abuses abuses

So why is it that so many downright awful swear words and abuses/gaalis have gendered undertones..and often overtones?
son of a bitch. you're abusing the son...but need to go through his mother? why? whats the point??
mother and sisterfucker. again..the latter f-person is being attacked..with his mother and sister being invoked in the bargain. hmm.
is it because women are the symbolic capital of the stereotypical family and attacking them gets through to the whole clan?

Then again, there are various swear words that refer to male and female genitalia. Does reducing someone/referring to them by their sex organs go to the very core of who they are? I would hope not because surely there is more to us than procreation and sex...however important those may be...so whats the deal with dick/head and cunt and arsehole?

Hmm..points to ponder. Any thoughts?

of exes and stuff

am currently reading the research proposal of an ex boyfriend (ex as in it has now been about 10 years and at least 3 rivers have flown under the bridge. that was NOT meant to sound crude. merely factual). now a dear friend.
which set me off on this train of thought on the exes and moi.
come to think of it, i continue to be friends, in some cases very good friends with all my exes bar one.
quite a blessing, is that not?
to have shared time, emotions and a history with someone. and to not have to let go. even as both of you have moved on and recognise that and are comfortable with yourselves and each other for it.
i feel blessed:)
and in a more earthy, less spiritual way..pretty cool!

infantilising prose

i once wrote a post on voice, about how i had been told how to argue before venturing to do so.
some days ago, the speaker of those words told me he thought the person i had been arguing with was 'talking out of his arse'. of course on the evening in question, no such thing was told to the 'arse person'. the 'learn how to argue' comment was directed at me.
i also discovered later that the person who wanted me to sharpen my debating skills was actually in agreement with me. he just chose to insult me out of 'social awkwardness'. wow!
strange are the ways of the world and them i often do not fathom..

anyway, along similar lines, a discussion that soon descended into nothing the other evening had the following comments thrown at me:
you don't understand
man, she doesn't know what she is saying
whats she talking about
where is this "consternation" coming from

on the face of it, the speaker of these words is using agression to rattle his opponent. slightly school debate tactic, but whatever. i am not proud to state that at some point i walked out of this 'discussion'. it had reached depths that i did not wish to engage with. i should probably have changed the topic a long time ago. anyway, when i finally walked out, my anger was directed not at the quality of the debate (people are entitled to their views- excellent, good, bad or downright ugly and they are entitled to defend them) but at the cheap and to me infantilising shots such as the ones cited above.

did our opposite genders make it easier to throw around these insults? would you- truly- tell a male opponent to control his consternation and that he didn't really know what he was saying? really? do strong opinionated women rattle you like they do so many of the men around me? they use various silencing tactics. now i have witnessed another.

and yes, i would still call you a neo-liberal. if classical liberalism believed in the free hand of the market, neo-liberalism sought to bring back the pre-eminence of this entity in relation to the overbearing state particularly in developing country contexts. the biggest neo-liberal experiments with marketisation were attempted in latin america through the 80s and 90s. they failed and did not bring about the sort of developmental and growth gains that had been expected. india never experimented with all-out neo-liberalism of the world bank variety. that is seen as the reason for its post-(though not all out) liberalisation economic success by many.
neo-liberalism- the world over- took a slight step back and in its more recent avatar has decided to tango a bit with its old enemy- the state. this is called the good governance agenda- good governance as a facilitator of the market.
my infantilising opponent seemed still to be in awe of the 'free' market and its power when left unshackled, free to generate innovative enterprise.
if thats what you believe, fine. i see and believe otherwise.

and yes,
i know exactly what i am saying.

murderers as government ministers

maya kodnani, virulent hindu fundamentalist, instigator of and participant in mass violence, rape, murder against muslim women, men and children in february-april 2002, is minister for women and child *welfare* in gujarat, india today. sickening, isn't it?

an excerpt from a human rights watch report that outlines kodnani's role in the inter-religious vioelnce that brutalised gujarat in 2002-
'The Naroda Patia Case On February 28, 2002, at least sixty-five people were killed in Naroda Patia by a 5,000-strong mob that torched the entire locality. Countless others sustained severe burns and other injuries. Women and girls were gang-raped in public view before being hacked and burned to death. Homes were looted and burned while the community mosque, the Noorani Masjid, was destroyed using exploding gas cylinders. The crimes in Naroda Patia were among the most brutal in the state. An eyewitness to the murder of a six-year-old boy named Imran who testified before the Citizens' Tribunal described, for example, how "petrol instead of water was poured into [the boy's] mouth. A lit matchstick was then thrown inside his mouth and the child just blasted apart."
At least six BJP workers, who are also VHP activists, were identified as participating in the massacre. FIRs were registered against them but the police were instructed not to arrest them. One police officer told Indian Express, an English daily, "It is politically incorrect to arrest them and we are under tremendous pressure not to act against them." Maya Kodnani, a BJP Member of Legislative Aseembly from Naroda, and Jaideep Patel, the Gujarat secretary general for the VHP, were identified as ringleaders of the attacks.....'
More here, here and here

tata bye bye and some conversations

am off on holiday folks. see you on the other side. and seasons greeting to all of you. hope its a peaceful end to the year.
fun response to the previous post. thanks to all who dropped in.

and just some bendinggender thoughts..
as i have gone about acquiring an education and employment, the older women around me- esp those close to me- emotionally, by blood, by marriage- have had diverse reactions. one of these has been- you younger lot are fortunate. when i was 20 or 30 something (in the 1950s-60s) i was not allowed to do all that you have been encouraged to achieve. when i look at you, i wish i had done more with my life.
to this my reaction has been - but our worlds are so different. of course you have achieved a hell of a lot. look at your house, your family, your kids. given the raw material you were given, look what you have done with it. its amazing. please don't beat yourself up because you see me now, in this age. i have not achieved half as much as you have in so many spheres. and what i have achieved is from my own hard work- but it is also a product of my context.

another reaction has been- ah so you are apparently fairly well educated and well read. tell me what your thoughts on this author or book or situation are. ah- you don't have all that much to say. well then here's what i think. ..blah di blah..
and this attempt to talk to me in my language and show themselves to be up to it, indeed better has been played out again and again.
to this sitatuion i have thought- though less kindly than the previous one- you are good at what you do. but what you do is not what i do. why beat yourself up trying to be me or the next 20 or 30 something that you want to compete with and be like at some level? why go through the race now when you are 60 and (ought to be) pretty comfortable in your skin? why must we be competing with ourselves all the time? the aims of the feminist movement were never to make some of us feel inferior in comparison to others. we all have our zones of achievement. you and me. and they need not meet or overlap.

and the third reaction, the one that is actually lovely has been- yay you! i am proud of you and i know that i have had a role to play in who you are. i am happy for you and happy for me.
there's nothing to say to this one. yay us. hugs:)

why am i going over these conversations? because i have an inkling that they'll come up in the next few weeks. we shall see. i hope i handle them well and with the sensitivity that they deserve.
and when i get back dear readers, maybe you'll have written in with your gendered conversations with older generations? ta.

on voice

at a heated drawing room discussion on international politics the other day, i was told to 'learn how to argue' before venturing to actually doing so.
on being questioned, my 'wellwisher' felt that i had several 'good points' to make- but seemed to be putting them across too 'passionately'. this would make my *male* co-arguers think i was getting too emotional and would lead to them taking me less seriously than they should.

hmm...now my male co-arguers were being pretty passionate from what i could tell. they had their voices raised, their opinions being dished out one after the other. but no- they apparently knew how to argue. i needed to go to training school. so what if one of them condescendingly kept telling the rest of us 'ah, but you don't see', 'oh, but you're missing the point'. whatever.

in other contexts, i have heard a relative say- that woman (a third person) really talks too much. and another tell me- all this (verbalised, expressed) intellectualism is ok, but what really counts are the basics. while we never got into what these were, i am sure the implication was- cooking, cleaning, keeping house, having babies. you know- the 'basics' that we women are born to perform. maybe being pretty can be thrown in as well. you know- being seen but not heard.

shutting up - by 'concerned' comments, condescending ones, rude ones, ignoring or talking at you as opposed to with you- carries from our drawing rooms, work and familial spaces- to this, the virtual world. notice the amount of hate mail women bloggers get. threats to 'rape' them. suggestions that they are not 'graceful'. nit picky comments on or about their blogs.

and then there are those extreme cases of taking away ones voice, which are unfortunately far from rare. cases of throwing acid on a woman who said 'no' to your advances, cutting off her tongue, beating her, torturing her.

i may be being extreme in taking off from a drawing room comment and getting on to physical, emotional and sexual violence. yes, there are huge degrees of difference involved here. but underlying all of these instances is the shutting up and clamping down of a woman. the taking away or the attempted taking away of her voice. or the ridiculing of her possession of voice- on pettynesses of tone, pitch and the like.

this is not a gender issue alone. labour, lower castes, indigenous groups are constantly shut up and quashed down. with the denying of voice comes the undermining of confidence, a feeling of selfhood, of worth and being.

in worlds of 'respect', 'tradition' and 'grace', all of the categories above have been taught not to 'talk back'. or to make just that one soft spoken considered point and then retreat. to listen and nod at the right spots.
in my world though, and in the world of so many of my compatriots and comrades, sisters, friends- passion, intellectualism, indeed voice- high pitched, harsh, rash, bold, screaming, loud, articulate, emotional, even soft or merely whispering or what have you- is not a bad word. it is a right, a capability and an entitlement. it is spilling out here, it did in that drawing room, and may it- the collective it- never be silenced. not by grace or middle classness or politeness or one-sided respect. never ever.

oops!

met a childhood friend after more than a decade last week. she was passing through town and we invited her for a simple meal. she has acquired a partner/husband in the time we haven't met...so he came along as well. and guess what, we just didn't get on! it doesn't help that the guy was arrogant, silly and patriarchal in the mould of someone from two generations ago. he threw around stuff like 'oh, that is the way of you ladies- you cry all the time', or 'you ladies want so much material security, you just don't want to take risks' blah and blah. why call someone a 'lady', which has polite, genteel connotations...if you feel such contempt for the whole darned species?! anyway..given that the chap is probably in his early 30s, i find this attitude incomprehensible and infuriating. i am sure plenty of 30 year olds regurgitate the concepts and conversation of their father and grandfathers. but- they tend not to be my friends. so i guess this chap won't be either, huh? (sorry childhood pal...unless we meet for evening girly coffees every now and then?) all in all, a painful evening. my usually patient and ready-to-befriend-anybody husband too had his jaw set and eye on the watch by the middle of the proceedings. and me- i was oscillating between being stunned into silence, cutting sarcasm, attempts to be a slightly gracious host and gulping large amounts of wine to dull the pain. sigh...

guys and dolls

so my little nephew (almost three) has rejected dolls and soft toys. his parents, to my absolute joy, provided him with these ingredients of childhood, just as he was given access to lego blocks, dinky cars and mechano sets. the latter stuff he LOVES. the dolls- he doesn't touch. sigh...
even at playschool- where the toy cupboard is not gender segregated, he will go pick out the cars and not the furry bunny. ah well..why is this? inherent maleness? i think not. signals from the outside- about what boys play with- probably.
the good news, he likes playing house house and serving imaginary guests tea and food. cooked by him. he also likes toy gardening equipment. even better.
my take on this- he's not all that gendered yet. yipee.
the husband's take on it- ah, he's just the modern man:) its ok, even cool to cook and be house proud.
hmmm...
either way, i'm pretty pleased.