationship with men - they're always the daughter of some father (never a mother), or the wife of a husband - its only of late I've seen newspapers refer to women as Ms. and not 'Miss' or 'Mrs.'

Even women don't seem to refute social stereotypes. Almost every other woman I know switches to her hubby's surname after marriage. While its liberty to be identified by her husband's surname, its a huge compromise on her self-identity. I'm yet to find one good reason as to why a woman should choose to live behind her husband's shadow. The consequential problem is even worse. A child always has a father's name suffixed - because the mother's original identity had ceased to exist post-marriage... in spite of the fact that the woman went through a horribly painful nine month pregnancy and not the man!

Women, however, in my opinion, can choose to be free. But the fight can only work out from the bottom-up. Reserving parliamentary seats and educational courses is a great idea. But it can permeate the society only if women start from the foundation. They should learn that all the outward glossy freedom is by far overshadowed by what goes on behind closed doors. It would be really great if a woman can be a parliamentarian and independent, rather than one who is waiting to leave the Lok Sabha Chamber to prepare dinner at home. Right-to-choose, self-identity and total-equality are some things the women's movement can never choose to ignore.

I am prepared to sacrifice every so-called privilege I possess in order to have a few rights.
- Inez Milholland, Suffragist 1909

The Case for Public Domain

"English language (and all applications thereof) used without permission from its inventors, writers, and copywriters. No rights reserved. All parts of this book may be reproduced and transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, especially including photocopying if it is done at the expense of some unsuspecting corporation. Other recommended methods include broadcasting reading over pirate radio, reprinting tracts in unwary newspapers, and just signing your own name to this and publishing it as your own work. Any claim relating to copyright infringement, advocation of illegal activities, defamation of character, incitement to riot, treason, etc. should be addressed directly to your Congressperson as a military rather than civil issue."
- Days of war, nights of love, p4
CrimethInc Ex-workers Collective

Homeless Guerillas

“The notion that intellectual property rights should never expire, and works never enter the public domain -- this is the truly fanatical and unconstitutional position,''

- Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School

When someone talks of free as in freedom, the listeners usually perceive it in a negative connotation. In fact, many even argue that copyrighting and patenting is a means to encourage creativity - but behind closed doors use pirated Microsoft Office software. Face the facts, for example a money-sucker by name Bill Gates wrote a book called The Road Ahead – and copyrighted it! So any person speaking the English language is not supposed to write a book under the same title. What tyranny! It’s obviously foolish to argue that the authors’ interests are protected, even a child can say that it serves the publishers interests rather than any author – the demmed billing Gates included (Pun intended). It was to oppose this nonsense, the Free Culture Movement began – obviously an offshoot of the more popular Free Software Foundation. To read my article on FOSS click here. Does copying destroy creativity? Overwhelming empirical evidence compels me to say no. The Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement has produced better software, are valued as better businesses¹ than all its cold, costly and closed competitors. Over to fine arts, the once booming music/movie industry is apparently in trouble. A friend of mine watches most movies before they are released in India. The economic implications aside, I approve of piracy. If they don’t give it, take it! But freedom is more than just piracy. It’s the right to use the work, free from any fear of cops knocking your door, telling you that your tune has been already copyrighted by someone called AR Rahman (as if no one has the creativity that Rahman has) – pathetic! It’s also the right to modify the work and use it. And that’s what free culture movement is all about. Presently, it’s like guerrilla warfare. And interestingly Indian Hackers lead the show. But it needs more support, more voices to join together to oppose this infraction of personal freedom. Our revolution must be an immediate revolution in our daily lives; anything else is not a revolution, but a demand that people once again do what they do not want to do and hope that that this time, somehow, the compensation will be enough.² Obviously, the road ahead (screw Gates) to freedom is not going to be easy. Free Culture activists experience a psychological phenomenon called homelessness – everyone stands away from family members to the government, to college professors; even though they might secretly approve of it. Of course, for those who dream of a world without flags, borders or authorities, homelessness is a natural state.

References:

1. Vance, Ashley. “Valuation Hiccups.” eWorld Business Line. 7 December 2009: P1.

2. Anonymous. Days of War, Nights of Love. Anywhere: CrimethInc, (Copyright?? WHAT???) NEVER!

PS:

Visit www.freeculture.org to learn more about the FC Movement.