Our ancestors and we.

They’re our ancestors. Men, women and children had fireside dinner and chat 300,000 years ago. Women were not asked to sit in separate places. I do not think women were forced to eat less or leftovers.

After 300,000 years, in the 21st century, women are secluded in many parts of the world only because they are women. Not only that, they are forced to eat leftovers and they obviously suffer from malnutrition. Some evolutionary biologists may find logic behind it. I do not find any fucking logic to oppress half of the world’s human population. Sometimes civilization is used to destroy equality.

Secret blood

One day, as I returned from school and began taking my uniform off, I saw that my white salwar had turned red with blood. How? Had I cut myself? But how could I have done that? I wasn’t in pain or anything. So what was wrong with me? In a panic, I asked how I could be bleeding so much? Was I going to die?
Ma was in our kitchen garden, collecting cauliflower. I ran to her, buried my face in her lap, and wailed loudly. “Ma, Ma, there’s a deep cut somewhere. Look,” I pointed below my abdomen, “I’m bleeding!”
Ma stroked my head. “Don’t cry,” she said, wiping my streaming cheeks with a hand and saying, “Get some cotton and Dettol, quickly!”
Ma smiled. “There’s nothing to cry about, I promise. You’ll be all right.”
There was blood spurting out of my body, and yet Ma didn’t seem worried at all. She went back inside with a couple of cauliflower in her hand. For the first time, she made no attempt to grab the bottle of Dettol and dress my wound. On the contrary, she calmly shook the dirt off the cauliflower and said, with a slight smile, “You’re a big girl now. Big girls get this.”
“Get this? What do you mean? Get what?” I asked, looking with considerable disgust at the smile that was still hovering on Ma’s lips.
“All this bleeding. It’s called menstruation. We call it hayez. It happens every month to all grown-up women, even me,” Ma continued to smile.
“And Yasmin as well?” I asked anxiously.
“No, not yet. But it’ll start when she is grown up like you.”
So I grew up one evening, all of a sudden, just like that. Ma said to me, “Remember, you are not a little girl any more. You cannot play or go outside as you used to. You must remain in the house, as all grown women do. And don’t prance around everywhere, learn to sit quietly, don’t go near the men.”
Then she tore off a few strips from an old saree, folded them and passed them to me, together with a cord normally used to hold a salwar in place. When she spoke, she sounded serious. The smile had gone. “Tie this cord tightly round your stomach. Then put these pieces of cloth between your legs, make sure the ends are held in place by the cord. After that, just sit quietly. You’ll bleed for three days, or maybe four or five. Don’t be afraid. It happens to all girls, and it’s perfectly natural. When this pad gets wet, wash it and wear another. But make sure no one sees anything. It’s all quite embarrassing, so you mustn’t speak about it.”
This frightened me all the more. Not only was I going to bleed, but was going to happen every month? Why didn’t it happen to men? Why were only women chosen for this? Why did it have to be me? Was nature as unfair as Allah?
All at once I felt as if I had grown up like Ma and my aunts, that I could no longer sit around and play with my dolls. Now I would have to wear a saree like the adults, cook like them, walk slowly, speak softly. I was an adult myself. It was as if someone had physically pushed me off the playing field, off the squares I had drawn to play hopscotch. I had become a totally different person—not just different, but horrific. In no time at all, what little freedom I enjoyed vanished, like cotton-fluff before a strong wind. Was it a nightmare! Or was it all true, what had happened, what Ma had said! Couldn’t this be just a bad dream! Why couldn’t I just wake up and find that nothing had changed, that all was as before! I wished with all my heart for the whole thing to be no more than an accident, sudden bleeding from some secret injury within my body. This was the first time it had happened, and it would be the last. Please, please, let me be able to return those pieces of cloth to Ma and tell her I’m all right. The nightmare is over.
I banged my head on the wall of the bathroom, but felt no pain. My body had become only a carrier—I carried a bleeding heart within it. Little pebbles of anguish gathered in my heart and grew into a mountain. The torn pieces of cloth were still held in my hands. I was holding my destiny in my hands—a destiny that was mean, unjust, and unfair.
Ma knocked on the door and spoke softly, “Why are you taking so long? What’s wrong? Come on, do as I told you, and come out quickly.”
Why couldn’t Ma at least leave me alone to cry to my heart’s content? Cry with my face covered in my hands, shrinking with pain and fear! I was furious with Ma and everyone else in the house, as if they had all conspired against me. Only I would smell foul. If anyone was heading for disaster, it was I. How was I going to keep this obnoxious event a secret from everyone? How could I walk in front of everybody, knowing that under my salwar was a pad made of torn cloth, drenched with blood? What if people guessed? I hated myself. I spat on myself in revulsion. I was now like a clown in a circus. I was different from everyone else. I was ugly and rotten. Inside my body lay hidden a serious sickness. There was no cure for it.

Was this what growing up amounted to? I noticed that nothing I had thought or felt before had changed. I still enjoyed running across the field to play gollachhut, but Ma’s instructions in this matter were quite clear: “You mustn’t jump or run. You’re not a child any more.” If she found me standing in the field, she snapped, “Come inside at once. I can see men staring at you from their roofs.”
“So what? How does it matter if someone looks at me?” I protested faintly.
“You have grown up. That’s what matters.”
Why was that a problem? I never got a clear-cut answer from Ma. Men from outside my family were quickly banned from my life. Ma got completely absorbed in the business of keeping me out of sight. If any of her brothers came over, accompanied by their friends, Ma pushed me out of the living room. I was slowly becoming both invisible and untouchable.
One day, while looking for a bunch of keys, I happened to touch the Quran. Ma saw this and came running. “Never touch the Quran with an impure body.”
“Impure body? What do you mean?” I asked bitterly.
“You are impure while you are having menstruation. When that happens you are not to touch the book of Allah, or pray namaz.”
I had heard Ma call a dog “unholy” and “impure.” So even women could be that some times? The act of washing one’s hands and feet before praying namaz was supposed to cleanse one of all impurities. Anyone could to it, except women who were menstruating. I felt as if I had been thrown into a pool of stinking, stagnant water. From top to toe, I was immersed in filth. It made me feel vomit. I started hating myself. Every time I had to wash my blood-stained pads, I wanted to throw up. It would have been better if a jinn had possessed me, I thought. But I had to stow my revulsion and pain into a dark recess of my mind, bury it under ground in a secret spot where no one ever set foot.
I feared of standing, feared of walking. At any moment my pad could drop on the floor, and people would right away realize what was going on. I feared that the floor would be flooded with my foul blood. I feared of having listened the laugh of the people. This was my body, my body was insulting me. I shrinked with enormous fear.
Nor was this the end. Something else was causing me further embarrassment. I could no longer take my dress off, even if it was boiling hot in the afternoon. My breasts were growing bigger in size, Sad and depressed, all I could do was lie in my bed.
Three days later, exhausted and devastated by constant bleeding, I was found by Baba as I lay in bed, still as a corpse. He came charging in like a wild buffalo. “What is this? Why are you in bed at this time? Get up, start working. At your desk. Now.”
I pulled myself to my feet and dragged my poor body to my desk. Baba shouted again, “Why are you moving so slowly? Don’t you eat enough? Where’s your strength gone?”
Ma reappeared once more, my savior. She called Baba out and took him to the next room to explain. A few sounds pierced the wall and came through—faint whispers, I couldn’t make out the words. An invisible fire tied to every single word. It burned my ears. The letters in the open book became blurred. Slowly, that fire began to devour my books, my pens, pencils, notebooks, every object on my desk. A wave of heat rose from it and hit my face.
Baba got out from the other room and quietly came back to where I was sitting. I could feel him place something on my shoulder—was it his hand, or his whip? He said, “If you want to rest for a while, do. You can do your lessons later. Go, back to bed. The body needs rest, too. But that doesn’t mean that you should be lazy and sleep all day! You have a lazy brother, don’t you? Noman. He’s never done well because he’s so idle. He is studying psychology! What a subject! Only madman can choose this kind of subject. I have no hopes left.”
Baba pulled me from my chair and put me on the bed. Then he stroked my hair and said, “I have only two children left now, Yasmin and you. You know that, don’t you? You are my only hope, you are all I live for. If I can bring you up properly, see you well settled in life, I will find peace. If you cause me pain and disappointment, I will have no choice but to kill myself. All right, if you are tired, take a few minutes off. Then, when you feel rested, go back to your studies. I have never spared any expense in giving you good food and every comfort. Why? So that you are free to spend all your time on your studies. You are a student. Your only mission should be the earning of knowledge. Then it will be time to work, to earn a living. And, after that, time for retirement. Every phase in your life is run by a set of rules, and there is a particular time for every phase. Do you see?”
Baba’s hard, dry fingers pushed my hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ears. I had noticed him do this before. His idea of caressing me was to remove every strand of hair from my face. He wore his own hair firmly brushed back. He couldn’t bear to see loose strands falling over anyone’s face. Oh! How rough his hand was! I couldn’t believe it. His rough, coarse fingers ran all over my back. It was far from a gentle stroke. I felt as if Baba was removing all the dead skin from my back with a pumice stone!
I simply couldn’t bring myself to accept the situation. Why should I leave my games and sit at home with a long face, just because I had started to menstruate? How I had longed to grow up, grow so tall that I’d be able to reach the bolt on top of the door! I could reach that bolt if I stood on tiptoe, but this business of bleeding put an end to my childhood so quickly and placed such a high barrier between me and the world that it frightened me. When I turned eleven, Ma had made me long salwars that replaced my shorts forever. A year later, after my twelfth birthday, she had said I would have to wear a urna because my legs were now longer and my breasts were getting bigger. If I didn’t hide these behind a urna, people would call me shameless and brazen. No one in our society liked shameless girls. Those who are shy, who behaved modesty found good husbands. Ma hoped fervently that I would succeed in making a good marriage. Mamata, the bookworm in my class, had been married off some time ago. I asked her, “Do you know the man you’re marrying?” Mamata had shaken her head. No, she had never met him. The groom arrived on an elephant. The whole town watched his arrival. He had demanded—and received—an enormous dowry, consisting of 70 grams of gold, 30,000 takas in cash, a radio, and a wristwatch. After the wedding, Mamata, too, rode on the elephant to her new home. From that moment, she would spend her life looking after everyone in her husband’s family. Her studies had come to an end. That man who went about riding an elephant would make sure Mamata’s passion for reading novels was destroyed.
I had hardly come to terms with the idea, and inconvenience, of menstruation, when a supposedly important man in our village turned up one day with a large fish and told Baba that he wanted to see his son married to Baba’s elder daughter. Baba heard these words, returned the fish and promptly pointed at the front gate. He wished to hear not another word, he said. Would the man just leave?
Ma was quite put out by this. “What did you do that for?” she complained. “Don’t you want to get our girls married? Nasreen has grown up. This is the right time for marriage, I think.”
Baba stopped her at once. “I know when my daughter should, or should not, be married. You don’t have to poke your nose into this, all right? She is studying now. One day, she will be a doctor. Not just an M.B.B.S. like me—she’ll be an F.R.C.S. I wish to hear no more about her marriage. Is that clear?”
I pricked my ears and heard these words carefully. Suddenly, all my anger at Baba melted away. I wanted to get up and make him a glass of lemon sherbet. Maybe he was thirsty. But I hadn’t learnt to go anywhere near Baba, or give him anything unless he asked for it. It proved impossible to crash through the barrier imposed by age-old habit.
I noticed Ma was quite excited by my growing up. She bought a black burqa one day and said to me, “Look, I got this for you. Why don’t you try it on?”
My face went red with mortification. “What! You’re asking me to wear a burqa?”
“Yes, most certainly I am. Aren’t you grown up now? A grown woman must wear a burqa,” Ma replied, measuring its length.
“I won’t!” I said firmly.
“Aren’t you a Muslim? Allah Himself has said that all Muslim women should cover themselves and be modest,” Ma spoke gently.
“Yes, Allah may have said that, but I’m not going to wear it.”
“Haven’t you seen Fajli’s daughters? They wear burqas , such good girls. You’re good, too, aren’t you? If you wear a burqa, people will say what a nice girl you are!”
Ma began stroking my back. Normally, a soft, warm touch made me melt, all my defenses broke down. But I wasn’t going to let that happen today. I had to say no. I braced myself to utter that word.
“No!”
“No? You mean you’re really not going to . . .?”
“I already told you, didn’t I?” I replied, quickly moving away from Ma. But she grabbed me and hit my back with the same hand which was stroking me before. “You’ll go to Hell!” she warned, “I am telling you, my child, you will go to Hell. You didn’t turn out right, after all. I took you to Noumahal so many times, but even that didn’t open your eyes. Didn’t you see those girls? Some the same age as you, others even younger, but they were all draped in burkhas. They looked beautiful. And they pray their namaz and observe fasting during Ramadan. You are getting older and you are giving up all. Yes, Hell is where you’ll end up, I can see.”
Let Ma hit me as hard as she liked, I would never wear a burqa. I went and sat down at my desk. A book lay open before me, but I only stared at the pages. The letters were blurred, as if hidden under the wings of a vulture.
I could hear Ma walking along the corridor outside my room. She was still talking, loud enough for me to hear: “She might seem meek and docile, but underneath that she’s a Satan. She answers me back! No one else does that. They don’t dare. If I could whip her the way her father does she’d listen to me. Well, if she goes on being difficult, I will have to act accordingly.”
When Ma decided to act “accordingly,” she changed completely. She wasn’t my mother any more, she turned into a witch. She looked so ugly! I found it difficult to believe that she was the same woman who once fed me lovingly, taught me rhymes, and stayed awake night after night if I happened to be ill. I became like dust on the floor, but deep inside, a blind rage began to gather force, as sharp as a sparkling diamond.
I felt like swallowing poison and ending it all. The world was such a cruel place—better to die than live in it as a woman. I had read in a magazine that somewhere in the world, a girl had become a boy. I longed to wake up one day and find that something similar had happened to me, that I had turned into a boy. That there were no unseemly mounds of flesh on my chest. That I could wear a thin, transparent shirt and roam all over town. That when I returned home late at night after having seen a film and smoked a cigarette with my friends, Ma would serve me the biggest piece of fish just because I was a boy, her son, the one who would carry forward the family name. No matter what I did, Ma would forgive me. No one would order me to cover my chest with a urna, with a veil, wear a burqa, or stop me from standing at a window or going up to the roof.
But who was going to turn me into a boy? I couldn’t do it myself. Who could I ask? Allah, Allah was the only one I could pray to. If only there was someone else, in addition to Allah! Hindus had millions of gods and goddesses, but why should they hear my prayer, I wasn’t a Hindu. I had prayed to Allah before, but He hadn’t granted a single prayer. So I prayed to no one, simply told myself what I wanted: either die, or become a boy. I repeated those words again and again. Baba had often told me that I could get what I wanted, if I had a strong enough will. So I willed myself, with every fiber of my being. I poured my mind, my heart, my thoughts, my feelings, my virtues, my sins into that simple act.
I just willed myself.

(From ‘my girlhood’)

Male birth control pill Or fairy tale pill?


Coming soon!
Coming closer!
Coming coming coming but..!
Male contraceptive pill was coming since I was a child but it has not come yet. I will soon be 50 and I am not sure whether I will be able to see it in my lifetime. Scientists started research on male contraceptive pill in the 70’s. They focused on the use of hormones to control sperm production. Trial showed bad side effects. The whole project was cancelled. We heard that male birth control implant would come soon. Nothing ultimately came. In the late 80’s, some researchers were excited about a new discovery but they soon gave up because the world was not ready for it. It was difficult to get funding for research on male contraceptives. Only universities and non profit organizations continued their research on male pills.

In 1995, researchers isolated compounds from a plant called Tripterygium wilfordiiused, a Chinese herbal medicine. Plant based pill produced from gandarusa plant in Indonesia was non-hormonal but nobody liked it. Researchers fed extracts from the seeds of papaya fruit to monkeys and found they had no sperm. In 2002, tests were done on male rats using oleanolic acid, extracted from Eugenia jambolana, an African tree.The tests showed that the chemical was found to reversibly lower the rats’ sperm motility without affecting the sperm count.

Inhibition of chromatin remodeling by binding to a pocket on BRDT (Bromodomain testis-specific protein) has been shown to produce reversible sterility in male mice. Nifedipine, one of the Calcium channel blocker drugs, causes reversible infertility by changing the lipid metabolism of sperm. We do not know whether researchers stop doing research on nifedipine.

A compound that strikes against vitamin A pathway makes male mice sterile without affecting sexual drive. The drugs like Adjudin, Gamendazole etc. show reversible infertility in rats! Depo-Provera prevents spermatogenesis. Monthly injection ‘testosterone undecanoate’ has been doing fine, but they are not yet for the marketing. Phenoxybenzamine Silodosin,Trestolone are for blocking ejaculation and reducing sperm count. Trial results are good, but the drugs have never been ready for the market. UK’s ‘dry orgasm’ pill that made orgasm occur but not ejaculation, was also gone with the wind. There was a method to inhibit sperm production by heating testicles. Who knows what happened to the research on heat based contraception. Industries are interested in male everything but not in male contraceptives. They don’t see potential demands or dollars. In 2003, new research focused on non-hormonal pill but no non-hormonal pill is available yet.

RISUG or ‘Reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance’ should be popular but people are not interested in it. Dr. Régine L. Sitruk-Ware, reproductive endocrinologist said, “Market research has shown little interest from males, so companies have continued to [bow] out,” But the market research had showed almost no interest in NuvaRing, a combined hormonal contraceptive vaginal ring. But NuvaRing was on the market and sold well.

Scientists have now found JQ1, a molecule that blocks a protein essential for sperm production in mice and rats without changing their libido. It is not toxic for the animals. It has no effect on testosterone or sexual behavior. It does not appear to affect the first generation of offspring after the contraceptive is reversed. As the reproductive system of mice and men are similar, men can have this drug.

Researchers published their study and said, “We envision that our discoveries can be completely translated to men, providing a novel and efficacious strategy for a male contraceptive.”

These are nothing new to us. We get the same old promises every now and then. Male pill always comes closer. But it never really comes. The new pill will face the challenge of male contraception efficacy trials involving hundreds of couples over ‘several years’ in order to assess its true so called effectiveness. Several years would be several decades as usual. Then after several decades some other male contraceptive pill’s coming soon advert will be a Page One news all over the world but the male dominated world and the money oriented minds will never get ready for it.

Women will continue to be treated as guinea pigs.

”I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of you” –Pussy Riots


The Russian authorities have an exceptional talent for letting their mistakes be blown out of proportion.

Pussy Riot Found Guilty and Sentenced.

Three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot were found guilty of “hooliganism” and sentenced to two years in prison today in Russia. The maximum sentence for the charges was seven years. In a case that has garnered international attention, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, and Marina Alyokhina, 24, have been in jail since March, when they were arrested after performing (video) a “punk prayer” on the altar of Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral in dissent of Vladimir Putin.

The members entered the church wearing bright colors and balaclavas, singing “Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, drive out Putin!” They noted later that their intent was to challenge the Church’s political support for Putin and to show their dissatisfaction with Putin’s 12-year political dominance.

The Associated Press reports that Boris Akunin, one of Russia’s best known authors, said: “This is all nonsense. I can’t believe that in the 21st century a judge in a secular court is talking about devilish movements. I can’t believe that a government official is quoting medieval church councils.”

Musicians, activists and human rights groups worldwide have been standing in solidarity with Pussy Riot both online and in the streets. Amnesty International has named the women prisoners of conscience, and artists including Sting, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bjork, Madonna, and Chloe Sevigny have been speaking out in support. Activists have marked August 17 as Pussy Riot Global Day and are staging solidarity protests all over the world. Although the women have experienced an outpouring of international support and solidarity, opinion polls indicate that Russians themselves are not very sympathetic. The case has shed international light on the Russian government’s intolerance of dissent.

In her closing statement at the trial, Alyokhina said, “I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of you and I am not afraid of the thinly veneered deceit of your verdict at this ‘so-called’ trial. My truth lives with me. I believe that honesty, free-speaking and the thirst for truth will make us all a little freer. We will see this come to pass.”

A New Dark Age has descended upon Russia. A New Dark Age has descended upon humanity.

Fuck you, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia wants to build women-only cities.

Dear Saudi Women,

When I first heard of Saudi Arabia’s plan to build women-only cities, I got so angry that I shouted, ‘What the fuck! you wanna build a women-only city, like a black-only ghetto? You force women to wear burqa, they have no face, no identity, no rights! Now you wanna dump them? You have been apartheiding women big time! Fuck you, Saudi Arabia, go build your ass-only city!’

I am not angry anymore. I have been thinking a lot about women-only city. I have also been thinking of your country and your religion. They both hate you, they treat you like a piece of shit. You should know that burqa-only city is regressive, women-only city is double regressive. If you allow a pinch of humiliation, you will ultimately allow tons of humiliations! You know that you can’t say, NO. You already prove that you are not able to change anti-women system you are living under. You got support from all over the world, but you could not go out in public without burqa, you could not drive your car on your Driving Day campaign. You are afraid of being flogged. You failed to challenge an oppressive regime. You are now going to get a women-only city, you will then get a women-only land. They have created a prison for you. The prison is getting larger and larger. But dear sisters, think positive. More than 100 years ago, a Muslim woman called Begum Rokeya dreamed of a women’s land. Please read an excerpt from her classic ‘Sultana's Dream’.

When walking I found to my surprise that it was a fine morning. The town was fully awake and the streets alive with bustling crowds. I was feeling very shy, thinking I was walking in the street in broad daylight, but there was not a single man visible.

Some of the passers-by made jokes at me. Though I could not understand their language, yet I felt sure they were joking. I asked my friend, “What do they say?”

“The women say that you look very mannish.”

“Mannish?” said I, “What do they mean by that?”

“They mean that you are shy and timid like men.”

“Shy and timid like men?” It was really a joke. I became very nervous, when I found that my companion was not Sister Sara, but a stranger. Oh, what a fool had I been to mistake this lady for my dear old friend, Sister Sara.

She felt my fingers tremble in her hand, as we were walking hand in hand.

“What is the matter, dear?” she said affectionately. “I feel somewhat awkward,” I said in a rather apologizing tone, “as being a veiled woman I am not accustomed to walking abut unveiled.”

“You need not be afraid of coming across a man here. This is Ladyland, free from sin and harm. Virtue herself reigns here.”

By and by I was enjoying the scenery. Really it was very grand. I mistook a patch of green grass for a velvet cushion. Feeling as if I were walking on a soft carpet, I looked down and found the path covered with moss and flowers.

“How nice it is,” said I.
…
I became very curious to know where the men were. I met more than a hundred women while walking there, but not a single man.

“Where are the men?” I asked her.

“In their proper places, where they ought to be.”

“Let me know what you mean by ‘their proper places’.”

“O, I see my mistake, you cannot know our customs, as you were never here before. We shut our men indoors.”

“Just as we are kept in the zenana?”

“Exactly so.”

“How funny,” I burst into a laugh. Sister Sara laughed too.

“But dear Sultana, how unfair it is to shut in the harmless women and let loose the men.”

“Why? It is not safe for us to come out of the zenana, as we are naturally weak.”

“Yes, it is not safe so long as there are men about the streets, nor is it so when a wild animal enters a marketplace.”

“Of course not.”

“Suppose, some lunatics escape from the asylum and begin to do all sorts of mischief to men, horses and other creatures; in that case what will your countrymen do?”

“They will try to capture them and put them back into their asylum.”

“Thank you! And you do not think it wise to keep sane people inside an asylum and let loose the insane?”

“Of course not!” said I laughing lightly.

“As a matter of fact, in your country this very thing is done! Men, who do or at least are capable of doing no end of mischief, are let loose and the innocent women, shut up in the zenana! How can you trust those untrained men out of doors?”

“We have no hand or voice in the management of our social affairs. In India man is lord and master, he has taken to himself all powers and privileges and shut up the women in the zenana.”

“Why do you allow yourselves to be shut up?”

“Because it cannot be helped as they as stronger than women.”

“A lion is stronger than a man, but it does not enable him to dominate the human race. You have neglected the duty you owe to yourselves and you have lost your natural rights by shutting your eyes to your own interests.”

“But my dear sister Sara, if we do everything by ourselves, what will the men do then?”

“They should not do anything, excuse me; they are fit for nothing. Only catch them and put them into the zenana.”

“But would it be very easy to catch and put them inside the four walls?” said I. “And even if this were done, would all their business, political and commercial – also go with them into the zenana?”

Sister Sara made no reply. She only smiled sweetly. Perhaps she thought it useless to argue with one who was no better than a frog in a well.

We talked on various subjects, and I learned that they were not subject to any kind of epidemic disease, nor did they suffer from mosquito bites as we do. I was very much astonished to hear that in Ladyland no one died in youth except by rare accident.
…
“Your achievements are very wonderful indeed! But tell me, how you managed to put the men of your country into the zenana. Did you entrap them first?”

“No.”

“It is not likely that they would surrender their free and open air life of their own accord and confine themselves within the four walls of the zenana! They must have been overpowered.”

“Yes, they have been!”

“By whom? By some lady warriors, I suppose?”

“No, not by arms.”

“Yes, it cannot be so. Men’s arms are stronger than women’s. Then?”

“By brain.”

“Even their brains are bigger and heavier than women’s. Are they not?”

“Yes, but what of that? An elephant also has got a bigger and heavier brain than a man has. Yet man can enchain elephants and employ them, according to their own wishes.

Saudi women! You have been forced to live in mobile prisons for fucking 1400 years. You have now no options left. You have to make a land for women where you will not be prisoners, you will enjoy your complete freedom. You are unable to make small changes. Why don’t you get ready to make a big change? You probably do not like reforms, you want a revolution. If you want to survive, you have to occupy the land, and you have to make ‘Sultana’s Dream’ come true. Use your brains and lock those insane sons of bitches up.

Sisterhood is forever.

Sincerely yours,
Taslima

Why I am a Feminist – Rosa Rubicondior

The reason I am a feminist is really quite simple: I am a feminist because I am a Humanist and a socialist. I am a Humanist and a Socialist because I am a human being and I have a single guiding principle which, like a coin, has two sides:

  1. I am better than no one.
  2. No one is better than me.

No one is endowed with the right to assign status on another at birth. No one has the right to restrict the right of another to make their own choices and to take their own decisions in life. If anyone claims for themselves that right, then, with equal ease, I claim the right to remove it from them.

In the words of John Donne (slightly modified)

No person is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each person’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

To me, Women’s liberation was always a part of people’s liberation and liberation is about freedom to choose. Socialism can never be achieved whilst half the population remain subjugated, restricted, repressed and dependent on the other half.

How pathetic, how utterly shameful for one half of humanity to try to maintain their privileges with bans and proscriptions on the other half. How pathetic for men to use their physical strength, not to liberate women but to maintain their subjugation.

To me, feminism is not about what women should do but about what they have the right to choose to do. If they choose to be miners or lumberjacks, doctors or architects, lawyers, barristers, engineers, emptiers of rubbish bins, fire-fighters or soldiers, they should be free to make that choice. If they chose to be full-time mothers they should be free to make that choice too but they should also be free to expect their partners to take on that role if that’s the right choice for them both.

People liberation cannot be achieved by assigning stereotypical roles and expecting people to fit themselves into those stereotypes. People liberation is about choosing the role you want for yourself in consultation as an equal with others involved in and affected by that choice.

It would be easy to blame religions for the institutionalised misogyny women have suffered for centuries. Though they are undoubtedly now complicit in it’s retention in many parts of the world, and especially in the more fundamentalist area where women are required to cover themselves or take the blame for men seeing them as mere sex objects, and even for ‘loosing control’ and raping or sexually assaulting them (what a grotesquely pathetic abdication of personal responsibility that is!), I’m not convinced religions cause misogyny. I think religions are, at least partly, the product of misogyny. It is surely no coincidence that gods are overwhelmingly seen as male and that the Abrahamic religions have a god which closely resembles a despotic Bronze Age tribal chief.

When the origin myths were being invented and written down, and the early laws were being codified, the people who wrote them were almost certainly high-caste males from already misogynistic cultures and women had already been relegated to chattel status. Even the creation myth of Adam and Eve results in Eve being told her role, and that of all women henceforth, was to satisfy the desires of man with “… and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (Genesis 3:16).

Of course a misogynistic male god would put men in charge with the right to rule over women and to have them merely for his convenience. What could be more natural and ‘right’ than that? In the blog The Evolution Of God I have shown how I think religions could well have evolved out of the pre-human or proto-human social structure with an alpha male leader. It could have been from this evolved dominance and the assumed right to have first access to the females and to control their sexual activity, that both male dominance and an obsessive interest in the sexual activity of others may have developed and entered the human meme-pool. Having invented gods and religion we then handed over responsibility for our moral development to the high priests of these gods, as I argued in Religion: An Abdication Of Moral Responsibility.

But, however it evolved, there is no excuse for it now. We are a very different species to that evolving millions of years ago on the plains of East Africa and we have a very different culture now to that of Bronze Age nomadic goat-herders. We have no use for many of the memes they generated or many of the rules they codified.

It used to be said of Britain that 17% of the people controlled 94% of the wealth. We have a long way still to go to rectify that obscene statistic. The women of the world are said to do 90% of the work but to control only 10% of the wealth. That is an even more obscene statistic which no civilised society or fair-minded person should tolerate.

We are free now, to paraphrase Richard Dawkin’s, to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of unthinking replicators in our meme pool. We no longer need to check with sanctimonious moralising high priests and wizards in silly dresses whose living depends on maintaining the status quo and who consult their books of magic words and miraculously come up with the answer which always suits them and those they serve.

We are free now to ask if it is right or wrong that half of humanity should still be a lesser people; a subject people subject to the whim and fancy of the other half and to always be at their disposal. And women are free now to decide whether they will continue to accept this abrogation of power and authority or whether they will deny men this right and take their own lives back under their own control and assert the simple slogan:

“No man is better than me because I am part of humanity. Until I am free, humanity will not be.”

Girls around the world. Warning: Violant Images

A Kurdish or Iranian girl was stoned to death for falling in love with someone who doesn’t belong to the same sect.

A girl was whipped in Sudan for wearing trousers.

A 17-year-old girl was flogged in Pakistan.

A 17-year-old girl was molested in India.

Girls around the world get molested, harassed, raped, gang-raped, trafficked, tortured, flogged, murdered everyday. Their only crime is they are girls. Shame on men!

‘Racism is a refuge for the ignorant’.

‘Racism is a refuge for the ignorant. It seeks to divide and to destroy. Its the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head-on and stamped out.’ – Pierre Berton

I feel bad whenever I think of the day I spent with people from the an extreme right wing political party. I marched alongside them all over Paris. It was 19 years ago. I was in Paris and I wanted to celebrate May Day, the 1st of May. In our country everybody celebrates May day. I had no idea May day was celebrated and Joan of Arc was honored by no other people but the extreme right wingers in France. Not only I marched with a bunch of neo-nazis, skinhead, racist white supremacists wearing heavy boots, I applauded like them when their leaders were giving racist speeches. I did not know French. I thought they were talking about the workers rights. I had no idea that their speeches were hate speeches against non-white immigrants. They laid down flowers in front of a statue of Joan of Arc, I did the same. I was the only non-white among tens of thousands of whites. I noticed they were staring at me with strange eyes. I thought French eyes were strange. Next day when I told my friends about my May Day celebrations, they were shocked, they told me that those people were France’s far-right Nationalists, there were many skinhead white supremacists among them. I was lucky that I was alive, that I did not get beaten up or killed.
But I am an invited guest in France! I said. My French friends said, ‘They didn’t know that you were a guest. They didn’t know that you would stay only for a few days! They definitely thought you were an immigrant! You should know that those people do not want to see any black or brown in this country.’ Since then, I stay at home during May day in Paris.

I lived in the West for more than a decade. I was treated as a V.I.P. or a distinguished resident. I was respected and honored by the governments and many reputed institutions and organizations. I had armed police protection round the clock. But still I experienced racism. If I had to experience racism, I can imagine how much racism ordinary people experience everyday!

Recent Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin reminds me of racism I face and other non-whites face in the West. Mr Page, the white supremacist skinhead racist probably wanted to kill Muslims but killed Sikhs because he mistook turbaned Sikhs for Muslims, or he just wanted to kill a bunch of brown immigrants, no matter in which god they believe in.

Mr. Wade Michael Page served in the US military. I have been thinking whether American soldiers get specially trained to be angry at black and brown people in Asia, Africa and Latin America during their overseas operations. Some of them, I am sure, think, that, the little poor people in the little poor countries are not Americans, they must be terrorists or they must be enemies. We know what kind of brutality prisoners witnessed at Abu Gharib prison in Iraq.

Mr. Page was like one of the racist US soldiers in Abu-Gharib or the soldier who at 3 p.m. in Afghanistan woke the civilians up and killed them. That was an intentional killing of innocent men, women and children. The difference between those soldiers and Mr. Page was, Mr. Page didn’t have his Military job but they had while they were killing and torturing people.

A bizarre barbaric system mixed with religion, misogyny, patriarchy practiced by millions

Khap is a powerful social institution. It exists in Jat Hindu community in some states of Northern India. Some elderly men set rules for everyone. You do not follow the rules, you get severe punishment. Khap does not allow people to marry in the same gotra or clan. It is believed that millions of people living in several neighboring villages are from the same clan and they are all brothers and sisters. So the holy fatwa is, no one is allowed to marry in their own or neighboring villages. If they want to get married, they have to choose someone from some far away lands where there is no chance to have the same clan.

It’s an ancient tradition but it still continues for people in the 21st century. It is illegal in modern independent India but it is widely practiced across some regions. Another bizarre rule that Khap makes, is child marriage. Children are forced to get married. Khap believes child marriage is a wonderful protection for boys and girls from being interested in marrying anyone in the village. But when the married children grow up, they may not get interested in marrying someone in the villages but they sometimes refuse to accept their child marriages. Santara Meena refused to accept her child marriage, but Khap wanted her dead or alive. She needed police protection.

Men and women whoever marry same clan people get thrown out of the villages or get killed. Manoj and Babli  got murdered.

It is not so shocking anymore that newlywed couples get murdered for having same clan marriage. And just recently Khap issued a fatwa against women: women below 40 are not allowed to go outside after sunset, they are also not allowed to have mobile phones and not allowed to marry the one whom they love. Khap banned jeans for girls. . Khap or Khap panchayat is loudly advocating misogyny and hateful patriarchy.

Millions of people practice whatever Khap asks them to practice. There is no reason to think that only the poor and illiterate people in the villages practice the bizarre barbaric system, the rich and literate people practice it too. No matter how many academic qualifications you have received, the truth is you get easily attracted to irrationality, superstitions, inequalities and injustices if you do not educate yourself with rationalism, humanism, secularism and feminism.

A movie was made to create social awareness against Khap but who cares!