From: ssankara@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Sornam Sankara)
Subject: Male Chavunism in Tamil society (Re: Eve teasing in Tamil Nadu)
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 04:16:28 GMT




Already  "eve teasing"  has been rightfully condemned by the netters and
everybody agrees on this subject.  Even those who UNKNOWINGLY expressed
different opinions withdrew their comments.  By the word `unknowingly', I
mean `without anticipating' the reaction from others.   It is not that they
are the only ones who `unknowingly' express such opinion.  Everyone of us
`unknowingly' support male chauvunism though we may condemn the eve teasing.
Actually 'eve teasing' is one of the manifestations of the male chauvunist
attitude of this world.  Even praising women as `goddess' or `mother' etc
also come from the same attitude.  Women are to be treated as human
beings as men are.  Sundaramoorthy and Bala Swaminathan expressed the same
opinion and Bala advised us to analyze the root cause of the problem.



As I told above, the whole world is male chauvunistic though the extent
differs from society to society.  Indian society is male chavunistic
and Indian women are made to think as the men want.   Even women's
liberation seems to reflect the view of the men.  When I first came here I was
disappointed more.  I expected a real change of status of women and
equality.  But the expectations of men from the women are the same.  By and
large, the media has given a wrong role for the women in the society.



India is worse than the western and the socialist world in its male chauvunism.
Most of us (including women) are keeping our male chauvunistic views in a
subtle and subconscious level.  Even if we dont want to be male chauvunistic,
it comes out unknowingly at one level or other.  That is because we are brought
up in that way.  We have been slowly injected that women are inferior to
men.  Our parents taught us so.  Our books taught us so.  Our teachers, our
movies, magazines, religion, moral books taught us so. It is not easy to come
out of such an attitude.  Atleast we should accept this fact and attempt to
change.  There is nothing wrong in evaluating and re-evaluating our thinking,
speech, attitude and actions.



Unfortunately, as Bala Swaminathan mentioned,  Tamil movies are blatantly
sexist.  Tamil magazines are the same. They belittle women in every aspect or
praise women  as godess, mother etc.  They construct a gender identity in Tamil
society. Though  it is universal in all other societies, in Tamil society
it is culturally sanctioned in recent years.  Almost all movies contain
vulgar dialogue, sexist jokes, eve teasing to entertain the people and even
elderly people who normally worry about discipline etc started enjoying
or accepting such attitude.  The fact is that our film songs have more `nanju
varikaL' than `minnal varikaL'.



Following this article I will post a good article of Gita Wolf appeared in
Economic and Political Weekly, Oct 1991.  I have been thinking of posting this
for a long time and I think this is the right time to do.  That will describe
about Tamil magazines better.  Later I will also post about the Tamil movies.



S. Sankarapandi

ssankara@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Xref: sparky soc.culture.tamil:5065 soc.culture.indian:43665