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.

Daddy issues

We do our kids a disservice when we marginalize the role fathers play in their lives

A few months ago, I went to see the stand-up comic, Papa CJ, perform his show, Naked. He walked on to the stage, carrying a few props. Among them was a teeny-tiny blue onesie that he hung up on a stand behind him as he began his routine. But it was only towards the end of the show that the audience learnt its significance. This was what Papa CJ’s son had been wearing when he last saw him. Since then, many long years had passed but he hadn’t seen his son because of a bitter divorce and a custody battle that left him frozen out of his child’s life.

There were a few moist eyes in the audience by then, especially when he confessed that he had a fantasy that a stranger would knock on his door one day, ask him if he was Papa CJ, and then ask if it was okay if he just called him ‘Papa’.

I was reminded of this show last week when I read Maneka Gandhi’s comments on paternity leave. The Union minister for women and child development announced: “Paternity leave will be considered only if, once the woman goes back to work after 26 weeks of leave, we find that men are availing their sick leave for a month to take care of the child…I will be happy to give it but for a man, it will be just a holiday, he won’t do anything.”

Now, I have no personal knowledge of the circumstances of Papa CJ’s divorce and the rights and wrongs of his custody battle, but having witnessed his pain as he recounted being denied access to his son, it was clear that here was one father who would have given anything for the privilege of changing his child’s diaper one more time. And in that, he stands in for millions of Indian fathers who would love to play a more hands-on role in the rearing of their children, but are unable to do so because one parent has to be in full-time work to keep the home fires burning.

These kinds of men do the best they can. They try and come back early each evening to give their wives a little rest. They take over night feeds. They rock the baby to sleep in the early hours of the morning. They put together a quick pasta or pulao for dinner if the baby has bad colic and just won’t settle down. And they long for the weekends when they can spend quality time with their kids, breathing in their special baby smell as they douse them with talcum powder post bathtime.

Are there some Dads who shirk childcare responsibilities even when they have all the time in the world? Am sure there are. But for every Dad who prefers watching football to playing ball with his kid, there is another who spends hours reading stories to his child, giving in to every demand of, “Just one more, Dad!”

Fathers like these would like nothing more than a period of paternity leave when they could legitimately take some time off work to bond with their babies, and give their sleep-deprived wives some respite in the endless duties of childcare. But stereotypes like the ones that Maneka Gandhi referenced in her statement prevent them from doing just that.

This casual dismissal of the important roles fathers play – and more importantly, want to play – in a child’s life is symptomatic of a culture in which it has become fashionable to slag off men to prove your feminist credentials.

Consider this. Would Maneka Gandhi have been allowed to get away with it if she had made such a sweeping statement about women? Or, more to the point, would a male minister get away with being so dismissive about women? Let’s say that a male minister said that women should not be allowed credit cards because they are reckless shoppers and would run into debt. Would we let that go as easily as we have the suggestion that all men would treat paternity leave like a paid vacation?

Of course not. There would be widespread outrage, political parties would condemn the statement, social media would go into meltdown, there would be demands for an apology. In short, all hell would break loose.

But sexism doesn’t cease to be sexism just because the targets are men rather than women. And dismissing all men as ‘feckless fathers’ who don’t have any interest in looking after their children reeks of rank sexism.

Yes, there are plenty of men who feel pretty useless around a baby when he/she is being breastfed and in diapers. But who said that paternity leave was only meant for when the child is an infant? Child-rearing doesn’t stop once the kids have started walking and talking. If anything, it can get even more strenuous.

It’s not enough to bathe and feed children. It is just as important to teach them life skills like swimming or cycling. Or indeed, provide them a living example of a world in which men and women are equal participants, equal partners even, in the task of raising a family.

So, instead of reinforcing the stereotype that looking after babies is a woman’s job, how about encouraging men to get more involved in the rearing of their children? And if you are going to do that, then incentivizing them with a period of paid paternity leave is a good start.

When Imran wed Reham

What did we learn from the wall-to-wall coverage?

So, after claiming (a tad disingenuously) that the rumours of his marriage were ‘greatly exaggerated’, Imran Khan finally bit the bullet and got married a second time round. His new begum, Reham Khan, is a lovely, lissome, long-haired beauty, cast in the same mould as his ex-wife, Jemima Khan (who has since announced that she intends to revert to her maiden name, Goldsmith, now that there is a new Mrs Khan on the scene).

But amid the wall-to-wall coverage in Pakistan, India and Britain (where Jemima – and hence Imran – is still a staple of the gossip pages), and the many, many jokes doing the rounds of social media, there are still some things that stood out in the Imran-weds-Reham coverage. 

So here, in no particular order of importance, is what we learnt:

• It doesn’t matter how old, or how important, a man is. When it comes to marriage, his immediate family will always have strong views – and won’t be afraid of airing them in front of the international media. So, even though Imran is now a venerable 62, his sisters still managed to throw a hissy fit about his marrying a woman they did not approve of. They had no idea about the wedding, they snorted, and in any case, they had no intention of attending. So, that’s one in your face, Reham. On the brighter side, things can only look up from here.
• As that old cliché goes, a second marriage represents a triumph of hope over experience. But sometimes experience plays a role in the choice of the new spouse as well. So, after years of trying to make his ‘multicultural’ marriage to Jemima work (though frankly, she had to do most of the work: adjusting to life in Pakistan, learning Urdu, adopting the salwar-kameez, bringing up two boys, and coping with the anti-Semitic attacks of the Urdu press) Imran has chosen a woman who he has much more in common with. Reham was born of Pakistani parents but educated mostly in Britain. She now lives in Pakistan and works in the media, but like Imran, feels at home in both cultures. Fingers crossed, everyone.
• No matter how hard we try and convince ourselves that a measure of gender neutrality exists in the media, the sad truth is that sexism is still alive and well in the newsroom. So, every story of the Khan nuptials takes great trouble to tell us that Reham is a divorced mother of three. Nobody really bothers to make the point that Imran is a divorced father of two. And then, there are some who helpfully point out that at 43, poor old Reham can’t hope to make any bonny babies with Imran (tsk, tsk).
• Age-gap relationships never bother us much when it comes to older man-younger woman combines. No surprises then that the 20-year age gap between Imran and Reham doesn’t merit much discussion (though you can be sure that if their ages were reversed, the commentary would be quite different). So, full marks to the Pakistani channel that showed visuals of their wedding overlaid with an audio track of that old Hindi film song, “Mai kya karoon Ram, mujhe budha mil gaya”. Way to land a blow for gender equality!
• No matter how good-looking the man, he always looks spectacularly silly in his wedding finery. And Imran – who has broken a million hearts in his time, but is now beginning to look like that wrinkly uncle who scowls bad-temperedly in every family photograph – is no exception to the rule. Looking ill-at-ease in a shimmering gold sherwani, paired rather ludicrously with what looked like a platform-heeled sandals, Imran was less Lion (or Loin, as they fondly call him) of Punjab and more Rabbit Caught in the Headlights.
• Ah, now Reham, on the other hand: she looked simply spectacular. But then, we all know that weddings are essentially about the dulhan. And boy, did she make the perfect bride! All demurely wrapped-up in white and gold, with just a splash of red brocade, she looked radiant and oh-so-in-love, flashing a smile of sheer happiness (never mind the scowling dulha, glowering by her side).
• But no matter how old and wrinkly the man, and how radiant and beautiful the bride, he is always the Big Catch and she is the Lucky One who managed to land him. We saw this during the George Clooney-Amal Alamuddin nuptials. And now much the same sort of stuff is being recycled for the Imran-Reham pairing. How did she get so lucky? Surely, he deserves better? How did she manage to trap him? Why did give up his long-time bachelor (well, okay, divorcee) status for her? But if you ask me, the only people who got it right were those who captioned the Khans’ wedding picture: “Former BBC newscaster marries Taliban sympathizer.” Score!
But never mind the jokesters and the naysayers. What’s not to love about two people in love? And two people brave enough to take another chance on marital bliss? So, Imran and Reham Khan, many congratulations. And may you live happily ever after…

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.

Poll fault

Sexist attacks seem to be par for the course if you are a woman standing for election

You must have read the news reports last week. The Election Commission has decreed that all women candidates standing for election will get an extra PSO (Personal Security Officer) to escort them on the campaign trail. This PSO will be female to ensure that close proximity protection is not a problem.

The order came soon after the travails of film star, Nagma, the Congress candidate in Meerut, had become fodder for news headlines across the country. First, a Congress politician was filmed pulling her towards him and appearing to kiss her (or whisper into her ear, depending on which version you believe). Then, she was groped as she made her way through a public meeting; to her credit, Nagma planted a stinging slap on the face of the offender.

Not that Nagma is the only one to suffer such indignities as she campaigns for the Lok Sabha elections. Other women candidates have had similar problems, more so if they are glamorous and high profile. Across the political divide, Hema Malini, the former Dream Girl of Hindi movies and currently BJP candidate from Mathura, has refused pointblank to leave the safety of her car as she tours her constituency for fear of those wandering hands in the crowds.

But while an additional female PSO may well make campaigning a little more secure for these women (though I have my doubts about that) what on earth can protect them from the blatant sexism that they face from political opponents, the media, and the public at large?

Sexist attacks on female politicians are nothing new. (Indira Gandhi, for instance, was routinely referred to as the ‘only man’ in her Cabinet by men who didn’t seem to understand just how offensive this description was.) But they seem to have increased in intensity as female candidates get younger, more attractive, even sexy, and less easy to typecast in the traditional avatar of the woman politician: the ma, behan, beti, bahu mould of yore.

Take the case of Gul Panag, the AAP candidate from Chandigarh. The moment her name was announced as a Lok Sabha hopeful, media outlets vied with one another to post ‘revealing’ pictures of her – quite oblivious to the fact that all this achieved was to ‘reveal’ their own misogynistic, sexist mindset. On Twitter, trolls took to posting morphed pictures of her, wearing lingerie and an AAP cap, to portray her as a mindless bimbo. Even that noted non-feminist Madhu Kishwar tweeted disparagingly, “Gul Panag is cute but not politically astute!” A few days later, critiquing Panag’s performance on a TV show, Kishwar snorted that it did less harm “teaching women to be Barbie dolls”. To her credit, Panag didn’t let any of this throw her off her stride, eschewing the conservative salwar kameez look to campaign in jeans and on a mobike.

Rakhi Sawant faced the same sort of sexism when she announced that she would stand as the candidate of her own political party, the Rashtriya Aam Party (RAP). The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate in her constituency of Mumbai north west, Mayank Gandhi, sneered, “Rakhi Sawant ko maja maarne wali janta vote degi.” (No, it doesn’t sound much better in English, either.) The irrepressible Sawant wasn’t taking this lying down. She filed a complaint against Gandhi at the Oshiwara police station for using ‘filthy language’ against her and a non-cognisable offence was registered against the AAP candidate.

Proving that sexism is an equal opportunity offender that doesn’t discriminate between parties, AAP women candidates faced similar sexist attacks as well. Shazia Ilmi of AAP, who is standing against General V.K. Singh in Ghaziabad, for instance, is routinely dismissed as a ‘pretty face’, the implication being, of course, that there is nothing of any substance behind that lovely façade. Because we all know that attractive equals dumb, right? The good General himself dismissed her as ‘childish and immature’ though it must be said in Shazia’s defence that no matter how childish she may be, at least she knows how old she is. Which is more than you can say about our former Army chief.

Sadly, when it comes to making sexist remarks, women politicians can be both targets and aggressors. But even so, Maneka Gandhi probably hit a new low when she attacked Sonia Gandhi at a public rally. Drawing attention to how affluent her estranged sister-in-law had now become, Maneka wondered how this was possible given that she had not brought a single paisa as dowry when she got married (“Dahej mein toh ek paisa bhi nahi layi thi”). Small wonder then, that women are often considered to be the biggest enemies of other women.

So, what is the best way to cope with such blatant, even casual, sexism? I guess, in this context, winning the election may well be the best revenge.

But what about...

No matter what the subject, social media wants to know why you haven’t outraged on that ‘other’ matter

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there is a new malaise infecting the netherworld of social media. I like to call it ‘whataboutitis’. Others prefer the term ‘whataboutery’. But whatever you choose to term it, this is an insidious disease that is steadily infecting the universe of our social discourse. For the moment, it is restricted to the virtual world but like all things trite and less than wonderful it will soon be an IRL (that’s ‘In Real Life’ for all you newbies out there) phenomenon as well.

So, what is ‘whataboutitis’? Well, this is basically how it plays out. You express an opinion about a political party/current event/celebrity/politician. And no matter what the merit of the opinion itself, you are instantly called out because you omitted to express an opinion about that other political party/current event/celebrity/politician. That omission, apparently, makes the opinion you did voice completely and utterly invalid – pretty much useless, in fact. (Never mind if you did, in fact, have your say about that ‘other’ matter; if people don’t remember it, it doesn’t really count. Not on social media, anyway.)

The classic example is that of the 2002 Gujarat riots. You only have to mention them on social media and you will instantly have to do battle with an army of ‘whatabouters’. What about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, then, eh? Weren’t they as much a case of genocide? Did anybody apologise for them? Did anyone go to jail? Isn’t Rajiv Gandhi as guilty as Narendra Modi? Why are you just picking on Namo, then? Are you ‘paid media’? Or just ‘sickular’?

And what about Godhra? Did you shed any tears for the people who were killed on that train? Did their deaths not count? Wasn’t that a pre-planned conspiracy? What about the Nellie massacre? Do you even know how many died in that? Do they not matter because they happened in faraway Assam? What about the Muzzafarnagar riots? Isn’t Akhilesh Yadav guilty for letting them happen?

The questions just pile on, as ‘whataboutitis’ flares into an virtual epidemic, with nobody stopping to think just how distasteful and vile it is to play partisan politics over the bodies of dead Indians, no matter what their religion (or political affiliation) may have been.

But this ‘whataboutitis’ is not restricted to riots, either. It extends to most discussions about feminism, sexism and women empowerment as well. It is impossible to stand up for any one woman without being harangued about how you didn’t stand up for that other woman. (The honest truth is that you did. But public memory is even shorter on social media.)

In my own experience, every single time I have tweeted against an instance of sexism against a woman in public life, the ‘whatabouters’ have struck back with nary a care for the truth. When I attacked Sanjay Nirupam for making sexist comments about Smriti Irani on television, the Congress brigade hit back at me with squeals of ‘whataboutery’. ‘What about Narendra Modi’s sexist comment about Sunanda Pushkar? How come you weren’t outraged about that as well?” (Well, actually I was, and I tweeted about that too, thanks for asking.) On the other hand, whenever I comment on Modi’s sexist remarks, the right wing brigade gets its knickers in a twist about the fact that I hadn’t defended Smriti Irani against the smarmy comments of Sanjay Nirupam. (Er, I wrote an entire column about it; you can Google search it once you’ve stopped frothing at the mouth.) And what about the fact that I hadn’t defended Sushma Swaraj when she was derided as a ‘nachaniya’ by such Congress leaders as Digvijay Singh. (Only, of course, I did.)

Call Tarun Tejpal out on his Alchemy Of A Liar and you are asked why you didn’t condemn Assaram Bapu in the same breath. Express your anguish about the Delhi gang rape victim and you will get ‘what about all the tribal women who get raped’. Comment on how long Sourav Ganguly took to finally retire and the ‘What about Sachin?’ question will inevitably follow. Stand up for Shah Rukh Khan’s right to air his views about what it means to be Muslim in India and the ‘whatabouters’ will bring up Salman Khan and his celebration of Ganesh Chathurti (now, isn’t that what ‘true secularism’ is about?).

Complain about right-wing trolls who call you names and threaten to rape you and you will be asked ‘What about the Congress trolls who do the same thing?’ (Answer: please name and shame them all; report spam; get their accounts blocked. I have zero tolerance for abusive people on social media, no matter what their political affiliation. The reason I outrage about the Sanghis is because they are the ones trolling me. The moment Congress handles do the same, I will call them out as well.) Say you like pizza and people will want to know what’s wrong with chaat. Talk about loving Delhi and people will want to know what’s wrong with Mumbai. Praise Peter and you will be asked ‘But what about Paul’?

I have to admit that despite my best efforts to Stay Calm and Carry On, this epidemic of ‘whataboutitis’ is beginning to get me down. I am seriously thinking of putting a disclaimer on my social media feed: Please feel free to assume that I am outraged about everything, unless I declare otherwise.

Do you think it would serve as an antidote to ‘whataboutitis’? Well, a girl can dream, but I kind of suspect that this nightmare has only just about started.