wither in the light

I grew up in a very religious culture where women were taught that their only purpose in life was to care for the men and have babies. There was this whole male power structure based on interesting biblical interpretations: man was created first, but Eve messed everything up; the avatar came to Earth as a man, but the starring female roles in that part of the book are the virgin and the whore, the honored woman whose sexuality was purely for child-bearing and the despised woman whose sexuality was not... all of these things convinced the men that they were superior to women, and as time went on they were able to convince the women as well.

That culture created women who felt that there was something wrong with them, that they were lacking something fundamental. It also set the stage for bizzaro-world interaction between the sexes, because the 'head of the household' was the man, but the person who actually ran everything was the woman... and one of her most important jobs was making sure that the man continued in his mistaken belief that he was in charge. A visible display of a woman's power just didn't happen.

Even though that was years ago and far away, I'm still occasionally surprised when I see a woman display that sort of conditioned passivity. I'm just as surprised when I hear a man talking from the corresponding point of view, and had this been a post about a service that catered to them I'd have been bitching about that. I'm very adaptable :)

You are right (oh so very right) about the 'means and methods to ensure that men are taken on a roller coaster ride so far as matters of the heart are concerned'. It's just that I personally don't find that sort of behavior conducive to a strong partnership - it's a hell of a lot easier if people just say what they mean and mean what they say. Men and women both have all of these little games for protecting themselves, for masking their feelings, for manipulating people... and for me, that's the biggest turn-off possible.

As for your Telugu ditty, I think I am more of a believer in that sentiment than most women are. Which was what spurred me to rant in the first place, instead of just posting a link. I think most men know how strong women can be, and fear it, and that's why all of this institutionalized male domination pops up. My position is that it's a tempest in a teacup... because our cultural domestication is so successful that in general the women themselves don't know how strong they are.

By the way, could you post those lines in Telugu? A friend of mine can turn the phonetics back into the correct writing. I think that ditty and the Chinese ideogram for 'trouble' (which is drawn as 'two women under one roof') show the difference in perception of female power... the Telugu piece was almost assuredly written by a woman, while the Chinese ideogram was pretty clearly thought up by a man.

I've never been called a feminist - make that 'worse than a feminist' - before... it's somewhat amusing. I'm a humanist: I want us *all* to be free to express ourselves, free of fear and restrictive stereotypes.

The service is, as you mentioned, 'tongue-in-cheek', taken merely as a concept. My rant was a somewhat ham-fisted attempt to point out that in the context of the consensus narrative of the culture I live in, it is all too easy for 'tongue-in-cheek' to become 'dagger-in-heart'. I believe in the hacker ethic, two bits of which are relevant to this service viewed as a social hack:

A hack must
- be funny, at least to most of the people who experience it
- not damage anyone, either physically, mentally or emotionally

In the context of interpersonal relationships, I think there is a very good chance that this service will end up violating the second of those.

Thanks for the Telugu... I have a friend who is a professor in South-East Asian Studies (which somehow encompasses India), between he and his Tamil wife (who is also a professor in the same department) they've got most of the Indian languages down well enough to translate verse into the original script. I'm only good with devanagari, which makes my knowledge less relevant the farther south I go.

>one cannot convince a fool

Aye, that becomes more apparent each day. I've never been more embarrased to be an American, I feel like I'm tainted with idiocy-by-association.

The Dems and the Reps get closer to being the same party every year... they'll pass each other going in opposite directions soon. They've done it before, more than once... the Republicans were once the liberals in this country. The pattern seems to be that both sides get more and more extreme until they eventually start alienating their own people, at which point they start assuming a more centrist stance; each side makes small changes to their platform to try and attract those who where disenfranchised by the other side, and eventually the pendulum gets enough momentum to swing all the way to the other side.

> Leviticus

When I read that book it struck me that any time there was some exhortation to do good it was ignored by modern practitioners, but most of the petty (and socially out-of-context) prejudices were followed faithfully.

I've had 'decent God-fearing Christians' accost me on the public transit, quoting verses from Corinthians about how long hair is 'a woman's glory and a man's shame', and telling me that by having long hair I am intentionally inviting hellfire and damnation for my arrogance in defying this edict. They then move away so they won't get hit by the lightning when God decides to punish me for this. This from adults who apparently have sufficient mental capacity to read, and handle the intricacies of the public transportation system. Some of the things religious people say would get them locked up for craziness if the subject matter wasn't backed up by ancient text... but if a prejudice was good enough for inbred goat-herders 3000-years ago, then 'by God' it's good enough for these people.

Which somehow brings us full-circle to the "one cannot convince a fool" issue again.

That whole 'women are unclean' thing is sad... one of our neighbors had a baby a few weeks ago, and for months before and all the time since it was like she was holding darshan - we (and all of the other neighbors) would go up to see her every day, and take meals to them, and if anything she has been treated more holy than unclean.

(Having a baby is, however, a special instance... and I live in a fairly conscious and caring neighborhood. In the culture at large, women are feared, especially if they are powerful and/or successful. India and Pakistan have had female PM's... while in the US female members of Congress are often ignored or harshly criticized, and there's no way in hell we're going to see a female President any time soon.)

There's this whole architecture of shame - for one's race, gender, social status, nationality, skin color, just about anything, really - the maintenance of which I sometimes think is the primary function of most religions and political institutions. And women almost always get the wrong end of the deal.

Generically a bozo is a clown, fool, or jackass. In the context in which it was used, it also has the implied connotation that the 'bozo' in question is beneath one's consideration, meritless, and one-dimensional.

I tend to use the word a lot when I talk about the Bush administration.