Bride Burning: Men burn their wives to death if wives are unable to give them money and materials.

Violence against women can take many forms, from humiliation, harassment, and exploitation to torture and murder. One of the most heinous and shocking forms of violence against women is bride burning. It is practiced in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Men douse their wives in kerosene and set them on fire. The question is instead of burning them, why don’t they strangle them, or shoot them or poison them! They burn them because they can later play innocents and say ‘she committed suicide or it’s just an accident. She used kerosene stove to cook.’

Innocent ‘kitchen fires’ are not really innocent.

Bride burning is linked to the custom of dowry, the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage. Thousands of young married women in India are routinely tortured and murdered by husband and in-laws who want more dowry from the bride’s parents. After burning the bride to death, the husband is free to remarry and get new dowry again from new bride. In India, in every one hour and 40 minutes a woman is killed by husband or in-laws who are consumed by greed. More than 5000 women get killed for dowry each year.

‘In 1995, Time Magazine reported that dowry murders in India increased from around 400 a year in the early 1980s to around 5,800 a year by the middle of the 1990s. A year later CNN ran a story saying that every year police receive more than 2,500 reports of bride burning. The Indian National Crime Records Bureau reports that there were about 8172 dowry death cases registered in India in 2008.’

‘In 2004, Amnesty International said, ‘at least 15000 women are murdered in dowry related cases each year in India.’ Some women’s organizations in India said, ‘the number is much higher’. Yes of course, all cases are not reported. The Ahmadabad Women’s Action group has declared that because of dowry at least 1000 women get murdered each year in Gujarat alone.’

In Pakistan 300 women are burned to death each year by husband or in laws. Women organizations in Pakistan would probably say, ‘the actual number is much higher than 300.’

Dowry Prohibition Act in India bans paying and receiving dowries but the tradition continues to exist. As long as patriarchy and misogyny exist, women will continue to pay dowry and will continue to be harassed, humiliated, oppressed, suppressed, beaten, and threatened. They will continue to be burned to death by beloved husband if they are unable to give them more money, more gold, all house furniture, a house, a car, a motorcycle, a bicycle, a branded wrist watch, a set of clothes, anything expensive.

Are you thinking poor and illiterate people do it, rich and literate not? You are wrong. Software Engineers have been torturing and murdering their wives for dowry more or less everyday. They want a new Mercedes-Benz and millions of dollars, business ownership or a high paid job in the West. Men believe they deserve world’s all the big things only because they have a penis.


This tiny penis (above) thinks that it must get all the big things (below) for free.

and many more

The Living Dead

Once upon a time widows were burned alive on their dead husband’s funeral pyres. It was believed that if a widow burn herself to death soon after her husband died, her husband would go to heaven and all his sins would be gone with the wind. Suttee or sati (“good woman” or “chaste wife”) was the Indian tradition of a widow burning herself. The practice of Sutee was banned in 1829.

‘Suttee was sometimes committed voluntarily, but cases of compulsion, escape, and rescue are known. Scattered instances of it continue to occur, most notoriously in the case of Roop Kanwar, an 18-year-old widow who committed suttee in 1987. The incident was highly controversial, as groups throughout India either publicly defended Kanwar’s actions or declared that she had been murdered.’

Religion supports widow burning.

‘The most sacred of Hindu scriptures are the Vedas, and the Rig Veda, the oldest Veda, explicitly sanctions the custom of Sati. The following famous `Sati Hymn’ of the Rig Veda has been recited during the actual immolation of the widow . Rig Veda 10.18.7 : ” Let these women, whose husbands are worthy and are living, enter the house with ghee (applied) as corrylium ( to their eyes). Let these wives first step into the pyre, tearless without any affliction and well adorned.’

Rise, come unto the world of life, O woman — come, he is lifeless by whose side thou liest. Wifehood with this thy husband was thy portion, who took thy hand and wooed thee as a lover. (RV 10.18.8)

The Garudapurana favourably mentions the immolation of a widow on the funeral pyre, and states that women of all castes, even the Candalla woman, must perform Sati. The only exceptions allowed by this benevolent author is for pregnant women or those who have young children. If women do not perform sati, then they will be reborn into the lowly body of a woman again and again till they perform Sati. [ Garuda.Purana. II.4.91-100 ]

* A sati who dies on the funeral pyre of her husband enjoys an eternal bliss in heaven [ Daksa Smrti IV.18-19 ] [ Sm.Samu p.30 ] [ 1200, p.65 ]

* According to Vasishta’s Padma-Purana, a woman must, on the death of her husband, allow herself to be burnt alive on the same funeral pyre

* Yajnavalkya, the most important law-giver after Manu, states that sati is the only way for a chaste widow [ Apastamba.I.87 ] [ 1200, p.65 ]

* The Yogini Tantra enjoins upon Brahmana widows to burn themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands [ Yog.T. II.303-308 ]. Vaisya and Sudra widows were also allowed to do it. It was prohibited to unchaste women and those having many children. [ 1200, p.67 ]

* The Vyasa Smrti gives one of the two alternatives for a Brahmana widow, ie. either to become a sati or to take up ascetism after her tonsure [ Vyasa Sm. II.53 ] [ Sm.S. p.362 ]

Further, the Vishnusmirti gives only two choices for the widow:

Vishnu Smirti.XXV.14 : “If a woman’s husband dies, let her lead a life of chastity, or else mount his pyre”

— [ Vis.Sm. xxv.14 ] [ Clay.13 ]

Brahma is one of the main Aryan gods, being the creator of the world ( later he was identified as an incarnation of Vishnu ). One of the Puranas is named after him, the Brahma Purana. Like other Puranas, it was composed after the Vedas ( Pandits hold 4000 B.C., Indologists 700 B.C.) This scripture also sanctions sati:

Brahma Purana.80.75 : ” It is the highest duty of the woman to immolate herself after her husband “.

Long life is promised to the sati:

Brahma Purana.80.76, 80.77 : ” She [ the sati ] lives with her husband in heaven for as many years as there are pores in the human body, ie. for 35 million years.”

— [ Br.P. 80.76, 80.77 ] [ Sheth 103 ]

Vishnu Dharmasutra XXV.14 contains the statement: ” On her husband’s death, the widow should observe celibacy or should ascend the funeral pyre after him.”

Remember Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Last Suttee?

Widows are excluded from society.
There is a ceremony during the funeral of husband. Widows smash their bangles, remove their vermilion, colorful clothes and all jewelries they have been wearing. Widows have to wear simple white clothes. They are forced to shave their heads. They are not allowed to eat fish, meat, eggs, milk, onions, garlic and many different kinds of vegetable, animal products and spices. They have to fast many times a month. Widows are not thrown on the funeral pyres these days, but they are thrown on some other kinds of pyres. That is not any less traumatic.

There are more than 40 million widows in India. Most of them are ‘living dead’.

A widow’s family members would be excluded from the society if they didn’t respect to the restrictions society impose on widows. A widow is considered a bad omen, she is excluded from all auspicious events. In some cases even her shadow is considered polluting or offensive to society.

‘In India, widows are an invisible community. Although many widows are treated less harshly nowadays, they still face discrimination and neglect. People treat widowhood not as a natural stage in the life cycle of a woman, they treat it as some kind of an aberration. People accept death but do not accept widowhood. “Because somewhere in the Indian psyche, the woman’s identity is with the man and the minute he’s not there, it’s something that cannot be accepted.” Women are not considered as separate human beings. Your husband is dead, you are dead. The suffering of widows is one of the brutal consequences of patriarchy.

Shunned from society, widows flock to Vrindaban and Varanasi, pilgrimage towns to die. Young widows are often sexually exploited. Older women beg at temple gates. Some go to Ashrams where they chant prayers. For a four hour chant they can earn a cup of rice and 7 rupees( 12 cents).’

‘Hindu widows are not supposed to remarry. With little social or economic status, many become destitute. The truth is, women do not lose their dignity and basic rights when they lose their husbands. But our anti-women society do not like to think about women’s basic human rights.

What happens when a man’s wife dies? Is he treated as a bad omen? Is he excluded from all auspicious events? Does he stop eating certain food and stop wearing colorful clothes? Is he sent to a lonely place where he has nothing to do but to wait for his death? No. Men don’t get abandoned, they remarry young women and start a new life.

You can always watch Water, a great movie. The story of an eight-year-old widow.

Women must have MONEY.

”Even though they make up half the population, women and girls have endured discrimination in most societies for thousands of years. In the past, women were treated as property of their husbands or fathers – they couldn’t own land, they couldn’t vote or go to school, and were subject to beatings and abuse and could do nothing about it. Over the last hundred years, much progress has been made to gain equal rights for women around the world, but many still live without the rights to which all people are entitled.”–Robert Alan Silverstein

‘‘We’ll never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth.’ – Gloria Steinem

‘Feminization of poverty is a phenomenon in which women represent disproportionate percentages of the world’s poor. It as “the burden of poverty borne by women, especially in developing countries”. This concept is not only a consequence of lack of income, but is also the result of the deprivation of capabilities and gender biases present in both societies and governments.This includes the poverty of choices and opportunities, such as the ability to lead a long, healthy, and creative life, and enjoy basic rights like freedom, respect and dignity. In many countries, the feminization of poverty and the masculinization of wealth is still the status quo.’

*Women are poor. Women lack control over their income. Women lack power and voice. Women are missing out because they are undercounted, undervalued, underserved, and underrepresented.

*Women bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty. Statistics indicate that women are more likely than men to be poor and at risk of hunger because of the systematic discrimination they face in education, health care, employment and control of assets.

*It is estimated that if women’s paid employment rates were raised to the same level as men’s, America’s GDP would be 9 percent higher; the euro-zone’s would be 13 percent higher, and Japan’s would be boosted by 16 percent.

*Poverty implications are widespread for women, leaving many without even basic rights such as access to clean drinking water, sanitation, medical care and decent employment. Being poor can also mean they have little protection from violence and have no role in decision making.

*Women’s nominal wages are 17 percent lower than men’s.

*More than 1.2 billion still subsist on less than $1 per day. women make up the majority of the world’s poor — owing to unequal access to resources and opportunities, discriminatory land and inheritance laws, and unequal distribution of household resources.

*7 out of 10 of the world’s hungry are women and girls.

*Of the 37 million people living below the poverty line in the US, 21 million are women, according to US Census Bureau figures from 2006

*More than two-thirds of the world’s unpaid work is done by women — the equivalent of $11 trillion, according to a global UNDP study from 1995. “women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive 10% of the world’s income and own 1% of the means of production.”

*If the average distance to the moon is 394,400km, South African women walk the equivalent of a trip to the moon and back 16 times a day to supply their households with water,according to a 2006 UNDP report.

*Women are missing from poverty statistics that measure poverty by household, rather than individual: systems of national accounts do not include unpaid domestic work as “productive.”

*Women make up some 60% of the world’s working poor, people who work but do not earn enough to lift themselves above the $1 per day poverty line, According to a 2004 report by ILO (reaffirmed in 2006)

*Women in the US earned only 77 cents for every $1 earned by a man in 2005, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. In the developing world, the ratio is just 73 cents, according to World Bank estimates. For women of colour, the gap is even worse — African American women earn 63 cents and Latinas 53 cents (IWPR 2004).

*At the rate the wage gap is closing, women in the US will not see equal earnings until 2050. Women account for 64% of minimum-wage workers in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007.

*Elderly women are 70% more likely to be poor than elderly men.

*In some regions, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, women provide 70% of agricultural labour, produce over 90% of food, and yet are nowhere represented in budget deliberations, noted the World Economic Forum in 2005.

*Two-thirds of children denied primary education are girls and 75% of the world’s 876 million illiterate adults are women, reports the Millennium Campaign in 2007.

*Gender inequality in education and employment in Sub-Saharan African has reduced per capita growth by 0.8% per annum, according to recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates.

*The global average proportion of women in Parliament in 2007 is just 17.3%, according to the Inter Parliamentary Union; the US ranks 67th with a mere 16%.

*In Mexico, women in paid employment devote an additional 33 hours to domestic chores per week, while men’s weekly contribution six hours.

*In Arab states, only 28 percent of women participate in the workforce.

*Women are concentrated in insecure jobs in the informal sector with low income and few rights; they tend to have few skills and only basic education. They are the first to be fired.

*80 percent of women workers are considered to be in vulnerable employment in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

*In many countries around the world, women’s property rights are limited by social norms, customs and at times legislation, hampering their economic status and opportunities to overcome poverty. Even in countries where women constitute the majority of small farmers and do more than 75 percent of the agricultural work, they are routinely denied the right to own the land they cultivate and on which they are dependent to raise their families.

It seems women are forced to be poor, illiterate and unemployed because they are women. Whether women are black, white, yellow or brown, they are poor. They have black eyes or blue eyes or brown eyes or green eyes, they are poor. There are women who are made poor only because they do not have dicks!

Poor and dependent women are depressed, afraid, anxious, fearful, vulnerable, weak. They are having low self esteem and lack of self confidence. Women must not be poor. They must not be shy and silent. They must have a loud voice. They must refuse to be shackled, chained, threatened and beaten. Women must have money. They must have their own houses. Women must be independent and must be powerful.

Men hate woman’s body

Men hate woman’s body. Women learn from men to hate their own bodies. Men and media have been busy for centuries advising women what they should look like.

Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long. Most women keep their hair long even though many of them feel comfortable having short hair. They use different chemicals to make their hair silky.

Men do not like the color of our skin. So we bleach our skin or get our skin tanned. We spend almost all our money to buy cosmetics so that we can decorate ourselves and become someone men want us to become. We want to make men feel satisfied.

Men do not like us when our hair turns grey. So we dye our hair.

Men hate women’s eyes, eyebrows, noses, lips, cheeks, necks, ears. Women paint their eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, lips. We wear jewelries around our necks, we pierce our noses and ears to wear ornaments.

Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large. We wear push-up padded bras. We go for breast implants. Implants leak, rupture, burst. We increase our cancer risk.

Men hate our natural abdominal fat. We almost stop eating to reduce our fat to please men. We suffer from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. We become skeletons. We die.

Men hate us if our hymens are broken. We need to repair our hymens.
Men hate our vagina if the passage is not very narrow or not very tight. We go for surgery under anesthesia to tighten vagina.

Men hate our natural leg hair. We shave our legs to make our legs unnatural.

Men hate our legs. So we wear high-heeled shoes to make us look taller. Our toes get bruised, our bones get broken, we suffer from sprained ankles and dislocations. We can not walk comfortably, we can not run when needed. But we continue wearing high heels to give men pleasure.

Men hate our wrinkled skin. So we use all kinds of chemicals or all kinds of anti-wrinkle or anti-aging creams on our faces. I wonder whether people really believe chemicals or creams can stop natural aging process!

We even go for face-lifting and different plastic cosmetic surgery to look a bit younger. Men can grow older, but they do not like we grow older.

We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us feel happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us. There are evolutionary reasons for men to get attracted to women and for women to get attracted to men. But patriarchy, a system artificially imposed on society, causes all the injustices and inequalities against women. Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women. This system prevents women from being who they really are.

Men are crazy for hymen, a thin tiny membrane

Millions of men are crazy to sleep with virgins. They marry children because children are most likely to be virgins. Men go to brothels and pay a lot of money only to fuck 5 to 10-year-old children. Men love hymen that surrounds or partially covers the external vaginal opening.

The man who created Islam knew about the desire of men to have sex with virgins. He tempted men whoever convert to Islam with seventy two virgins.

 

In some parts of the world a white bed sheet is put on the bed to see virgin’s blood on the first night of wedding. Women are forced to give proof of their chastity. Female ‘purity’ is an asset for patriarchy.Unfortunately their Purity, chastity, virginity, morality all are made available nowhere but in vagina. Women get divorced or tortured or even murdered if their hymens are not intact on wedding night.

Women were forced to wear chastity belts in medieval times.

They do not wear chastity belts made of Iron anymore. Today’s chastity belts are made of different or they are just invisible. There is no change in the mindset of controlling women. Male domination or patriarchy has reduced women the half of the world’s human population to mere sex objects.

Hymens can be broken because of physical exercises, tampons, traumas etc. But men are not ready to accept any torn hymen. Women have to give their husbands or masters or lords the proof of their virginity. Before wedding, out of fear women rush to doctors for having hymenoplasty or hymenorrhaphy. Women’s dignity and honor are based on whether or not their hymens are intact.

Women’s sexuality has never been a private thing. It has always been the property of men and society. They throws stones towards women if their hymens are broken.

 

Women are also forced to have a hymenoplasty to tighten vagina so that men can feel that they are having sex with teens or children. Doctors are now becoming expert in tightening vagina or restoring virginity. Women have been taught for centuries not to have respect for themselves. They are taught to hate their own bodies. They are taught to live for men and men only.

What if women did not have but men had hymens covering their penises! Men would face no problems if men’s hymens were broken because of horse back riding or masturbation or sex or something else. Would women ever ask men to give proof of their virginity? No. Rupturing hymens would be a man’s proof of masculinity. Men would be treated as uncouth and retard if their hymens remained intact after puberty.

 

 

Sexism still exists!

“Woman is not born: she is made. In the making, her humanity is destroyed. She becomes symbol of this, symbol of that: mother of the earth, slut of the universe; but she never becomes herself because it is forbidden for her to do so.”
― Andrea Dworkin


“Femininity is wearing shoes that make it difficult to run, skirts that inhibit movement, and underclothes that interfere with blood circulation. It can hardly be coincidental that the clothes men find most flattering on a woman are precisely those that make it most difficult for her to defend herself against aggression.”
― Suzanne Brøgger

“The “feminine” woman is forever static and childlike. She is like the ballerina in an old-fashioned music box, her unchanging features tiny and girlish, her voice tinkly, her body stuck on a pin, rotating in a spiral that will never grow.”
― Susan Faludi

We know about sexist advertisements of the past. Happy housewives could not drive cars but could push vacuum cleaners.Time has changed, women are not anymore forced to be slaves of men in many societies. They are allowed to be educated and become independent. Most countries in the world adopted United Nation’s The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). But sexism still exists.

The vintage sexist advertisements in the 50’s and ’60s were demeaning but the modern sexist advertisements are not any less demeaning.


Sexism Then:


Sexism now:

Should men and women let sexism continue to exist?

Resistance against intolerance

For ages, nobody drew Muhammad. Artists freely drew the Virgin Mary, Jesus the Christ, Gautama the Buddha, Hindu gods and goddesses, and whoever else that they liked. But Muhammad, fanatics have objected to his being drawn even though Muslim artists drew him in the Middle Ages. Recently someone broke the rule. A Danish cartoonist drew Muhammad. It was obvious he was angry with Muhammad’s followers who were terrorizing the world.

And then the whole world witnessed madness. The followers burned down everything and killed people. The artist had to go into hiding to save his life. The world was shocked. People became angry with the followers who were issuing fatwas and death threats against people whoever criticized Islam. They were behaving like a bunch of monsters. Monsters do not believe in democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.

Resistance against violation of freedom of expression grew. As a protest, people who believe in freedom of expression started drawing Muhammad. They even created a ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.’ Muhammad was portrayed as a wise man or a saint in medieval times, but he is portrayed as a crooked man or a terrorist today even by peace-loving people who did not hate the prophet before, not even after 9/11. All artists are not peace-loving. There are some artists in the crowd who praise their own religion but criticize Islam. They draw Muhammad and pretend to be believers of freedom of expression.
It is true that if Muslim fanatics did not show their intolerance towards the Danish cartoonist, nobody would have started drawing Muhammad.

Let’s see Muhammad through the eyes of medieval artists.

Today’s pictures about Muhammad are almost all offensive, for freedom of expression encourages variety, and this has resulted in the prophet’s followers ruining his reputation.

The Internet is now flooded with Muhammad cartoons. Large numbers of professional and amateur artists have been drawing Muhammad since 20 May 2010. So how many artists do the fanatics hope to kill? Are they ignorant of the fact that throughout history whenever there is intolerance there is a resistance? When Christian churches ruled, they terrorized the world and killed those who committed blasphemy. Resistance grew, however, and the churches lost their power. In a free society today, Christian fanatics cannot harm those who loudly say, “Fuck you, Jesus!”

Therefore, God exists.

 

I asked my mother, ‘How do you know God exists?’

My mother could not answer immediately. After thinking about it for a while, she told me, ‘Look at the butterflies, how did they get  so many beautiful colors? Look at the flowers, how do they get their fragrances? What about jackfruits? Who put all the small pieces so nicely inside the fruits? How did they become sweet? Who put water inside coconut?  These prove that God exists.’

I was twelve years old.  I was laughing at my mother.  Yes, I  know well that  there are  hundreds of proofs of God’s existence.

 

A group of  believers  showed  me a tomato and a carrot as proof of God.

 

Another group of believers showed  the pair of  radish as a proof of God.

 

People find Jesus in everything.  Virgin Mary cries.   They see the name of Allah everywhere.  Hindu God drinks milk. So, God has to exist.

 

There are evidences for evolution. And those evidences are the proofs of God’s non-existence. We really do not need any watermelon miracle to prove that there is no God. Believers need miracles to defend their stupidity.