I have cumulatively spent 16 months of my life in India. As I spend summer after summer there, it is difficult to ignore India’s public display of oppression towards women. With that in mind, I recently made an attempt to re-examine many of the cultural norms that I had previously accepted as just being "the natural order of things." I never critically thought about the sexism embedded in the Indian culture that is an integral part of my identity, but on the last day of our trip, I found it staring right in my face as we were about to celebrate Raksha Bandhan. Raksha Bandhan is a mythological Hindu ritual that falls every year around the first week of August. Celebrating the bond of sisters and brothers, it involves tying of a ceremonial …show more content…
“Come Satya, I do not understand why you take so long to get ready. You even missed Puja!” my mom said. (Puja is morning Hindu prayer.) As I sat down for yet another breakfast of Idli (steamed rice cakes typically eaten with a coconut dipping sauce), my Grandpa mentioned that today was Raksha Bandhan. Raksha Bandhan never made sense to me because my brother, Surya, and I never experienced the typical brother-sister stereotype perpetuated by this celebration. We always functioned as informal colleagues, sharing our intellectual journey together, which overshadowed the vacancy of a loving sister-brother relationship. Frankly, I preferred it that way because we were never obligated to do anything for each other, even for special occasions. In light of this, it is no surprise that the fact that I had tied a string on my brother’s wrist seeking his protection from adversity irked me over the years. In retrospect, we had always operated as independent individuals, fighting our own trials and tribulations without help from each other. With this type of kinship, the prospect of Raksha Bandhan and what it stood for was an alien concept to both of us. So, for the first time in many years, I had expressed my …show more content…
That way, it symbolizes the equal bond we have always had with each other. Besides, girls should not be raised to believe that their empowerment relies on a man’s assistance and approval. Instead, it should be recognized that both genders are capable of protecting one another.” I heard snickering from the cleaning lady in the kitchen. As everyone shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, my dad remarked, trying to break the tension, “Are you trying to be a feminist, Satya?” with a wide grin on his face, as if being a feminist was a ludicrous concept. However, it must be kept in mind that I come from a highly educated family that is exceptionally open-minded (or at least I thought so). As a matter of fact, even though foeticide rates are high in India, my great-grandfather sold all of his lands to send his five daughters, now physicians, to school. Since I garnered such an uneasy reaction to my words from a particularly forward-thinking family, I started to doubt myself. “Am I acting like a privileged, radical feminist who finds a way to blame the opposite sex in every situation?” I thought. “Besides, maybe they are right. Raksha Bandhan has been practiced for many years and no one ever had a problem with it.” So, I succumbed and accepted defeat. I once again tied a Rakhi to my brother and my life went on. All that I
This loyalty and love for his family led to this act of bravery on Rikki’s part. Furthermore,
Everyone in his reservations gets together in times like this because they all face similar struggles in life. By showing up for each other we can see the unity in his reservation and the respect they have for each
A woman's Indian status is now determined by her own heritage instead of her husbands. This is a victory for many women but this also
Yet, today’s Sikhs are ignoring the words of wisdom from their gurus and dismissing the true Sikh way of life. Rather, they are surrendering to the hedonistic illusion of temporal pleasures and self-indulgence (SikhAwareness, 2017). The pressure to fit in has changed the modern Sikhs, as today’s youths are not invested in their faith compared to previous generations. This can have an impact on the faith and belief of an individual, especially if they are surrounded in an environment that has the potential to influence the connection youth have with their faith. Mr Jagpal Singh, a 25 year-old British Sikh states, “Every generation has a certain amount of connection to their faith, it might just be a different way of representing it compared to previous generations”.
Dear world: Certainly I have a lot of things to tell you after all this journey I have made. My name is John, known as “the savage” and this is my story. If you’re reading this, it is because I have already made the most important decision of my life. I came here to meet my father, who abandoned my mother in a reservation when she was pregnant. After we got here my mother decided to stay long under the soma effects, even being conscious of how dangerous it was and that it could kill her.
As one of her eleven siblings in a poor family, Margaret couldn’t help but to feel inferior and long for a rich and comfortable lifestyle. When Sanger’s mother died at the age of forty, Margaret believed that her mother’s premature death was a consequence of excessive childbirth. Along with this mindset, as a young girl, Margaret formed a mindset that poverty, illness, and strife were all fates for large families, whereas small families enjoyed wealth, leisure, and positive parental relationships (Croft). It came to no surprise that Sanger, with such a harsh childhood, grew up to become one of the biggest, if not the biggest, advocates for birth control. Soon after her mother’s death, Margaret decided to become a nurse.
For many years now woman have been able to express themselves, and show that they are comfortable with their bodies. But once again the male hierarchy has gone into play, and girls are told to hide their bodies away, and not be who they want to be. So that is what the young girls of this generation are being taught, that they need to be respectful at all times and make sure that the boys have all their accommodations met. One study in particular called the “Everyday Sexism Project” tells a story of a young girl in high school, “I got dress coded at my school for wearing shorts.
No matter the place in the world there are always leaders and followers, but sometimes there are people who take their own route. Within The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior is that person who takes his own route. This is because of all the conflicts surrounding him. Junior’s decisions were impacted by the conflicts around him because he wanted to try his best to escape the hostile environment he was in. When people are facing adversity they don’t want to accept what is happening they want to fight back.
Women fighting for their equality in society is still an issue in the western and non-western countries. This paper will explore women’s rights such as their employment and health rights in India and Canada as they are still very controversial issues today. India is known as a country with a patriarchal system, where inequality and gender issues of women are more frequently seen as opposed to Canada. Canada is known as a country with various types of people from several ethnic backgrounds and where equality is most commonly seen with a very few exceptions. “Urban India still faces the issue of women’s employment and reproductive rights, however, there are resources such as the ‘Action Aid’s Young Urban Women’ program to help support these poor
Feminism: Viewing feminism from all aspects From the following classic definition of a “feminist” by believing the idea of equality, there is an added responsibility of delivering the idea, convincing people, and helping people realize the occurrence of feminism. Being a feminist by any means is not an easy task. As the idea of feminism is rapidly developing across the globe, it refers to various questions, misconceptions, and sometimes extreme detestation directed towards the feminists. Society still doesn’t understand the essence of feminism, and the true meaning of it. Some believe that a feminist fight for women's equality, while others believe that women should be able to fulfill their highest potential.
Throughout Tina Rosenberg’s Necessary Angels, the unforgiving and deprived lifestyle of rural Indian women reveals the inexorable reality and fragilities of gender roles amongst women in labor. As a result, many of these unfortunate women barely cling to life due to a trickle-down effect that far surpasses their capabilities and intentions. Fortuitously, an effort to not only impugn this rooted problem, but to resolve this plague has been met head on with a few brave individuals, mostly being women. This short essay examines how these efforts have emblazoned the harsh reality, these women go through and invigoration of women’s individualities of rural India.
“Dadi 's Family” is dedicated to demonstrating how women in Dadi 's household fight to secure their status around the idea of the dominant patriarchal mentality which insists that females are the inferior caste. The dedication to the production of the film
In an article authored by Urvashi Agarwal on the role of females in Indian culture, she even points out the difference in emotions between the birth of a girl and boy: “sohras – the joyous songs of celebration sung at the birth of a child in the Hindi-speaking belt – are almost never sung for newborn daughters. Indeed, many sohras express the mother’s relief that this has not been the case and her worst fears have been proven to be unfounded” (Agarawal). This indifference towards females acts a specific example that shows undoubtedly that they are seen below men in the Indian hierarchy. In most conflicts involving an Indian family, it is safe to say that there is a presumption that the person higher up in social status, or in the case of Monsoon Wedding, the older and male Tej, would have the benefit of the doubt over a young girl like Ria. In addition, Lalit and the family were tremendously indebted to Tej, as he not only offers to pay for Ria’s entire American college education, but for the wedding as well.
Examination of Feminism in A Doll’s House During the victorian times women were to be oppressed by their husbands. They had no legal rights. Women were not considered to be equal to men. Women were not allowed to do many things such as partake in politics and have control over men.
According to the famous sociologists Sylvia Walby, patriarchy is “a system of social structure and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women”. Women’s exploitation is an age old cultural phenomenon of Indian society. The system of patriarchy finds its validity and sanction in our religious beliefs, whether it is Hindu, Muslim or any other religion. For instance, as per ancient Hindu law giver Manu, “Women are supposed to be in the custody of their father when they are children, they must be under the custody of their husband when married and under the custody of her son in old age or as widows.