From: moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne)
Subject: Indian women and Indian men...:-)
Reply-To: moh2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 21:21:39 GMT


In article <1992Sep29.191329.18864@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> c150-bt@po.berkeley.edu (Manish Vij) writes:
>In article <1992Sep27.201450.11787@midway.uchicago.edu> moh2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>
>>(Total side note:  This may well be a reason more liberated Indian
>>women don't date Indian guys....they have given up all right to them
>                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>by traditional rules...and they never know whether the next Indian guy
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>they meet will be shocked and horrified to find out that they've dated
>>Americans.  It's easier to avoid Indian guys altogether.)

>I hope you're talking II guys, not IA guys, because very few IA guys
>I know plan on participating in the arranged marriage system.

Sorry, Manish, IA guys too.  It doesn't matter whether or not they
eventually plan to have an arranged marriage.  The problem is
generally that they come to the date with certain expectations for
what an Indian woman will be like.  Often either a) the expectations
get shot out of the water and they suddenly realize that they're not
as open-minded as they thought they were...at least not where Indian
girls are concerned....or b) we have so little in common,
attitude-wise, that it's very difficult to communicate.

Of course this doesn't apply to all IA or even all II guys, and I'm
generalizing tremendously.  But it's a pretty fair assessment of what
I've come up against.  So it's easier not even to try.

>Shocked and horrified that you've dated Americans?  I hope
>you're talking II, because IA ain't that way.

Wanna bet?   And how many Indian guys have *you* dated?  Honestly,
Manish, open-mindedness is the exception, *not* the rule.  I think
Berkeley has given you a skewed view of the world. :-)

>And by "more liberated Indian women," do you mean IA on the less-
>conservative side of the spectrum?   


Yes, sorry about that.  I was writing in a hurry.
~
>I and many of my IA guy friends don't date II women not because
>"we've given up all rights to them by tradition rules" but because
>they tend to have an entirely different world-view than we do.

As I said earlier, the world-view is a part of it, but almost
certainly never all.  Even IA guys tend to absorb a lot of things just
from their families, even if all their friends are Americans.  If you
grow up watching your mother and sisters wait to eat until the father
and sons have been served...or in some cases, finished eating, it's
awfully hard to fight assumptions about women's place in the world.
If your parents are letting your older sister go away to college, but
are assuming that she'll come home to live with them afterwards until
they find her a husband (even if this is what she wants), you are
almost bound to expect that as the norm for Indian women.  Just
because some of you on this newsgroup may not have been instilled with
those ideals, don't assume that nobody else has.

>Manish

P.S. - Just for the record, I have dated some perfectly nice Indian
guys (who I just couldn't connect to), and some jerks.  Frankly, the
Americans have a better record at this point.

P.S.S. - This was not meant as a flame.  I find that as the only woman
defending the ultra-liberal point of view in a somewhat conservative
newsgroup, I tend to get a bit defensive.  Apologies if I've offended
anyone.
~

-- 
The autumn leaves are falling like rain.
Although my neighbors are all barbarians,
And you, you are a thousand miles away,
There are always two cups at my table.		 - A T'ang Dynasty poem
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian