Jokes about smelly vaginas; vaginal lightening creams; gang-stripping a person for no reason; violence against women for daring to ‘drink’ or being ‘modern’. What else do you want to throw at us?
The misogyny faced by an Indian woman is really hard to miss. It needn’t be physical violence or rape. Sometimes, it is subtle. The repeated portrayals in Tamil movies of women being ‘evil’ just for
‘making’ men fall in love with them. They are evil and annoying for not saying ‘yes’ to dating him or for changing their mind or for being angry or for even having ideas about an ideal man. The woman’s narrative in such scenarios is often left untold. Why? That’s because it doesn’t matter. That’s because we’re hormonal, crazy and will break into tears any moment. Also, what difference does it make? -- if you keep pursuing her, stalking her, being moronic to her by trying to put your arm around her repetitively though she doesn’t like it, she’ll eventually fall in love with you right? That's all there is to her side of the story. [Source: All Tamil Movies, specifically - OKOK, Vinnaithandi Varuvaya, Why this Kolaveri di and many more. Yes, men make all these movies.]
What sparked this post? I heard this ridiculous song - Club-le Mabbu-le. This is a Tamil song that starts with a woman stating that she smokes, drinks and is in a live in relationship. The song proceeds to make fun of women like her. The genre is hip-hop/rap, set in a club and he bemoans the loss of cultural values in Tamil women. The song is quite derogatory and uses condescending/negative language with regard to women who choose to visit clubs, drink and wear clothes that are not ‘traditional’. The singer talks about how women should be wearing Kancheevaram sarees instead of wearing a hand-kerchief; about how women are awful to be dumping a guy after dating him for 10 months; about how their Tamil (the language) is terribly fake; how they shouldn’t be in live-in relationships or smoke and finally about how one must not forget ‘Tamil culture’. Ironically, he is wearing a pair of jeans, a tshirt and is in a club, rapping in English.
A friend introduced me to this track. He still says, it’s a fun song, you don’t have to agree with the lyrics to like a song. My problem is not that I don’t ‘agree’ with the lyrics, my problem is that I find it downright offensive. How can it be fun after that? It is spreading hate and is antithetical to progress, women’s rights, equality and all that we’re supposed to believe in, as a society. The mere fact that such a song is popular really affects me deeply. There’s a simple phrase for this. Hate speech against a certain community. If the same song was made to make fun of a certain caste or religion or insult their practices, everybody would be up in arms. This song demeans women, that too women with loose morals. Who cares, right?
A woman was made to give a public apology for making a response to that song. Apparently, it was ‘offensive’. There is tolerance for a song that demeans women but when a woman chooses to speak up against it, people find it offensive. There’s a disparity in the freedom of speech or at least, in the level of acceptance that the society has for the exercise of that right by a woman. Khushboo’s story is known to all. [I mean COME ON.]
If you really feel that women should wear Kancheevarams and nothing else, why do you watch movies with Shriya or Trisha where they’re wearing itty bitty skirts? Why do you accept scenes where Trisha gets drunk? (what’s that scene again?) If drinking is immoral, then why is drinking acceptable when it is done by men? Why do you listen to tracks portrayed as being sung in an inebriated state? Censor it, dude, of course, it’s offensive to Tamil culture! [Shriya and Trisha are Tamil movie stars.]
The double standards are also apparent in Sivaji, another Tamil movie (I know it’s a Rajinkanth movie, I am expecting cudgels soon). He speaks about finding a ‘Thamizh-thotta-pen’(Tamil-touched/infused-girl) and that he wouldn’t consider marrying a modern woman. Essentially, he is referring to a demure, innocent, gullible girl who dresses conservatively and speaks good Tamil. Interestingly, after he woos her, they break into song routines where, yes, you guessed it – short skirts, cleavage and what-not. There’s even a song where she sings in Tamil mixed with English. [* Main Movie Shriya * Song Sequence Shriya ]
I’m also tired of these phrases -‘Tamil Culture’ and ‘Indian Culture’. Before prefixing adjectives to ‘culture’ and artificially imposing restrictions and vilifying a class of people who flout it – please understand what it means to be a civilized individual. If you’re basing your understanding of an ideal woman or how her conduct must be by reading the Silappadhikaram (well known literary work), I’m sorry mate, it is FICTION and was written by a MAN in a DIFFERENT ERA. I also don’t understand how genocide by an angry woman to seek vengeance against one man is acceptable but a woman peacefully consuming alcohol isn’t.
P.S: Sorry about the multiple links. Non-tamil readers may not get most of what is being said unless I explain, right?
