From: baindur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Satyen G Baindur)
Subject: Re: Uh Oh, Its the Battle of the Sexes...
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 14:43:56 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.201621.27743@ctp.com> pghol@ctp.com (Preeti Anissa Gholap) writes:
>I'm glad someone tried to analyse my article in light of other 
>communities, especially as it applies (or not) to IA men 
>and women. However...
>
>
>I do not see why ANYONE should feel a sense of obligation to
>choose a marriage or dating partner solely from one's
>own community. Of the subcontinental women I was refering to
>in my original article, NOT ONE of them is under any delusion
>about American society or Indian society for that matter. 
>They have just, as a result of past experience, decided
>that they are more compatible with a particular individual
>who happens to be of a different ethnicity.
>I dont think its our place to condemn or condone their choice.
>Its simply no one else's business but their own!
>
>I simply do not understand the connection you attempt to make
>between choice of spouse and self-hatred... just let me
>say that these women have healthy and hearty egos and 
>self images - despite frequent interaction with close minded
>Indians who would make illogical equations of the type you
>just did... However, statements like yours are perhaps just
>one more reason that contributes to their dim view of
>Indian men !
>

I was going to leave this thread alone for a while, but 
a small clarification at this point seems necessary, especially 
now since I am supposed to have contributed to Indian women's 
already dim view of Indian men ! I take a dim view of acrimonious
argument - anything that starts off under a War between the Sexes ! 
label. I have absolutely no interest in joining or being seen as 
contributing to this 'War'. 

Self-hatred is not looking in a mirror and saying 'I hate 
myself !', although that could be one of its more extreme 
manifestations. (There was the (Asian) woman on the TV show who 
said 'Asian men make me want to throw up' - not a verbatim quote )

Self hatred basically consists in the internalization of myths of 
Otherness (created by the dominant culture) by those it labels as 
Other(s). On one level or other we are all Others to some group, 
but the most pernicious myths are those that create Otherness 
for entire groups. Thus one cannot escape Otherness on an individual 
level, (No matter what you do you're still 'black' or 'Indian' or whatever)
and comes to hate the very group of which one is considered 
to belong, immutably, by the majority. It thus ends up informing 
the entire world-view of many minority cultures, and yes, it 
does come in to mate-selection criteria. Self-hatred as a psycho-
sociological concept has had great success in explaining the 
behavior of racial and religious minorities in the Western and 
non-Western world.

It is not unique to women, or to immigrants, thus  II men, II women ,
IA men, IA women, AA men and women, all experience it. The more honest 
and introspective of us will acknowledge it, and the more analytic and 
perceptive of us will actually see it exhibited in these newgroups.

How do I know this  ? For one thing, rather than give up on entire 
groups of people, I have actually met and talked to them. II men, II 
women, IA men, IA women, have admitted or alluded to this in conversation, 
and merely being aware of it does not mean being able to shake it off 
or its effects - and if that wasn't 
enough I've done some amateur sociological research of my own ! On the net 
and in 'real life' !

This does not mean that there aren't individual level reasons, such as 
not meeting the right person - but when *all* persons that you meet who 
have a  certain ethnicity - are not 'up to your standards' - as 
acknowledged here recently, you have to wonder what's going on.
-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Satyen Baindur  (baindur@eta.pha.jhu.edu)
Physics and Astronomy
Johns Hopkins University
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian