From: tolia@hydrogen.ecn.purdue.edu (Anish Arun Tolia)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: More about India
Summary: refute the arguments
Date: 6 Oct 92 21:50:06 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network




In article <1992Oct6.150358.28380@coe.montana.edu> prem@cs.montana.edu (M.P.Premkumar) writes:
>Hi nettors,
>
>It seems suddenly people realised that India is not a place for women to live
>in. Oh yeah and USA is always better. BULLSHIT.

Wait a minute...who said USA is always better? All I said was that women are treated
like shit in most parts of India.

>I just saw arguments by people based on their experiences in Delhi and Bombay
>alone. Maybe eave teasing happens in Madras, Bangalore and Calcutta too. Anybody
>heard of any eave teasing in towns and villages ? Any incidents ? 

NO, in the villages the landlords simply pick up whoever they want and rape them. If
the lanlords dont, the local police and politicians will. This is better than eve
teasing in your opinion?

>The truth is people here are over exaggerating the issue very much. Yes, its
>true that eave teasing is there in big cities. But it doesn't mean that all
>men are like that. Maybe a few. But the few make their presence felt. One
>example I can offer in the same lines: The foul mouthing of some "civilised"
>nettors against some members of the opposite sex. If someone read SCI and
>decided that all Indian men are like that then will you all accept that ?

Not being female, you and I will never really know just how prevalent the problem is.
I can only guess from what my friends tell me and that seems bad enough. If something
happens to you every time you enter a bus or train or even walk on the street, I think
it is a common enough problem to make a generalization.
>
>USA is better than India in treating women eh ? I assume people just study
>and study and don't look around what's happening here. Did any of you see
>the statistics of sexual harrasment in USA ? Did any of you see the series
>of women beating cases shown in CNN and other news bulletins ? Based on my
>observations I think USA treats women very very badly compared to India.

Women here have their share of problems too. However, remember that media exposure
here is much greater than in India and a large number of crimes against women are
never even reported because either the victim is too scared/embarrased to report it or
the perpetrator is too powerful for the police to even file a complaint. Indian
society  gives women NO PLACE to go and more often than not treats a rape/abuse victim
as the criminal. Therefore I dont think your comparison is valid.
>
>Here women are nothing but sex objects to men(most of them). Men stare here
>also at beautiful women passing all kinds of comments. Whereas in India the
>teasing stops in the roads here it follows the women wherever she goes. And
>they get beaten by their husbands(I accept that this is common in India too)
>and their boy friends. 

This paragraph makes no sense and to answer it is futile.
>
>Guys here are always looking for women for sex. And most of them do get what
>they wanted by persuasion or force. Men go to bars to "pick up" girls for the
>night. The work place is also not so good to the women here. And I can tell
>for sure that offices in India are much better than here in the USA where
>women are always apprehensive of what might happen to them.

So why is looking for sex bad? Women pick up men as frequently as men pick up women.
About problems in the workplace, I agree but I dont think it is any better in India.
>
>The schools are biased towards men here. Did any one of you read the reports
>about how girls are discriminated in the school education system here ?
>
>So for heavensake don't try to glorify USA and degrade India at every 
>opportunity. And don't just complain on everything in India without you
>doing anything to help. [I remember seeing a report that Delhi Women students
>formed an action group against eave teasing - I wonder how many of the people
>who complained here did anything of that sort when they were in India].
>While I accept that women are not always treated well in India I also say that
>USA is no better.
>
Whoa! Be consistent in your arguments atleast! All through this article you claim that
women are treated better in India than the US, and now you take it all back in the
last sentence! I am not glorifying the US but I refuse to be blindly chauvanistic
about India simply because I am an Indian living in the US
>
>Sincerely yours,
>M.P.Premkumar

Anish
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian