This blog is on a short break, along with its owner. In Delhi for a wedding in the family with side trips to Amritsar and Agra.
Also, this blog has just crossed a nice, tidy little milestone - 25,000 visitors. So, a big thank you to all those of you who read me, whether or not you participate/comment. Thank You! And, to all my female readers, a happy women’s day!
Recently on Facebook, an acquaintance put up a status message that read, “I have never ever paid for meals when in the company of men, and I won’t, not even on Women’s Day.”
On reading her note and that of commentors, to say that I was surprised would be an understatement. Both male and female commentors seemed to agree. Among the comments were ‘long live chivalry’, ‘like to feel pampered’, and ‘A Man Who Lets Women Pay Is Not Man Enough’ (this last one, from a guy).
I placed a note there that I disagreed, but FB didn’t seem like the place to get into a long discussion. Hence this post…
I do have a major problem with the whole idea of chivalry, of which expecting men to pay is one. This doesn’t mean that I’ve never let a man pay for a coffee or lunch. Sure, I have, but on the other hand, I’ve also footed mine and his bill a number of times, and I don’t see why not.
To me, chivalry is part of the whole big idea of what a man should do and what a woman should do - in short the rigid codification of social rules for men and women. A man must pay, a woman should never. If we are sweeping away such rigidity in every other area of life, why persist here?
This rule made sense in an age when women rarely ever had their own money; naturally, men had to pay. Today, when I earn as well as most men of my acquaintance, I don’t see why anyone else should necessarily pay for me. Pampering doesn’t come into it - of course, most people like to be pampered once in a while, but that doesn’t mean you never pay for any meal with a guy. Plus, many such meals/coffees could be with guys I only know peripherally - I don’t see why they need to pamper me.
Expecting a guy to always foot the bill is also unfair - what if the guy is low on cash at the end of the month? Will he not feel uncomfortable saying that? In any case, it’s his hard-earned money too - why does he have to spend it on me?
Expecting a guy to foot the bill always is to me like expecting a guy to open the door or give up his seat for me. I don’t want special treatment because I’m a woman, but I do want courteous treatment as everyone in a civilized society should expect. Which means, everybody, male or female should offer a seat to a pregnant woman, disabled women and men, old women and old men.
I see some disconnect with demanding equality if we are not going to also take up an equal share of responsibilities. Mind, I don’t mean one has to strictly divide the bill into two each time - but, you get the general idea!
A couple of days ago, I noticed while watching a Kylie Kwong cookery show, that she used the word “exotic” no less than four times in the space of ten minutes. She was discussing a certain Middle Eastern spice mix being used in a dish she was preparing for that episode.
What is exotic? The relevant definitions from dictionary.com include:
Whereupon, the question arises: foreign, strange, not fully naturalized or unusual from whose perspective? Kylie’s shows, I imagine, are made primarily for a Western audience (Australia, U.S) to whom Middle Eastern cooking and its ingredients are likely to be strange and unusual. Hence, the use of the word, exotic.
However, with global movements and globalization, things aren’t quite so simple anymore. The U.S, for instance, is a community of immigrants, and new immigrants, including those from North Africa and the Middle East keep entering. Is harissa or tahini exotic to them?
People travel, meet new people, eat new foods. Global food chains and import businesses ensure that foods from one part of the world are well-stocked in another. Even if you don’t travel and are finicky about trying new foods when you do, television brings new experiences to your armchair.
Once upon a time, exotic and new were framed purely from the viewpoint of Western societies. This is a key thrust of the seminal work, Orientalism, by Edward Said: The Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West. It is a mirror image of what is inferior and alien (”Other”) to the West.
What is worse, perhaps, Western views of what is different or exotic soon become the norm. For instance, I often see Indian clothing or practices like Mehndi being described in our magazines as ethnic. Again, the dictionary meaning of ethnic is pertaining to or characteristic of a people, esp. a group (ethnic group) sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like. Why would we apply this term when talking about our own cultural groups, i.e. setting them up against a ‘normal’ ‘other’? Besides, it doesn’t really describe the clothing in any way.
The question to be asked is, how will globalization and global movements impact exotification? If Kylie Kwong’s programmes are going to be popular in Australia and the US and India and in the Middle East - from whose perspective are ingredients going to be classified as exotic, or not?
It’s a well-known fact that he who pays the piper calls the tune. For generations, books, magazines, TV programmes, films - all of these transmitters of culture were made by and for the West. With large audiences now coming up in other parts of the world, will this change?
Thanks to Asia Writes, I came across New Fairy Tales, an online magazine dedicated to publishing (what else!) new fairy tales. Their current issue carries some lovely stuff - especially the first two short stories, Bears, by Jessica Wilson and The Ice Candle, by A.K.Benedict, both of which I really enjoyed. Do read if you like stories a little out of the ordinary.
Spend plenty of time on Facebook? Infuriated by the casual assumption that some women must have done something that caused the harassment?
Join Blank Noise’s I never ask for it campaign on Facebook where you choose from their set of fantastic images and upload it as your profile pic. The entire set is here on flickr, my favourite one is below.
The instructions are simple and I suppose you can choose to use one or more of them (change your profile pic/ change your display message or any of the others).
Go on, be an Action Hero!
I know, I know, what good does activity on FB serve? Shouldn’t we be demonstrating in the streets instead, petitioning the government or something ‘weighty’ like that?
First of all, all these are not mutually exclusive. So, you can spread the message on FB and go for a rally and petition the government.
Secondly, close your eyes for 5 seconds. Can you think of at least one person in your circle who has at some time talked about a woman who was really wearing the wrong things, was in the wrong place, provoked the men, behaved inappropriately blah blah? Easy, isn’t it, to think of such a person, who in many ways, is a decent person?
Your message will talk to the many such decent people who somehow believe that in some circumstances (and curiously, this list is long), women just ask for it.
What People Say