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Tweak says, "Besame"

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bites_the_sun ([info]bites_the_sun) wrote,
@ 2007-12-05 00:52:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Fuck, yes.

Hero of the Day: Sampat Devi, leader of Uttar Pradesh's Pink Gang.


"Village society in India is loaded against women. It refuses to educate them, marries them off too early, barters them for money. Village women need to study and become independent to sort it out themselves."

The Pink Gang:


"The pink women of Banda shun political parties and NGOs ... Two years after they gave themselves a name and an attire, the women in pink have thrashed men who have abandoned or beaten their wives and unearthed corruption in the distribution of grain to the poor.

They have also stormed a police station and attacked a policeman after they took in an untouchable man and refused to register a case.

"Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes we have to take the law in our hands. At other times, we prefer to shame the wrongdoers," says Sampat Pal Devi, between teaching a "gang" member on how to use a lathi (traditional Indian stick) in self defence."


Love how further on in the article, the reporter assures us they're not 'man-bashing feminists' because Devi says 'Women need men to live with'. Anyone with a brain can see this is a statement of fact in rather than a philosophy of life. In India, economics and culture require that for a poor woman to survive, she must be married. That systematic oppression is what they're attempting to fight. And THAT is feminist by definition.


(Post a new comment)


[info]ms_daisy_cutter
2007-12-05 06:59 pm UTC (link)
Love how further on in the article, the reporter assures us they're not 'man-bashing feminists'

"It's OK, boys, they want women to have better treatment, but they don't actually want them to be equal to you, so you can stop grabbing your crotch protectively."

I just complained to the BBC:
Your reporter writes of the Women in Pink, "The pink sorority is not exactly a group of male-bashing feminists." Excuse me, but what these women are doing *is* feminism -- attempting to raise women's status to that of men as full, equal human beings. Feminism is *not* about male-bashing or living life completely separate from men, no matter what insecure men and the women who appease them think. This kind of antifeminist bias is annoying in general, but positively disgusting in this particular story. The reporter's possibly knowing English as a second language does not excuse his or her attitudes.
Oh, and I love how they're called "feisty" (are men ever called "feisty"?), and men who assault them are not "violent" or "assaultive" but simply "boorish."

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]bites_the_sun
2007-12-05 10:46 pm UTC (link)
'Feist' is secondly only yo 'spunky!' in annoying adjectives commonly ascribed to women who don't act like complete doormats. There's something rather infantilising about both words when used in that context. Like, 'Ok, she kicked your arse, but it was SO CUTE!' or something.

Yeah, and 'boorish' has the spoor of 'boys will be boys' following in its wake, eh?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]ms_daisy_cutter
2007-12-05 11:18 pm UTC (link)
"Spunky," of course, meaning "in possession of semen." The Victorian way of telling a woman she had balls. I'm not sure whether the expression was better or worse back then.

(Reply to this) (Parent)



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