Women's Web

In the last thirty years, use of prohibited drugs has exploded into a worldwide plague. Permeating into nearly every cultural and social class; there  isn’t  a nation in the world that doesn’t struggle with drug abuse on some level.

Though it is one of the pressing issues, drug abuse among Indian women was not recognized until recently and it’s time to deal with it.

“…It’s probably fair to say that most Indian women have their first sexual experience with a complete stranger. If that were happening post a visit to a bar and a few drinks — horrors. Subtract the bar and add a fire and priest — all well and good…”

I have pinched the above lines from the Wall Street Journal- India Real Time blog of November 6, 2011. These are stark – shocking to some – lines which describe a marriage where the woman getting married has no say. I am one who is completely against arranged marriages of any sort, but that’s not why I am here. I am here because similar thoughts had come to me about someone years ago.

April is the cruelest month indeed. Soaring temperatures everywhere and us Indians begin dreaming of Switzerland (ok, make that Himachal Pradesh for those of us who can’t muster up the moolah!). “Summer Vacation” – these two words are the one reason to love April and that is precisely what I did earlier on this month.

Away in beautiful Uttarakhand for 10 days, I returned to find Women’s Web looking interestingly new – partly a function of not having looked at the site for over a week. Like me, if you missed some of our new content this month, here is your chance to catch up on what I think were our best reads in April. And if you didn’t miss anything – re-read and enjoy the best of our work!

Bleached privates, boycotted vamps, or combating paedophiles on the loose – this edition includes proud feminists and responsible parents.

When children grow up too soon.

“I laughed it off, I skillfully dodged sexual advances, I avoided working with the men who most aggressively pursued me. But the self-blame and doubt lingers.” On sexism in liberal environments.

Who needs a fairer vagina?

“People abstain from talking about power because it immediately conjures up images of a Lolita-like vixen, highly aware of her charms and willing to tempt, to use them.” – A highly evocative post on child sexual abuse and awareness.

“Feminism isn’t just about shouting slogans, burning bras or slut walks; it’s more about realizing for oneself the worth of a woman…” – That’s Bhavna making sense of feminism.

The Closet – Accepting gay rights.

“Why is a woman’s worth as a wife, defined by her ability to successfully run a house and taking care of the [...]

Guest Blogger Gauri Trivedi in her own words: An avid reader and a hobbyist writer, my sanity and survival depend entirely on the written word. I find inspiration in the ordinary and prefer crowds to solitude. Always on the go, technically speaking I defy the tag of a “stay-at-home” Mom. If I have something to say, it will eventually find its place on the pages of my blogs, http://messyhomelovelykids.blogspot.com/ and
http://bookslifeandthingsbetween.blogspot.com/

Sometimes I encounter remarks which go like “You were such a brilliant student, I always thought you would go places” (with an undertone that implies that I haven’t do too well for myself)or “you were always so ambitious in life, we never thought you would be sitting at home doing nothing” or even worse, “I still remember seeing you push through crowded platforms and even more crowded trains, staying up late at office to finish that one agreement and yet arriving the next day on time, impeccably [...]

One of my earlier posts, ‘A Little Daughter Who Grows Up To Be A Friend’ seems to have touched a lot of people, and I remember having said that I am an ordinary father trying to do my best for my daughters. I admit I have been taken a little aback with all the attention that the post received, but it has opened my eyes to one fact- that many Indian fathers think differently or that I am a rare exception.

My daughters have been the biggest source of joy to me, and bringing them up has filled me with happiness, pride and a deep sense of fulfillment. They are individuals in their own right, extremely intelligent, they can think for themselves, and among the many goals they have set for themselves is that they will look after my wife and me in our old age. I do protest that hopefully [...]

I woke up, with a phone call in the middle of the night, “Can you come to my place right away” spoke my friend from the other end. I tried to get myself together, and asked her “What happened is everything ok?  Are you fine?  “Will talk once you are here “she said in a hurried voice and hung up.

I had no idea to what had happened and anticipating that it could take me a bit long to return; I woke my husband and informed him about the situation. As the friend’s house was only 3 blocks away, I told him that it would be ok; I would drive down and declined his help to drive me over.

I came across a rather curious letter recently, over at the IHM’s blog, from a young man who fears that his prospective wife will not love his parents as much as he does, that she will have an individualistic view of life, while he believes that the individual is not as important as the family unit. Without getting into my thoughts on his rather unrealistic wishes, one thing that struck me was the implicit assumption that older people cannot change – and the wish that they should not have to.

Is this true? I don’t recall where I read it, but I remember reading some research once that said human beings were at their most adaptable in their 20s or 30s, and adaptability began declining after this age. 

I often read in newspapers and see on TV with nauseating regularity that some helpless woman somewhere in the country has been killed for dowry. Some die within weeks of marriage, some within months or years, but the underlying story is the same- the greed of the in-laws. It is a never-ending cycle of marriage-dowry-death, and yet we learn no lessons.

[Statistically speaking, the National Crime Records Bureau’s report for 2010 says that 8391 cases of dowry deaths were reported in the country in 2010 (that is about 23 dowry deaths a day, with Delhi alone accounting for 14.6% of dowry deaths reported from 35 major cities), while 94041 cases of cruelty by husband and/or relatives were reported for the same year (that is about 258 cases per day)]

I am writing this piece fully prepared to receive sharp reactions from the current generation of young and prospective brides and grooms. I had earlier tried to defend arranged marriages and ended up supporting marriages arranged not by parents as I initially planned but that arranged by the couple concerned. Who knows if I would fail again and end up endorsing the opinion of the very youngsters whom I plan to criticize in this post of mine? I would make a very bad defense lawyer so never ever hire me to plead your case.