Path: leland.Stanford.EDU!stanford.edu!sunrise!rao >From: rao@sunrise.Stanford.EDU (Subbarao Kambhampati) Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian Subject: Albert "Rao" ko gussaa kyoon aaatha hai [Last word and Explanation on the marrying in the old country thread] Summary: Staggeringly high tolerance levels for implicit sexism Message-ID: <590@sunrise.Stanford.EDU> Date: 30 Jun 91 23:13:51 GMT References: <1991Jun29.060346.22772@en.ecn.purdue.edu> <1991Jun29.212928.9146@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Jun30.042239.3353@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Organization: Stanford University, California, USA Lines: 225 [Finding one of *his* postings suddenly at the center of a swirling controversy, something that he hither to assumed to be the exclusive monopoly of folks like Mr. Saad Mir, Rao proceeds to make the best of his advantage of a captive audience.] Dear readers: Much has been made about my sarcastic send-off of the original "marrying in the old country" posting. There were a flurry of postings from people seemingly tickled by the send-off, suggesting sometimes that the original poster (OP) got what he deserved. And then, there was the usual backlash--with the original poster (OP) crying foul, and a coupla others questioning my motives, (with some even trying to *resurrect* the stupid dichotomy of "arranged vs. love" marriages.) I have no interest in addressing the plethora of side issues raised in these followups nor replaying the old discussions here. I shall restrict myself to just four points--1. what motivated my article? 2. is the tone justified 3. what did I expect to achieve and 4. what about the poor guy OP? I hope you give it the same attention you gave to my "send-off". Especially since, I feel that many of those who supported as well as those who opposed my position, have misunderstood it. Before I proceed, let me state in the clearest possible terms that 1. MY OBJECTION WAS NOT ABOUT OP'S PERSONAL VIEWS ABOUT MARRIAGE (ARRANGED OR OTHERWISE). (so all of you who want to turn it into a discussion about the merits of arranged marriages, please do so at your own time and expense.). 2. I am not interested in painting OP (original poster) as a monster of any sort. I have no reason to doubt his assertion that he was not being consciously sexist. So, without further adieu *******What motivated my article? I think Susan said it best in her followup (thanks, Susan!): "I believe Subbarao's post was in the nature of a spoof, highlighting the irony of discussing the problems of Indian-born women in the US as if they were just another piece of equipment which had to be 'adapted' to the foreign conditions." To understand this, note that the original article specifically asked *men*'s opinions on how the women they brought here fared: "I am a bengali who has grown up in the US and I am thinking of marrying a girl from India (arranged) and bringing her here. Is there anyone who has done this? The man should have either grown up in the States or lived over 10 years here." Is the tone of the message that of someone *sensitive* (if not in agreement) to the equality of sexes? Has the opinion(s) of women, or a conscious acknowledgement of their individuality entered anywhere in this piece? Shouldn't they? To those who think this piece of prose is not infested with loads of implicit sexism--would you be interested posting it to Soc.Women (you can change Indian to French or some such), and deal with the consequences? So, why is it that what is considered a very sexist and insensitive thing to say in other circles, gets passed off as common practice on this bboard (as well as in certain Indian gatherings)? Is it possible that our hidden biases equip us with a staggeringly high tolerance thresholds for sexism? The motivation behind my original send-off then was not to stifle dialogue on arranged marriages with self-satisfied smugness of a panjandrum with panaceas (sorry for disappointing you, Shyamala, Anay and Ratnam. Good try though! ;-). It was to attack this glaring implicit sexism in OP's message and our collective propensity to look the otherway and "give the benefit of the doubt". ******Why the "spanish inquisition"? You may then wonder--why did I not send a mail to OP and speak my mind out privately? The reason for that comes to the heart of the matter. If I though that the implicit sexism of OP's prose was just an isolated idiosyncrasy, and NOT REPRESENTATIVE of the prevalent attitudes of a significant number of Indians (male and female), then it would clearly be stupid to wage a public inquisition. It would be kinda like trying to argue with Saad Mir on the bboard, knowing fully well that nobody seriously agrees with his positions anyway, if you get my drift. Unfortunately however, the reality is that many of us *DO* indeed share this implicit bias. Indeed, the worst part of it all is that OP may not even have *realized* that he was being very insensitive! The very fact that many such sexist messages get passed off unchalleged fairly frequently on this very bboard (while people are tearing their brains out repeatedly splitting hairs betwixt fundamentalist vs. fanatic vs. pseudo-secular vs. neo-liberal vs. saad vs. mughal) lends credence to this. And, we don't need to go too far to check this out either! Just notice the fact that many people on the net, including Messrs. Ratnam, Shyamala and other balanced posters, have blythely glossed over the glaring sexism in the original message, and are bending over backwards to defend an imagined unjustified attack on OP's personal values. It is this--the fact that the said sexism is *implicit* and is not limited to OP, and not any special malice towards OP--that persuaded me to post that sendoff on the *net*. *****What do I plan to achieve? It is rather quixotic to say that I have specific goals for this single posting. There however is a theme behind many of my postings on these issues. At the very least, I am hoping to lower the currently prevalent tolerance thresholds for sexist postings. I would like for us to examine the oodles of implicit sexism that we tolerate and endorse, under the garb of "balanced attitude". This hopefully will raise the level of debate to a point where men as well as women can participate in a debate without compromising their self-respect. Look, we may not all have the same opinions about affirmative action, but should that allow us to start a posting with explicit racist/casteist statements? Similarly, we may not all have the same opinion about arranged marriages or feminism or what have you. But, that should not give us a right to go scot-free in making openly sexist statements. We cannot change personal attitudes of individuals. It is upto them. However, we should make sure that whenever they open their mouths, they do so with the understanding that our forum (or our social circle or our bhat gang) shares some common assumptions of equality between sexes. And that they will be challenged to defend positions that until now were thought completely a-okay. No, I am not a big fan of reform by hypocrisy. But, I think it beats the hell out of status quo--of endorsement of implicit sexism through silence. And, if the only thing that someone got from my send-off was a smug feeling of "one-up-personship" over the OP, then they obviously missed the point by *miles*. ******What about OP's personal feelings? Finally, a lot was made of the supposedly "unfair" way in which OP's name was affected. As I said earlier (as well as in personal messages to OP), I am sorry he felt hurt. But, is my sendoff really unfair 'n unjustified? I think not! I am sorry his feelings were hurt. But, dear readers, what about the feelings of *those* of us who have seen/born the bitter after-effects of the implicit sexism that the text of his message endorses? That OP is really probably a jolly good fella, or that he is not a regular reader of SCI, or even that he didn't spend that much time in dashing off his original message--all these--if true--could help me in empathizing with him after the fact. But, should his sloppiness and ignorance somehow buy him an automatic protection and benefit of doubt? Suppose Mr. X just arrived from India, and went and posted what he thought was an "innocent query" on to talk.politics: "Nettoors, I hear blacks are kinda dumb, is it true?" Do you expect the fact that his ignorance of the sensitivity of that issue, and the offensive nature of his posting, should somehow provide protection for him? Excuse me, but it is OP's obligation to be better informed about the common politeness and sensitivities. As an adult, he is assumed to know what he is endorsing/talking. That is the price he pays for being taken seriously! At the fag end of his/her opus, even my loyal opposition, Shyamala Parameswaran acknowledges this, albeit rather grudgingly: "I did wonder why he chose not to be more circumspect and phrase a question that would have fetched fewer umwarranted brick-bats. Why, OP, could you not have said something like 'you you were interested in the difficulties women immigrants faced as spouses?'" Let me assure Shyamala and others that the fact that OP didn't phrase his question this way, but the other way (and that people were still interested in letting it pass) HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH the rather high tolerance thresholds of implicit sexism in our collective consciousness, and in particular *THIS THREAD*. That is all folks. With a gentle reminder that the OP in the above posting could be me, you or your friend, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming of cows 'n bulls 'n DMK (or even the trite dichotomy of "arranged" vs. "love marriages." ;-) regards Rao retiring to polish his newest acquisition, a "Buddha's" halo kindly donated by that discriminating collector of halos, Rama Ratnam. ps: I also agree with Susan's concern, when she says (to Mr. Murphy): "Are you saying that *all* wives of Indian men are merely 'Mr. So-and-so's wife'?" [Indeed, if this were the case, there would be utter chaos and confusion! A better system would be to number them e.g.: 'Mr. So-and-so's wife#1'; 'Mr. So-and-so'swife#2' etc. etc.] Seriously, I fully share her concern about the follies of typecasting men or women. I happen to be an Indian man and I would *hate* to be pre-judged as sexist. pps: Recommended: "A Person Paper on Purity of Language", in Meta-magical Themas, by Douglas Hofstadter. A BRILLIANT sendoff of various varieties of implicit sexism.