The Shrinking Spaces

Misogyny is not something alien to Indian women or women anywhere. We grow up with it, it crawls under our skin and becomes a part of it even before we learn the right term for it. It isn’t new or a western import like many would allege. But the way misogyny continues to affect women in their public and private lives has changed its course in the past decade.

The public spaces are arguably being sensitised to accommodate women and although there is a lot of debate on it, it may be concluded that today more women go out than they did ten years back. Are the spaces safer? Not really, but there has been a general awareness with more women coming into prominence. But there are some other public and personal spaces which seem to be shrinking for women, namely the internet.

Online trolling is a regular feature for users of the internet and social media. Neither is it funny anymore because now online trolling is not about being witty and sarcastic, neither is it about being an annoying pest eager to start a fight, online trolling also stands for hateful comments with racist and sexist speech, rape and death threats. It is just another form of bullying and sexism. Anybody who has ever read the comments section of an online article would have seen vitriolic and provocative comments bordering on or implying racism, communalism and misogyny. While many newspapers moderate their comments sections, the lack of any effort is visible in plenty of websites, both Indian and foreign. The one reason cited for not adopting a stricter moderation policy is freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is perhaps the most abused phrase in a democracy and it is reserved for privileged individuals like ministers, members of assemblies, spiritual leaders and online abusers. Plenty of women have had the experience of being personally attacked on the internet and social media with abusive comments and rape/death threats. A woman who comments on a piece of news related to politics, any article reporting rape, sexual assault, and has a different view from the masses would be targetted by online misogynists with taunts, abuses and patronising statements telling her to 'go back to the kitchen' etc. Women are sometimes forced to hide their identity online, adopting male or gender neutral names in order to avoid direct personal attack. But of course, then there are attacks on religious minorities and homosexuals. The greater internet world and our lawmakers don’t seem to be particularly concerned about the freedom of speech of these women who have been abused and shamed for expressing their opinions. Phrases like ‘feminist whore’, ‘dumb bitch’, ‘stupid slut’ are extremely common and freely used on facebook and Youtube. Even well moderated forums would have comments like ‘Jogi Loew and her team... she’ll never learn...’ in an attempt to insult the German national football coach by referring to him as a woman!

These days there is a general tendency to brand women as liars and conspirators every time there is a news item on sexual harassment. There is a chronic hate campaign against every woman who seem to fall short of the moral standards set by the self-appointed internet society of greater good. Preity Zinta, Sania Mirza, Maria Sharapova, Alia Bhatt or a lesser known woman- all have one thing in common. They were all bullied by these online haters. Preity Zinta’s mistake was that she is famous, an actress who chose to remain single while buying a cricket team and lodged a complaint against her ex-boyfriend, Sania Mirza committed the ‘treacherous’ act of marrying a Pakistani, Maria Sharapova was guilty of admitting that she did not know the Indian cricketing god while Alia Bhatt could not name the president of India on a high profile chat show. The internet was flooded with ‘Dumb Alia’ memes and ‘Alia Bhatt jokes’ pages while Maria Sharapova’s official facebook page was completely vandalised by cricket fanatics for weeks. Preity Zinta and Sania Mirza both experienced public shaming on the internet almost similar to lynching. Most of the comments repeated questions like why did Sania not find an Indian Muslim man and stated that it's not an offence if committed by a boyfriend (in Priety's case) because apparently a woman is obliged to yield to a man's sexual desires if they are in a relationship! Well, this alongside filthy language used for both women. These comments only echo the patriarchal notion of women as sex slaves and how they are commodities owned by their respective partners. Many female journalists receive abusive tweets and rape threats on twitter. Another is the disturbing problem of the rape gifs, abundantly shared on social networking sites as a response to something a woman has posted.

A typical response would be, these are people seeking attention and the best way to deal with them is by not paying any attention. It is this attitude of not paying attention, of brushing it aside, that encourages sexual offenders. Or maybe one can just deactivate facebook, delete their twitter, why even have a voice in social media. It’s more like saying why go out in the dark. Stay at home.

We can safely assume that they are just ‘trolling’ and don’t mean any harm, but there are several other internet users, young, confused and gullible who would be affected by these free-flowing internet hate speeches. One Youtube user even confessed on the site that he deliberately makes racist comments against South Indians flaunting his ‘North Indian white skin’ because it gives him a sense of supremacy! While foreign humour websites like Fark, Cracked, the likes of Jezebel and the gaming community are beginning to address this as a serious issue, the Indian websites are just not bothered, even though the number of racist, misogynist, sexist and casteist comments on these websites are extremely high.

For how long would we continue to ignore a severe problem that is plaguing the internet and stripping it of its potential good? It is resulting in women turning away from the internet and gradually withdrawing from active participation. All the more significantly, it is breeding a collective hatred against minorities and oppressed sections of the society by giving such hatred a platform.

It also makes one wonder if our society is changing its attitude towards women in actuality? After all, these 'trolls' who call women vile abusive names, make sexual suggestions and rape threats on the internet, are a part of this very society, sitting behind a computer comfortably wearing a mask of anonymity. The role of the websites where such comments are allowed is also questionable. It is made clear that these websites- news, entertainment or social media, do not consider women as a significant membership and are only interested in keeping the male users happy by not moderating and thus encouraging sexist/abusive hate speech although they all claim to have a strict moderation policy.

Tightened Lips

              After anti-ageing, vagina whitening, now its vaginal tightening, apparently to make women feel younger, 18 precisely, the state approved age for women to marry and to start having sex. If it's women and related to sex, it has to be post-marital,of course (take a look at the ad and other ads of condoms and such other products). If you didn't get the connection then refer to the book of 'Indian Culture', often quoted by our hon'ble ministers, hon'ble police, hon'ble judges, hon'ble goons, hon'ble rapists, hon'ble child molesters etc.

            Being a woman, and not 18 anymore, I dont see how vaginal tightening is going to make me feel younger (not that I want to), clearly I don't view myself as an entertainment package to please the menfolk. 

            Dear Indian man, to put it bluntly, if you want your wife to remain 'youthful' then just stop knocking her up so many times, help her in the household chores, share her burden of domestic duties, and most importantly treat her as an equal partner. And in case you too want to feel like a virgin, wait for the erection enhancement gel, '21 again' perhaps? 

             Or 18? There is the debate, for the state approved age for men to have sexual freedom is 18, however they are allowed to marry only at 21. In this case, the state allows and recognises the possibility of the existence of a concept like 'premarital sex' in the life of Indian man.

              

            (Are women not allowed to have sex before marriage in India? Well, yes and no. Legally they are. But then again, refer to the damned book, will you!)

              And dear Indian woman, your vagina is very important, and your vagina is furious with indignation and it's time you should be, too. Be outraged, be miserable please, pity yourself if you must, but stop deluding yourself.

Old Cocktail in a New Bottle

              In these times of great crises, when Indian women are openly visiting pubs, demanding the rights to their own bodies, refusing to be commodified, challenging the structures of patriarchy in the most unholy way, and most dangerously, forming their own opinions and shamelessly asserting those, in tough times as these, bollywood gifts us a film like Cocktail (not an imitation of the 1988 Tom Cruise blockbuster)- right on time. Directed by Homi Adajania, and starring Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and debutante Diana Penty, Cocktail is the film of the moment. (Trivia: Homi Adajania is also the same dude who directed a film called 'Being Cyrus' in 2005.) To all those Indian women who have gone astray, I urge you to watch Cocktail, and you shall be blessed with the knowledge, that if you wear short clothes and are in the habit of visiting nightclubs, and drinking alcohol, you may be regarded as 'cool' or 'hot' interchangeably, and have all heterosexual males jump at the prospect of rubbing against you on the dance floor, but you stand very little or no chance of finding a suitor. The ones, who are not particularly keen on finding an eligible bachelor, drink on ladies.
                  To the guardians of morality, be not outraged by the title or the trailer of the film- it is a film that truly lives up to our Indian culture and traditions (read: Hindu traditions). It murders the individuality of its only woman character who did not suffer from identity crisis(initially) (the only character too), who was not a stereotyped bimbo, who didn't kill the audience with sicko one-liners, and who said the lone funny line in the film, righteously so!
                  Deepika Padukone plays the ubercool Veronica who along with sexy long legs, has a big heart too- she lets the petite beauty Meera (Diana Penty) move in with her in her apartment after knowing her for five (?) minutes in a public toilet. Also she doesn't like wearing pants indoors, even if its around our drooling perv-like hero Gautam (Saif Ali Khan) to the horror of Meera. So the first half is spent giving culture shocks to our desi kudi while pervy Gautam (Saif Ali Khan) delivers the trashiest one liners possible second only to Agent Vinod (Saif Ali Khan).
                  When I first watched the trailer of Cocktail, I encouraged the idea of it possibly having a bisexual or lesbian angle to it, knowing fully well that it was Bollywoody Khan film which hires models as actors and has a Punjabi song in its trailer. I even went to extent of imagining that it was perhaps a bad copy of Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, considering the number of script and copyright purchasing that is happening these days in Bollywood. But certain things remain an impossibility and it will continue to be so- capturing Don, Karan Johar finally mastering the art of direction, Uday Chopra as a successful hero, and bollywood churning out a star-studded yet sensible entertainer.
                    As tradition documents, when everything goes right in the hero's life, in other word's when there is a clear lack of story, the lad's mother shows up, adding more to the heroin's misery than his own. Here, Dimple Capadia (I was glad to not find Kiron Kher) drops out of nowhere and a puzzled Gautam declares that Meera is his girlfriend- an obvious choice given her desi profile, which normally, should terribly wound the other girl's ego but here she chooses to make changes to gain acceptance from the in-laws. 
                    So as predicted desi beauty Meera finally falls for the lame one liners of Gautam (which happens only in hindi films-do not ever try that on a woman) and Kiss happens after a Pritam song. Gautam who had always eyed Meera from the beginning (the kind of eyeing that your mother will warn you against) is all giddy with true lou happening. In the meanwhile Veronica has undergone a complete metamorphosis (a hint of possible bipolarity) and to impress Gautam's mother (Dimple Kapadia who is of the same age as Saif) starts wearing salwar suits- she even makes a desperate attempt in which she asks Gautam, main aise kapde pehnungi to teri maa mujhe accept karegi? and is treated with complete indifference from Gautam, which is enough to earn him a hard punch across his face.
                  To add to the audience's suffering, heartbreak happens soon, and Veronica deals with it, exactly in a manner a self-respecting independent woman would handle it. She goes on a drunken clubbing spree- YaY! Only this time on a more self-destructive note. Meera, as her profile suggests, makes the great sacrifice, and moves away from Veronica and Gautam. To some relief, Gautam no longer delivers his signature one liners as love has changed him. Veronica soon realises that Gautam and Meera are meant to be together and resolves to bring them together while dealing with her hangovers. 
                  Happy ending takes over uniting Gautam and Meera and Veronica and her bottle. Moral of the story: you can either choose to be a doormat or step on one. Option one gets you the Man.

On the Idiosyncrasies of the Central Board of Film Certification

Gone are those days when precocious Indian kids and adolescents awaited the 11 pm movie on HBO, with eyes glued to the screen and fingers fixed on the remote, to embark on their fantastical trips to the allure of the forbidden pleasures. Today the horny teenager has bit torrent, red tube, persian kitties (or titties?), literotica and the likes at his/her disposal. The 12 year olds don't need Samuel L. Jackson to teach them the 'f' word- or the other popular American slang lingo. They have Facebook, for fuck's sake! They weren't born in the eighties and nineties, when Tom Cruise was the iconic bad boy with the sexy RayBan shades and American Pie was crucial to sex education.

          I don't mean to beat about the bush. I'm not critical of popular culture. Yesterday, having nothing to do due to the heavy downpour in Calcutta, I was trying to watch The Social Network on TV. The film aired for the first time on TV, with all of the 'profanities' removed/muted. Earlier the 'f' words  were either replaced by a 'beep' and/or a less 'obscene' 'fish' in the subtitles, while 'shit' was replaced by 'crap', 'asshole' by 'jerk' etc. and the late night films were telecast sans any editing. Now, not only is every colloquial word omitted from the dialogues with a '****' in the subtitles, each lip lock is brutally chopped out off the films with the display of a certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification in the beginning of the films.

           In Fincher's film, Mark Zuckerberg played by Jesse Eisenberg, receives a note from one of his infuriated female classmates, which says "you dick"; on my TV screen, Eisenberg's character receives a blank note displaying nothing. Now isn't it insanely stupid to assume that there was a certain something in that note which compelled the protagonist to leave his class, and accept (as suggested) that we, the audiences, are not matured enough to be exposed to such inappropriate language? That, there, completely screwed up what would've been a delightful cinematic experience. What is Pretty Woman without a luscious Julia Roberts in her pantyhose trying to seduce an amused Richard Gere or Basic Instinct without Sharon Stone getting an entire team of investigators drooling! Will Planet Terror be the same film with all the blood and gore erased? Let me rephrase, will it still be a film? This is not entertainment. This is Doordarshan in HD. If this epic stupidity continues, then recent films like Love and Other Drugs would be left grossly butchered with about 60 minutes of the film edited during their Indian television Premiere.

             The Censor Board isn't convincing in its actions all the more, with the rampant run of the titillating B-Grade films in shabby theatres of squalid shanties and several video parlours of suburban neighbourhoods. This renders the purpose of the Censor obscure, as to whether it is trying to inculcate certain moral values in the new generation (whichever generation that is)- may be they thought ‘oh whadda hell, one in every five people in India tends to be didactic so why not us! If the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting arbitrarily blocks AXN at the drop of a hat and makes MTV run an uncool apology in its own Tickr for a month, we have a perfect right to monitor and restrict the English movie channels, which are watched by a bunch of wasted Indian youth who never step in the polling booths in their lifetime!’ Or perhaps the scissoring is a decision unanimously concurred on, by the kingpins of politicking in the greatest democracy of the world over a bottle of Bislery. All goes well in the great Indian kitchen as long as Tulsi gets to keep her three husbands and twelve children- all illegitimate.