From: baindur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Satyen G Baindur)
Subject: Re: To marry (Indian) or not?
Organization: HAC - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 15:47:00 GMT

I liked Preeti Gholap's (pghol@ctp.com) interesting article.

>However, most Indian women I know havnt directly made that an active
>decision -- they just sort of never seem to find Indian men who
>they can relate to (despite the huge advantage that cultural 
>commonality brings) and so date/marry internationally and 
>inter-racially. 

The choices people make are rarely independent of the social and 
cultural preferences and prejudices of the host society. I do not 
disagree that Indian society is unfair to women in a lot of ways, 
and that many Indian men harbor sexist attitudes consciously or 
unconsciously. But can anyone make the case for me that American 
men, on the whole, are any less sexist ? It is possible, on the 
other hand, to argue that the Indian men who come over from India 
to study/settle here are from a stratum of society that is more 
liberal in its attitudes toward/about women, and that these men 
are not as sexist as are American men taken as an entirety. Similarly,
Indian men brought up here are quite likely to be empathetic to 
the feelings and aspirations of women on account of their own 
automatic lower status.

So, the question is, if Indian women end up, presumably, finding 
non-sexist American men to date/marry - these are exceptions to the 
rule among American men ! Why won't Indian women bother to look for 
the exceptions to the rule among Indian men, who would be more common, 
especially here in the US ? 

>I think the reason for this is that when II women (to use Manish's
>somewhat questionable but convenient categorization) choose
>to leave their home country, they have everything to gain
>(in social terms) while when II men leave, they have every thing
>to lose. 
>
>Going abroad (especially for higher education) equalizes the 
>social field in a lot of ways -- and so women gain more 
>economic and social opportunites,  more freedom, more
>INDEPENDENCE. Conversely, men who go abroad lose a lot 
>of the leverage they previously had in the totally male
>-centric -dominated home society,  and the independence
>is often unwelcome because it means added responsibility 
>that they are often not prepared to deal with (eg having
>to do one's own laundry and cleannig to finding a 
>good job without any of "daddy's contacts" to help 
>out) 
>

This is part of a more general interaction between race, sex and 
class, and happens in many minority communities in the US. While 
Indian men may lose some privileges in coming here, those born 
here (IA men) also see that they do not enjoy all the privileges 
white men seem to. Thus they too could begin the cycle that might
lead to sexist/chauvinist behavior and maybe to wife/girlfriend abuse 
alarmingly often, according to organizations like Sakhi and Saheli, etc.

Consider the interaction also between Hispanic men and women, 
and African-American men and women. While there is no question 
about sexism in these communities, I also believe that the media, 
in playing this up, while not paying similar amounts of attention 
to how racism impacts both sexes, ends up driving a wedge between 
the men and the women. This same thing will happen to the Indian 
community if we don't watch out. 

The answer to sexism in the Indian community cannot be the practice 
of a reverse sexism mixed with racism, which is what the preference 
of Indian women for non-Indian spouses amounts to, in the final 
analysis. My sense is that women are deluding themselves if they 
believe that American men are not sexist or that American society
is yet free of institutionalized discrimination against women.
If they wish to leverage their 'exotic' status to their advantage, 
or use the idea that American men are less sexist as a mask for 
self-hatred, well ... I suppose that is their right.

But many Indian men, both those who grew up here and those 
who came over from India - and let's not have any more of the 
silly 'II men are sexist while IA men are not ' nonsense - are 
quite likely to have become sensitized to the effects of an automatic 
lower status in society, and thus also likely to be empathetic 
to the feelings and aspirations of women. It would make for a lot 
of good relationships if women caught this attitude on its upswing 
rather than its downswing ! 


 -- Satyen
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Satyen Baindur  (baindur@eta.pha.jhu.edu)
Physics and Astronomy
Johns Hopkins University
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian