Sir vs Ma'am

Sometimes misogyny creeps through in forms of address

It was an innocuous enough question. So, I didn’t think too much about it when the guide on one of our recent trips asked my husband and me: “Is it okay if I address you by your first names?” Of course it was, we responded, and I thought no more about it.

 

But that was before I noticed that while he always called me “Seema” my husband was never first-named by him. Instead, he either had an honorific added – as in “Mr Vir” – or was respectfully addressed as “Sir”. And once my attention was drawn to this discrepancy, it was hard to ignore it. Every single time I heard him say “Seema” and then address my husband with a reverential “Sir” I could feel my temper rising. And it was only by exercising every iota of restraint I had at my command that I refrained from upbraiding him for this two-tier name-calling.

 

My husband tried to excuse the guide’s behaviour on the grounds of age, explaining that he was calling me by my first name because I seemed younger than him. But frankly, that didn’t cut much ice with me. My husband may be older than me but I was clearly a decade older than the guide; so age could not be a factor in his decision to first-name me consistently while “Mistering” my spouse. 

 

What accounted for the difference, then? Well, if you ask me, the difference stemmed from an internalized misogyny that tells men that while older men must be treated with respect, older women don’t deserve the same deference. The societal norms that give women a lower status than men are so deeply entrenched in us that we don’t even think about them any longer – we just act in accordance with them.

 

Think about it. How often have you seen Prime Minister Modi referred to as Narendra in the media? Or heard home minister Shah called by his first name, Amit, on television? They are always respectfully referred to by their last names. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on the other hand, is first-named all the time. The chief minister of West Bengal is routinely referred to as “Mamata” in the newspapers, without even the courtesy of an honorific added. Sonia Gandhi is always “Sonia” in news reports. Smriti Irani, Mohua Moitra, Renuka Chowdhury, think of any female politician of note and check how they are referred to in the media. In nine cases out of ten, they will be addressed by their first names rather than their last.

 

If you were to challenge the media on this, they would have their defences ready. Oh, we call her Sonia rather than Gandhi so as to not confuse her with Rahul (right!). It’s easier to fit Nirmala in a headline than Sitharaman (really?). Everyone knows her as Mamata anyway, so why confuse readers and listeners by calling her Bannerjee (how very obliging, to be sure!). 

 

And I am sure if I had challenged our guide, he would have had some explanation as to why I was “Seema” while my husband was “Sir”. But the thing about misogyny is that you know it when you see it and feel it. And once you have seen and felt it, no excuse – no matter how inventive – can remove its sting.

Sexism rules, ok!

Don’t sweat the small stuff; it’s the big picture that really matters

When it comes to sexism and misogyny in politics – or indeed in public life – I can’t help but feel that we tend to miss the wood for the trees. We are so busy protesting and outraging against the slings and arrows of everyday political discourse that we completely miss the big-ticket discrimination right under our noses.

Take the recent brouhaha over Vinay Katiyar’s sexist comments about Priyanka Gandhi. Asked what he thought of Priyanka as a star campaigner in the UP Assembly election, Katiyar scoffed that there were much prettier stars campaigning for the BJP. To her credit, Priyanka retorted with good humour: “He’s right, they do!” But then she added for good measure: “If that’s all he sees in my colleagues, who are such strong, brave, beautiful women, who have battled through all sorts of hardships to get where they are, then he makes me laugh even more…”

Priyanka may have laughed it off, but the media were not amused. No sooner were Katiyar’s remarks reported than social media skirmishes began clogging everyone’s timelines as those attacking the BJP leader came up against the full fervor of the Bhakt Brigade. That evening’s prime-time news bulletins devoted hours to debating how awful these sexist remarks were and how Katiyar should be forced to apologise. (True to form, Katiyar refused to do so and even walked out of Nidhi Razdan’s show on NDTV when he ran out of excuses for his behavior.) And the next day’s newspapers headlined the Katiyar remarks, and Priyanka’s retort, asking other women politicians to weigh in on the issue.

All of it left me asking myself some tough questions. Did Vinay Katiyar’s comment offend me? Yes, it did. Should he have objectified both Priyanka and his own party’s women leaders in the way that he did? Of course not. Was it really that big a deal that every TV channel should lead on it? Well, I was not so sure about that one.

Sexist man makes sexist remark. Should we allow that stray remark to dominate the headlines? Or should we go with that old saying: “Dog bites man is not news; man bites dog is.”

Yes, sexism and misogyny are woven into the very fabric of our public life. And it behoves us to call them out whenever we can, as loud as we can, and as often as we can. But should we continually get distracted by the ‘dog bites man’ spectacle and talk of nothing else? Or should we look past these incidents to focus on stuff that really matters?

So, what does matter? Is it that women are constantly being objectified and commodified by male chauvinists? Or is it that women are so rarely seen and heard on our political scene (unless, or course, they are related to male politicians)? Is it that people are too focused on their looks? Or that they are, at the end of the day, virtually invisible?

Let’s take a quick look around. As of this writing, as Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls, of the 324 candidates that the SP has announced so far, only 24 are women (and one of them is Aparna Yadav, Mulayam’s daughter-in-law). The BJP has 36 women among the 304 candidates it has announced. The Congress has announced the names of 43 candidates, of which only two are women. And even the BSP, which has a woman leader in Mayawati, has only 18 women among its 401 candidates.

In Punjab, the number of female candidates in the fray is also abysmal. The Shiromani Akali Dal has five women among its 94 candidates. AAP, which is contesting 112 seats has only nine women candidates. And of the Congress’ 117 candidates, only 11 are women.

The absence of women is, if anything, even more marked in Goa. Here, AAP is fielding five women, the Congress has three female candidates while the BJP has just the one.

Now, here’s an issue that I would like to see debated in prime-time TV news shows. That is the headline that I would like to see in my newspaper. Where are the women? Why are they missing in action? Why do we see so few female faces on the campaign trail?

I really don’t care whether they are pretty or not. Or how Vinay Katiyar – or any other male politician, for that matter – rates their looks. These are minor irritants. Let’s not allow them to distract us from the things that really matter. Men commenting on women’s looks is small stuff; men depriving women of opportunities is what we should be outraged about.

And no, don’t go waving the red rag of the Women’s Reservation Bill at me. You know as well as I do that it will never get passed. But there is nothing preventing political parties from reserving a third of their seats for women off their own bat. So why don’t they put their candidate list where their mouths are, and show us the tickets?

I don’t think this will happen any time soon. But until it does, let’s outrage about it as loud and clear as we can.

No country for...

We pride ourselves on being a tolerant society; but does that claim really stand up?

I can't get the image of that Tanzanian student in Bangalore, who was stripped and beaten by a raging mob, out of my head. How scared she must have been as she was pulled out of her car, with dozens of hands violating her body. Her terror as the one person who offered her a T-shirt to cover up was also set upon by the mob. And her utter despair when the police, who were supposed to protect her, simply looked the other way.

And then, to add insult to already grievous injury, came the comments of the state home minister. This was just an instance of road rage, he said, set off by the death of a local woman who had been run over. It had nothing to do with racism.

Really? Why would a mob attack the occupants of a car that came upon the scene long after the accident had occurred, if it wasn't for the fact that both cars were carrying African students? They couldn't tell a Sudanese from a Tanzanian; all they saw was the colour of their skin. And that was enough to spark a murderous rage in them.

If that isn't racist behaviour, then I really don't know what is.

And while attacks like the one on the Tanzanian student are rare, they are far from unknown. We can't have forgotten the midnight 'raids' conducted by Somnath Bharti in Delhi, when he led an angry mob, which went on a rampage, attacking and harassing several African women, accusing them of being sex workers and drug dealers. Bharti has since been prosecuted in the case, which is now slowly winding its way through the justice system, and will continue to do so over the next decade.

There are probably many other incidents of racism against Africans residents in India that never come to light. And even when they do, we never consider them worthy of discussion. It is hardly a secret that African students find it next to impossible to rent houses, that they are often referred to in perjorative terms as they go about their daily business. That the women are routinely stigmatized as sex workers and the men as drug dealers. We all know this, but for some reason, it doesn't bother us in the slightest. Perhaps, because we are far too busy denying that we are racist (who me? Don't be silly!).

It is not just the Black Africans who bear the brunt of our racism, though. Even our own countrymen from the north-eastern states suffer, simply because they look a little different. The term 'Chinki' is used routinely when referring to them; the thought that it might be offensive doesn't even occur to those throwing it about. That we can't tell a Naga from a Khasi, a Meitei from a Mizo is bad enough. What is even worse is that we can't tell an Indian from the north-east apart from a Chinese, Korean or Japanese person. And so, we end up treating them as foreigners in their own country.

Sadly, racism is not the only taint on our so-called 'tolerant' society. Ours is also not a country for women, whatever their color, racial type, religion or socio-economic status. We can't walk down the street without being harassed, can't travel in public transport without being groped, or even work in an office without suffering some kind of sexual harassment. The girl child is killed in the womb, the young adult is denied the same education as her brother, and the professionals come up against the glass ceiling sooner rather than later. And that's before we even go into the sexual violence women are subjected to, both in the home and outside, and the dowry deaths that go on unabated.

But women, at least, still have recourse to the law. In that, they are still better off than same-sex couples who are criminalized by Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, simply for the act of loving whom they do. It beggars belief that a colonial-era law that makes homosexuality a criminal act is still on the statute books of independent India -- even after the British themselves made homosexuality legal in 1967 and legalized gay marriage in 2014. And, sadly, even if the curative petition accepted by the Supreme Court does result in gay sex being decriminalized, it will be a long time before homosexuals and lesbians in India can live their lives without being stigmatized or harassed in some way.

But then stigmatizing and harassing people seems to have been honed to a fine art in our country. Men can be lynched to death on the suspicion that the meat in their fridge is beef. And instead of condemning this unreservedly, we say, 'What a shame! It wasn't beef at all, it was mutton', as if he deserved his fate if he had, in fact, eaten beef.

The sad truth is that we are rapidly exposing ourselves as a people who can't stand the Other. Men who are threatened by strong women use every tool at their disposal to keep them down. Hindus and Muslims regard one another with suspicion at best and hatred at worst. Dalits and high-caste Hindus are caught in a perpetual battle. Straight people can't stand homosexuals. And nobody has any love lost for people of another color.

I don't know what word best describes a nation like this one. Except that 'tolerant' is not the first one that comes to mind.

Gender bender

Is every attack directed at a woman necessarily misogynistic?

So, what is misogyny? I only ask because someone who couldn't tell the difference between a dictionary and thesaurus tried to teach Sonam Kapoor the meaning of the word in a twitter exchange recently. And also because I suspect that most of us are a little bit hazy on the concept. We know it exists. We know it when we see it or feel it. But the boundaries between what is misogynistic and what is simply a gender-neutral insult seem to lie on constantly shifting sands, so it sometimes difficult to nail down what exactly is misogynistic and what is not.

First off, let's make one thing clear. Every attack on a woman is not misogynistic by default. For instance, if you pillory Indira Gandhi on the imposition of the Emergency and the human rights abuses that followed, you are not being misogynistic. You are criticising her in terms that would apply equally if she were a man. If, however, you laud her as 'the only man in her Cabinet' then you are effectively saying that a woman is only praiseworthy if she behaves and acts in a 'manly' manner, and that squarely hits the misogyny mark.

Let's take a more recent example from Indian politics. Smriti Irani, the union minister for human resources development, gets her fair share of criticism from the media. She is attacked for interfering in the running of independent institutions; she is blamed when certain worthies resign from important educational posts; she is accused of taking directions from the RSS when it comes to the running of her ministry. But whatever the merit of these charges, not one of them is inspired by misogyny. These are accusations that would be made even if Irani were a man.

Misogyny only rears its ugly head when sexist specimens like Sanjay Nirupam refer to her in disparaging terms in television discussions, sneering that “Kal tak toh tum paise key liye TV pey thumke laga rehi thi, aaj neta ban gayi…Pata hai tumhara character.” The sub-text is clear. Irani doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously because she was an actress who used to perform on television, a lightweight who is only good for lagaoing a few ‘thumkas’. How dare she presume that she can debate with serious politicians like Nirupam (huh?) on equal terms?

Women politicians have become so innured to this kind of sexual innuendo, of being objectified, that they probably don’t even take much notice of such things. After all, if you stopped and protested every misogynistic remark thrown at you, there would no time and energy left to deal with anything else. Not Irani though, she sued Nirupam for defamation; and more power to her.

But all women in the public eye have to deal with this stuff at one time or the other. Take, for instance, such female sports stars as Sania Mirza and Saina Nehwal who have notched up as many victories as they have controversies. But it is hardly misogynistic to criticise Nehwal for being a bit of sore loser when she pointed out that she had been ignored for the Padma awards while wrestler Sushil Kumar got one (though you could make the case that Nehwal was a victim of the inherent misogyny of the sports establishment that values male sports stars over the female ones). If a male sporting hero had cribbed publicly about being overlooked, he would have faced much the same sort of reaction. But when you start slamming Sania Mirza for the hemlines of her skirts when she plays tennis then your attack is aimed directly at her gender identity. You don't need a dictionary (or even, dare I say, a thesaurus) to brand this as misogynistic.

Were the attacks on Aishwarya Rai when she didn't lose her baby weight fast enough an example of misogyny? Some of us in the media certainly thought so, arguing that no leading man would be targeted for weight gain in quite the same manner. Perhaps. But those who maintained that the rules for film stars – of both genders – were different, also had a point (see what I mean about shifting sands?). Aamir Khan has had to cope with jibes when he appeared looked a few kilos heavier recently. So did Hrithik Roshan, who quickly stepped away from the carbs and hit the gym, so that he could release before-and-after pix to prove that he was back in shape.

So then, what qualifies as a misogynistic attack? And what doesn’t?

Well, first, there are the no-brainers. If you insult a woman using sexual innuendo, imagery or abuse (‘slut’, ‘whore’, ‘bitch’ or the newly-minted ‘presstitute’) then that is straight out misogynistic. If you bring in her gender in any way while criticizing her work, that is misogynistic. If you objectify her, or reduce her to a sum of her body parts, that is misogynistic.

But you simply cannot extend the use of the term ‘misogynistic’ to attacks that while directed at a woman do not arise from the fact of her being a woman. Deriding Sonia Gandhi for her Italian birth is racist but not misogynistic. But comparing her to ‘Monica Lewinsky’, as the late Pramod Mahajan did during an election campaign, hits the misogyny mark dead centre. It is important that we learn to tell the difference.

If we are going to battle misogyny we first need to identify it. Then can we recognize it when it hits us square in the face. And only then can we fight back.

The lady vanishes...

Does writing about an anti-heroine make an author anti-feminist?

I read Gone Girl a year or so ago and was pretty much hooked from the word go. I read it in one sitting, abandoning all work and play, as I feverishly turned the pages to find out what happened next in a story in which nobody was quite what they seemed, and each narrator was as unreliable as the other. I haven’t seen the movie version as of this writing but there is no ignoring the cacophony of media commentary that has been unleashed by its release.

In creating Amy Dunne, the wife who goes missing as the book opens (fair warning: they may be some spoilers coming up!) leaving her husband, Nick, as the prime suspect, has Gillian Flynn done disservice to the sisterhood? Has she reinforced the misogynistic, anti-feminist stereotypes we all dread by creating an anti-heroine, who is – not to put too fine a point on it – a bit of a nutter?

As the articles piled up, I soon began to wonder if the entire world – okay, I exaggerate, only innumerable women columnists – had run mad. How does a single character in a work of fiction (admittedly written by a woman) come to epitomize the female condition? How can one female psychopath, as imagined by Gillian Flynn, be regarded as a judgment on every woman?

Well, the short answer is: it doesn’t; and it can’t.

A character in fiction is just that: a fictional character. It does not purport to be a realistic portrayal of womanhood; it is just the vehicle to tell us a story that emanates from the writer’s imagination. This story may well paint the woman as (spoiler alert! Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you!) a lying, evil, murdering, psycho with ice in her veins. But there is no way you can extrapolate from that that all women are like this. Or even that Flynn must hate all women to come up with a character like Amy Dunne.

It’s interesting to note that nobody thinks that the feckless, cheating, lying, weak Nick Dunne is representative of all mankind – or even an indication of Flynn’s incipient misandry – but Amy Dunne is seen as a reflection on all womankind.

Why should this be so?

Popular fiction is riddled with male characters who epitomize evil with a capital E. What could possibly be more disgusting that a psychiatrist who feasts on human flesh and announces that a human liver goes well with fava beans and a nice Chianti (that’s in the movie version; the book Hannibal prefers an Amarone)? And yet nobody thinks that Thomas Harris is a man-hating (not to mention man-eating) pervert to have come up with a character like Hannibal (the Cannibal) Lecter.

And what about Jeff Lindsay who created the darkest of dark characters in his book Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Those who have read Lindsay know that his fictional hero is much more hardcore than the suitably-sanitized for a TV audience, Dexter Morgan, of the eponymous television series. And while there have been critics who have questioned Lindsay’s mental health on occasion (and reading the books, it is easy to see why) nobody has suggested that Dexter is anything other than an anomaly. Nobody sees him as being symptomatic of all mankind.

So, why should Amy Dunne – and her creator, Gillian Flynn – have to carry that burden? Amy Dunne is just one woman, and a fictional one at that. Why should we try and see every woman in her? Why should the creation of a female psychopath – or sociopath, or whatever the word du jour is – be seen as a judgment on all women? Why is it seen as anti-feminist to create a strong anti-heroine? And why do we feel the need to tar a creative enterprise with the tag of misogyny, confusing the creator with the creation?

At one level, I think, this is because as women our default position is to be defensive. We tend to see everything as a judgment on us. If we read an article on false accusations of rape leveled by some women, we react with almost visceral anger, shouting about how it weakens the case of genuine rape victims. And how, in any case, such false accusations are so small in number as to be negligible. That may very well be so, but try telling that to men whose lives have been destroyed in the process.

Similarly, when we read about a female character who ticks all the wrong boxes, we feel outraged on behalf of our sex. And from there it is but a short journey to slagging off the author as a misogynistic, anti-feminist harpy. But before we pin these labels on Gillian Flynn, it might be worth taking a breath and seeing her book for what it is: a work of fiction, and a cracking good read at that.

And it may make sense to remember that women don’t have a monopoly on either virtue or vice. Some of them are nice; others are nasty. Some of them are good; others are evil. Some of them are angels; others are monsters. Some of them are victims; others are perpetrators. Some are psychos; others are saints.

No one size fits all when it comes to both women and men. And it is entirely up to a writer, which type she chooses to write about. And I, for one, am happy that Gillian Flynn chose to write about Amy Dunne, her Gone Girl.

Put up, shut up, and move on...

Whatever the merits of the Preity Zinta-Ness Wadia case, it is the commentary around it that is truly troubling

First up, the disclosures. I do not know either Preity Zinta or Ness Wadia. I was not present at Wankhede Stadium on 30 May. I don't know what happened during the altercation between the two co-owners of the Kings XI Punjab franchise of the IPL. So, I can't find for either the defendant or the plaintiff (which is, in any case, a matter for the courts). But what I do find extremely troubling is the commentary that has swirled around this case ever since Zinta filed a complaint at the Marine Drive police station.

So, here in no particular order of importance, are just some of the reactions that have left me gobsmacked.

* Women who are rich and famous cannot be abused/harassed. And certainly, it would be impossible to humiliate a successful actress like Zinta in public.

Really? If you believe that, I have just two words for you: Zeenat Aman. She was abused and slapped in public by the irate wife of one of her lovers at a society party. Did anyone come to her aid? No, they looked the other way obligingly, pretending that this was not happening. And we all know this happens all across 'high society' not just in the glamorous world of the movies.

* At a time when young girls are being gang-raped and killed in villages, women of privilege should not file 'frivolous' suits like this one.

This is a bit like saying that I should not complain to the police about a burglary in my house because there are so many murder investigations that they are dealing with. The truth is that it is incredibly silly to draw some sort of equivalence between crimes, or try and grade them in a sliding scale of 'seriousness'. A crime is a crime is a crime. Each one needs to be dealt with appropriately and with the full force of the law. And maybe if all of us had the courage, the patience, and the energy to report the 'minor' abuse we put up with in our day-to-day lives, there would be less 'major' stuff to deal with.

What's even more offensive about this 'whataboutery' is that it turns crimes against women into an either-or category. There is no contradiction between standing up for rape victims in India's villages and standing up for the right of an actress to seek legal redressal for harassment. One does not negate the other, it just reinforces the policy of 'zero tolerance'. And I suspect that if this zero tolerance policy was applied in our villages as well, the incidence of rape would only decrease.

* What is the big deal if an ex-boyfriend calls you a 'f***ing b***h' or a 'w***e' in public? Get over yourself and sort it out with him behind closed doors. Or just give an interview to the media and get it out of your system. Why go to the police?

Because we all know what a breeze intimate partner violence – whether verbal, emotional or physical – is, right? Not like 'real' violence at all. And if you must air dirty linen in public, why not get some media attention why you are at it? After all, isn't that exactly what you are after?

Actually, no, it isn't. Sometimes taking a public stand is not enough. Especially if the harassment is consistent and ongoing. Naming and shaming is not enough. The only way to wrestle some control back is to take recourse to the law. And that is your right, no matter what your previous relationship with the accused.

* In any case, if you are currently in or have been in a relationship with the guy, harassment doesn't really count. This kind of thing happens between ex-lovers. Call it a lovers tiff, if you will. Or an ex-lovers tiff, if you want to get all pedantic about it.

This is the kind of language used by people who use the word eve-teasing to describe harassment and who think that stalking your ex is just a bit of harmless fun. No need to get your knickers in a twist about that! Perhaps somebody should explain to these people that today's stalking can easily turn into tomorrow's molestation, just as today's abuse can escalate into tomorrow's violence. This kind of thing needs to be nipped in the bud, and now.

* A beautiful woman of 39 years is an 'ugly, washed-up hag' who can't bear the thought that her ex – a very eligible bachelor indeed, at a mere 44 years of age – has a new, younger, hotter girlfriend.

Ah yes, the sexism and the misogyny! It's never very far away from the surface, is it? She has never gotten over the fact that he didn’t marry her. And now she's taking revenge because he has fallen in love with someone else. Her acting career is washed up, so she is trying to stay in the headlines by filing frivolous cases against her ex. Never mind that no matter how much of a 'has-been' she is, Zinta is still a far more famous and recognizable figure than Wadia. And that both parties have been in relationships after their break-up without this kind of ugliness surfacing.

In any case, just a cursory look at some of the pictures surfacing now will tell you that Zinta is still pretty darn stunning. In fact, even more so, because a woman never looks better than when she is standing up for herself – and by extension, for all of us.