The last two months have been fun and troubling all at once. For the first time, I’ve looked at myself as a visitor to India. I’m going to be in the US for at least another five years. The practical, organized side of me has been wondering if I want to make it my long term home.
There are a million reasons to not live in India. The proximity to bitchy relatives, the bad infrastructure, the endless reservations guaranteeing that in another decade you will have to be born “backward caste” to get a decent education or a government job, the corruption, the incessant competition for everything from education to road space and ground water, terrible politicians, dependence on the maid, superstition, bad newspapers, terrible television… The list of petty annoyances is endless. Sometimes, it does add up to the point where it seems simpler to not live here.
On the other hand, life seems so much simpler in India. Perhaps it’s an illusion. After all, I’ve never really run a home in this country. I’ve always lived with my parents and even today, as a married woman, it’s my mother or mother in law who takes care of the home while I eat and watch TV. Anyway, it seems nicer to have someone deliver groceries and medicines to your door. It seems so much simpler to have access to a sari shop, a temple, a social life and satellite radio. Not to mention reruns of old American TV shows on Star World.
But then, there’s the stuff that really annoys me. The gender discrimination. The feminist in me refuses to shut up when she’s in India. I’ve had heated arguments with random cousins, my mother, my father in law and all sorts of people about gender roles and why they are the way they are. Even a mother who never favoured her son over her daughter must favour her son-in-law over everyone else. Why the boy is considered special is beyond me. But then again, given the father of the bride washes the groom’s feet (in the wedding) before officially “giving her away”, why should we even be surprised? This in a “progressive” family. What happens in families that don’t believe in educating daughters or making daughters in law feel like any other member of the (totally dysfunctional) family?
It’s not that gender discrimination or sterotyping doesn’t exist in outside of India. You can’t even buy an outfit for a baby in the US that’s gender neutral (I’ve been shopping for a dear friend who’s expecting). But at least no one goes about setting women on fire for dowry or filing for divorce because the wife can’t cook. And the lower rates of abuse against women helps too. No, what annoys me more than anything else is the attitude. The belief that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, serving her husband, her in-laws and her sons, raising her daughters to be good wives. The belief that the victim of sexual assault is at fault. The endorsement of “eve teasing” the gawks, the gapes, the lewd comments at the bus stop. The general feeling of women being treated like Cinderella (except not even the ugly step sisters are treated any better by their mother) is what annoys the hell out of me.
I’m tired of making speeches. And arguing with people hoping they’ll change their minds. I wish there was something I could do to make a difference. Meanwhile, I think it’s time to let the feminist out. Avu and I have been thinking about Marriage Market – II. I know a lot of you have read (and appreciated) Marriage Market. It’s time some wrote a little about what happens once the “perfect arranged marriage” does happen…
It’s hard to keep blogs like these going without turning them into a crib fest but the feminist in me really does want to talk about something serious for a change. You can expect to see some posts soon.
Meanwhile, remember. Men can be feminists too!
