MAHA ASHTAMI Celebrated with CHHATRADHAR Mahato Arrested! SEXPLOITATION and Flirting Festival gets Momentum! Woman LIB, Coalition for Free SPEECH, SEX Revolution and Counter Revolution. Fairness and Adult Industries Sustain Patriarchial Societies as

MAHA ASHTAMI Celebrated with CHHATRADHAR Mahato Arrested! SEXPLOITATION and Flirting  Festival gets Momentum! Woman LIB, Coalition for Free SPEECH, SEX Revolution and Counter Revolution. Fairness and Adult Industries Sustain Patriarchial Societies as Matriarchial Societies Predestined to PERISH!

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter 386

Palash Biswas

http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/

http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/

 

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1. Sex and Commodity

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1. Hitler used in controversial safe-sex campaign

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 Results 1 - 10 of about 161,000 for Taslima nasreen. (0.30 seconds) 

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1. Official Website of Taslima Nasrin

   Official site of Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin. Site offers poetry, articles, speeches, book reviews, interviews, awards and photos.
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2. Official Home Page of Taslima Nasrin

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3. Taslima Nasrin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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   Early career - Life in exile - Literary works

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1. Welcome to the Free Speech Coalition

   Trade association for the adult entertainment industry. Includes news and legal information on censorship and freedom of expression.
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Sexploitation film

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Sexploitation or "sex-exploitation" describe a class of independently produced, low budget^[1] feature films generally associated with the 1960s^[2] and serving largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films. Sexploitation films were generally exhibited in urban grindhouse theatres, the precursor to the adult movie theaters of the 1970s and '80s that featured hardcore content. The term soft-core is often used to designate non-explicit sexploitation films after the general legalization of hardcore content. Nudist films are often considered to be subgenres of the sex-exploitation genre as well. "Nudie" films and "Nudie-cuties" are associated genres.^[2]

Contents [hide] 1 History 2 White coaters 3 Notable sexploitation directors 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] History

A series of United States Supreme Court rulings in the late 50s and 60s had enabled increasingly explicit sex films to be distributed.^[2] In 1957 Roth v. United States had established that sex and obscenity were not synonymous.^[2] The genre first emerged in the U.S. around 1960.^[3] There were initially three broad types; "nudie cuties" such as The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), films set in nudist camps like Daughter of the Sun (1962), and somewhat more "artistic" foreign pictures such as The Twilight Girls (1961).^[1] Nudie cuties were popular in the early 60s, and were a development from the nudist camp films of the 50s.^[4] The Supreme Court had previously ruled that films set in nudist camps were exempt from the general ban on film nudity, as they were deemed to be educational.^[4] In the early 60s producing films that purported to be documentaries and were thus "educational" enabled sexploitation makers to evade the censors.^[5] Nudie cuties were soon supplanted by "roughies", which commonly featured male violence against women, including kidnapping, rape and murder.^[6][7] Lorna (1964) by Russ Meyer is widely considered to be the first roughie.^[7] Other notable roughie directors include Doris Wishman.^[7]

Sexploitation films initially played in grindhouse theatres^[8] and struggling independent theaters; however, by the end of the decade they were playing in established cinema chains.^[1] As the genre developed during the 60s, films began showing scenes of simulated sex.^[9] The films were opposed by religious groups, and by the MPAA, which was concerned sexploitation was damaging the profits of major film distributers.^[10] Customers who attended screenings of sexploitation films were often characterized by the mainstream media as deviant, "dirty old men".^[3] In the mid 60s some newspapers began banning adverts for the films.^[11] By the late 60s the films were attracting a larger and broader audience including couples, rather than the single males who originally made up the vast majority of patrons.^[10] The genre rapidly declined in the early 1970s due to advertising bans, the closure of many grindhouses and drive-in theaters, and the growth of hardcore pornography in the "Golden Age of Porn".^[8]

[edit] White coaters

In the late 1960s, American obscenity laws were tested by the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow).^[2] Because the 1969 ruling by the Supreme Court allowed the film on the basis of its educational context, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a number of sexploitation films which were widely referred to as "white coaters"; in these films a doctor dressed in a white coat would give an introduction to the graphic content, thereby deeming it educational. The ruling led to a surge in the production of sex films.^[2] Language of Love and other Swedish and American films capitalized on this idea until the laws were relaxed.^[12]

[edit] Notable sexploitation directors

Russ Meyer[13] Doris Wishman[14] David F. Friedman[2][6] Joseph W. Sarno Joe D'Amato

Michael Findlay Radley Metzger[15] Andy Milligan Carl Monson Tinto Brass

Jesus Franco Jean Rollin Stanley Long Stephanie Rothman Anna Biller

[edit] See also

• Women in prison film
• Pulp magazine
• Pinku eiga
• Bavarian porn
• Black Emanuelle
• Pornochanchada
• Nudity in film

[edit] Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Sconce, p.20
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Weitzer, Ronald John (2000). Sex for sale: prostitution, pornography, and the sex industry. Routledge. p. 51. ISBN 041592295X. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zFpLTrLyDC8C. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Sconce, p.19
4. ^ ^{a b} Sconce, p.49
5. ^ Sconce, p.60
6. ^ ^{a b} Sconce, p.50
7. ^ ^{a b c} Sconce, p.52
8. ^ ^{a b} Sconce, p.42
9. ^ Sconce, p.28
10. ^ ^{a b} Sconce, p.35
11. ^ Sconce, p.36
12. ^ Harris, Will (2005-08-31). "Harry Reems Interview: Harry Reems lays it on the table". Bullz-Eye.com. http://www.bullz-eye.com/entertainment/interviews/harry_reems.htm. 
13. ^ Sconce, p.22
14. ^ Sconce, p.10
15. ^ Sconce, p.24

[edit] References

• Sconce, Jeffrey (2007). Sleaze artists: cinema at the margins of taste, style, and politics. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822339641. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q6Pa42W4SiQC. 

[edit] Further reading

• RE/Search No. 10: Incredibly Strange Films RE/Search Publications, 1986 by V. Vale, Andrea Juno, ISBN 0-940642-09-3
• Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies 1956-1984 (1994) by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs, ISBN 0-312-13519-X

[edit] External links

• Sexploitation Movies: Definition and data base
• Razor Reel: Sexploitation: Art of perversion
• Atomic Cinema: [1]
• Razor Reel: Sexploitation: The European Story
• Something Weird: http://www.somethingweird.com/ Popular online resource for Sexploitation movies]
• Interview with Stephanie Rothman: http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/10/stephanie_rothman.html

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexploitation_film"

Categories: Film genres | Nudity | Sexploitation films | Pornography by genre

Jnana Prabodhini – Institute offering course to become Hindu women priests

Jnana Prabodhini in Pune, Maharashtra, offers a one-year course which will train women to become priests (purohitas) and rituals associated with Hinduism. There is a great demand for female priests as many families and companies feel that they are more honest and patient in doing rituals and pujas. Another advantage is the communication skill of women priests.

The course is strictly based on Vedic rituals. Nearly 19 pujas and sansakaras are taught as part of the one-year course.

The response to the course is great and housewives and young women are joining the course. People from other profession are also joining the course.

Jnana Prabodhini is located at 510, Sadashiv Peth, Pune and concentrates on education and rural development.
http://www.hindu-blog.com/2008/12/jnana-prabodhini-institute-offering.html

Durga Puja begins

Staff Reporter

 

Durgathshob, the greatest religious festival of the Hindu community, began yesterday amid great enthusiasm and religious fervour.

Worshippers at thousands of altars across the country awakened and welcomed Devi Durga, the embodiment of invincible power over evil forces.

Women ululated, priests recited scriptures and drumbeats filled the air marking the grandeur of welcome of the goddess as the five-day programmes of the grand celebration began with Shashti Puja.

The rituals are being performed in the highest ever 24,000 mandaps throughout the country including 178 in the city. The first day rituals of Shasthi Puja were divided into two sessions-one in the morning with `Kalparambho' and the other in the evening with 'Bodhan' and `Adhibas'of the deity. Swami Sthiratmananda of Ram Krishna Mission said the 'Kalparambho' is the ritual to wake the goddess up while Bodhan and Adhibas stand for ceremonious rituals to welcome the Goddess Durga to the earth.

President Zillur Rahman, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Opposition Leader Begum Khaleda Zia in separate messages greeted the members of the Hindu community on the occasion.

In his message, President Zillur Rahman said he was very happy that Durga Puja is being observed in a befitting manner and with due solemnity across the country. "Durga Puja is an inseparable part of the country's culture as the Hindu community has been celebrating their biggest religious festival for decades."

In her message PM Sheikh Hasina said the main characteristic of the religious festival is to destroy the evil power and adore the truth and beauty.

The devotees in large numbers thronged the Puja mandaps in their respective areas early in the morning to perform the Shashti Puja.

The tastefully decorated mandaps for Durga Puja with Anjali and Arati were buzzing with the rhythmic beats of Dhaks, Kansa

and Uludhwani of the Hindu women.

At Dhaka Ramkrishna Mission, a soiree of devotional songs was arranged in the evening besides other programmes on the inaugural day of Durga Puja.

Similar programmes were arranged at Dhakeswari Jatiya Mandir, Ramna kali Mandir, Jagannath Hall at Dhaka University, Shankharibazar, Tanti Bazar, Basabo Balur Math, Baradeswari Kalimata Mondir, Siddheswari Kali Mandir, Kalabagan playground and other mandaps at Dhanmondi, Gulshan, Uttara and other places in the city.

A grand arrangement of Durga Puja has been made at Banani Playground in the city. The organisers claimed it the grandest arrangement of the festival as the single mandap has been erected costing Tk 98 lakh.

Speaker Abdul Hamid along with senior lawmakers Suranjit Sengupta, AKM Rahmat Ullah, Kabori Sarwar and Jahid Hasan Russel visited the mandap yesterday. President of Bangladesh Puja Udjapon Maj Gen (Retd) C R Datta Biruttam accompanied them.

Italian Ambassador to Bangladesh Itala Occhi yesterday visited Dhaka Ram Krishna Mission to see the Durga Puja. She stayed sometimes at the Puja mandap and talked to the Principal of the mission and other monks there.
http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2009/09/25/news0942.htm

Ashtami of anjali and adda
A Metro guide to understanding and enjoying Ashtami 2009 better.

What is today's ritual?

Kumari puja is one of the attractions of Ashtami. A little girl is bathed, dressed in new clothes, adorned with flowers and worshipped as the goddess. Then there is Sandhi puja, performed over the last 24 minutes of Ashtami and the first 24 minutes of Navami. Durga is worshipped in her ferocious Chandi avatar during this time. An ox or goat is to be sacrificed at the exact juncture of Ashtami-Navami to appease the Goddess, but vegetables like pumpkin, chal kumra and lau will also do.

Sandhi puja is from 11.08pm to 11.56pm (Bisuddhasiddhanta almanac); 11.44pm to 12.32am on Sunday (Gupta Press).

When is pushpanjali?

Ashtami puja has to be performed between 6.58am and 9.28am (Gupta Press) and 6.59am and 9.29am (Bisuddhasiddhanta). The pushpanjali is held after completion of the puja. Ashtami is on till 11.32pm (Bisuddhasiddhanta) and 12.08am on Sunday (Gupta Press).

Where to go?

This is the big day so be prepared for the crowds — everywhere. If you find Metro too stuffy and sweaty (2pm to 6pm, 10 minutes frequency; 6pm to 10pm, 8 minutes; 10pm to midnight, 10 minutes; midnight to 2am, 15 minutes; 2am to 4am, 20 minutes) be a braveheart and drive around.

What to do?

No Ashtami is complete without an adda session. Take time out and visit your para pandal and indulge in some no-holds-barred adda.

What to wear?

Go traditional — a colourful Dhakai or chiffon sari paired with a choli blouse to brighten up a dull grey day. Men, don embroidered dhotis and bandhgalas to (try and) match up to the pretty ladies.

What to eat?

Offer anjali and then queue up for the traditional khichudi bhog at the pandal. Volunteer to serve bhog. Strapping young men in crisp pyjama-panjabi sweating it out with buckets of steaming khichudi.... Think Saif in Parineeta. Yummy!

Worth a watch:

Glam girls in their Ashtami best at Maddox Square and Ballygunge Cultural.

Worth a miss:

Boys strutting around in tight tees as if to welcome Salman Wanted Khan to town.
 http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090926/jsp/calcutta/story_11544640.jsp

www.worldslastchance.com
A HYMN IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS

The Harivamsa (first to third century), well known as an account of the life of the god Krsna, contains also a few hymns to the goddess Durga. These hymns are extremely inter-esting in that they are amongst the earliest written sources on Durga and represent one of the early efforts at establishing the identity, significance, and worship of Durga as the great goddess. (1) One of these hymns appears in Chinese translation in the Buddhist Sutra of Golden Light (Suvarnabhasottama Sutra), in Yijing's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (635-713) rendering of 703, (2) for which the original Sanskrit version does not survive. The presence of ...
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-146942718.html

Whose Homeland? Territoriality and Religious Nationalism in Pre-Partition Bengal
Reece Jones
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Scholarly inquiries into communalism in South Asia have often exclusively focused on politically constructed religious and ethnic identity categories. This article challenges these assumptions by arguing that territoriality and the designation of homelands played an important, but largely unrecognized, role in developing social and political boundaries in the region. By analyzing the writings of Bipin Chandra Pal during the Swadeshi period, this article points to the territorialization of a Hindu-based version of the national homeland as a key process in the development of communal difference in Bengal and South Asia more generally. It is concluded that the Hindu-dominated rhetoric of the early nationalist movement implicitly marked Hindus as the only true members of the nation. By implicitly excluding all other forms of social affiliations from the narrative of the homeland, it is argued that the stage was set for the contestation of territorial identity categories that played out through the 20th century in Bengal.

Key Words: Bengal • communalism • Hindu–Muslim relations • territorialization

http://sar.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/2/115

Durga Puja as a Homecoming Metaphor – Prasanta Chakravarty(This is a guest post. It was also published in Hindustan Times, October 2, 2008)

Tagore's short tale Kabuliwallah concludes right in the middle of autumn—saratkaal. Mini's marriage takes place during the puja holidays, and Rahman's own Parbati awaits her father's return in her distant mountain home. Even as Mini prepares to initiate her journey to her in-laws, Rahman, having been released from his own figurative abode-of-the-in-laws, the jail, seeks home afresh in his "… mountains, the glens, and the forests of his distant home, with his cottage in its setting, and the free and independent life of far-away wilds." Uma's arche story is reinvented by Tagore and a secret bond is established between two fathers. But such weaving of the puranic akhyan as a homecoming narrative is realized, or used to be realized shall we say, at a different order where home is also a matter of participating in a certain generous spirit during the pujas. The essence of Kabuliwallah lies in basking in such an aura of human generosity. So, the fundamental question to me is whether such a spirit can be glimpsed during the pujas even today without being overly sentimental about it.

There have always been two sides to durga puja—the economic and the archetypal. These two strands intertwine, now working in tandem, now colliding. And keeping with the changes in the nature of the festivities themselves, the idea of homecoming during pujas seldom remain inert, motionless. It evolves and transforms itself rather. If home refers to a physical space, then the idea of affirming social bonding could be traced even among the patriarchs of the household pujas—among the Kansanarayans and Sabarna Choudhuris of yonder years. On one hand, these early essays to build up a tradition were founded on a shared communal bay, though richly manoeuvred within a chain of command. On the other, these were also named sholo ana pujo—attesting to the fact that the deity represented the wholeness of the village community through material redistribution, each strata receiving a pie—an ana, as it were. So, the economic dimension is not something that arrives merely with the corporate incursion of our times. Solidarity was as much grounded on relationships as on the economic division of labour then. Home, in both strictly material sense as well as a participatory order, was well ensconced within a given pattern. But that very pattern of home was also being refashioned by the likes of Raja Krishnachandra Roy in Nadia around late eighteenth century by innovating a certain sense of grandeur within the established order. And that had a ripple effect over his subject population which in its own way fanned awe and wonder around this annual affair. Home and homecoming found a meaning in immersing in something physically larger than life.

The idea of para (neighbourhoods) in the sarbajanin (commune) sense—developed later beginning late nineteenth century and had a different romanticism imbued within itself. The pujas at Simla Byam Samiti and Bagbazar Sarbajanin gave a subversive spin to the idea of community as the notion of matribandana chugged along with extremist fervour, symbolically fortifying each other. Subhash Chandra Bose inaugurated the Simla Puja in 1939 when he was in the hot chair the President of Indian National Congress. The economic was given an indigenous and martial twist in these affairs, as expected. Para as home, as a shared space, was the nation in miniature. It produced a utopia that was missing otherwise in real terms. Much later, after the pangs of partition and the birth of modern India, this kind of nationalism would nurture within itself the idea of egalitarianism. That very idea of sharing notun jaama frock (new dress) with the deprived destitute—moyanparar meye, made synonymous with the dhyang-kur-kur beatings of the dhak—which Salil Choudhury as a father would bequeath to his daughter through a popular song, is testimony to that kind of a spirit. Choudhury's is an associative dream, perhaps summoning the good goddess like Blake's angel with a spirit, who would open up a thousand sooty coffin and set the chimney sweepers in industrialized England free. The economic is highlighted along with the archetype. The idea of para, a powerful incentive for homecoming, resonated a new tradition of militancy. Unemployment was rife. Puja provided the occasion to get scores settled with the rich and the powerful, sometimes almost as extortion through garnering of the chanda (subscriptions) a charivari of sorts that sought retribution for all kind of inequalities abounding in and around Kolkata. For those who felt the urge to return home, puja was a paean to ennui and activity, wastage and hope, complicity and defiance, all at once.

Our story of the entwinement of purse and purity takes an interesting turn since the late eighties. The rise of the saffron as a Pan-Indian phenomenon has emboldened the traditional, sanatan Bengali Hindu, who holds fast onto entrenched caste structures and social adherence. The story of the transformation of the cultural space of durga puja to rapid motifs of secularization, prompted by the orthodox left in Bengal, disturbs violently this entrenched idea of home, so dear to the timeless sacral world of the sanatani. The new age corporate babu, engaged in salvaging his gentrified ghetto from Buffalo to Bangalore is more than happy to acquiesce in such timelessness and deny all social obligations if the notion of home comes well packaged. So, he just cannot afford to give a miss to anjali (sublimations) on astami and his wife shows a vigorous competitive zeal during the conch blowing contest, now de rigour in the hoods. The votaries of mainstream left, on the other hand, quite characteristically have been fashioning their own dual game: duly partaking in the festivities, sometimes even in the rituals and yet denying the cosmogony that moves the festival and its affective dimensions in the first place. The typical left-liberal move that detaches the social from the experiential comes across in the very christening of the festivity as sarodotsav (autumnal) rather than durgotsav, thereby running a wedge and detaching the carnival aspect from the symbolic overtones of the darshan, puja and the wider iconographic world. Durga and her sacral attributes become an afterthought, a prop in the scheme of things. The month of ashwin and saratkaal, bereft of their annual cultural mooring, are left hanging. The devotee is left to settle for a buffered self, his existential longings unattended, unreciprocated.

It is needless to repeat here the rising cost and lure to monumentality in planning a puja these days even within otherwise modest localities. But an interesting by-product to such consumerism has been the return of an aesthetic content in the erection of pandals and images, the choice of music that wafts across, and most importantly, in the artefacts that adorn a puja precinct. Many artists—ranging from local art college graduates to artists from Bastar in Chattisgarh to Kendrapara in Orissa—find a meaningful vent during the pujas these days. A few years ago, Yashoda Devi, a legend from Jitwarpur village in Madhuban district of Bihar had come to the city with her associates to decorate an East Kolkata pandal. She was said to have learnt the craft from her chachi, Jagadamba Devi, a legend who was a recipient of the President's award and Padmashree. In a similar vein, the names of Bhabotosh Sutar and Amal Sarkar for instance, signify a certain art-house puja, much sought after among the cognoscenti. Artefacts are routinely auctioned once the festivities are over.

What does homecoming during the pujas signify in such a setting? Surely, the idea of Kolkata or Bengal as home has long lost much of its sheen even among those who carry a slice of certain images within. Participation is much diffused and amorphous today. Bengalis have successfully recreated the fundamentals of the puja in distant domiciles for decades now. They evolve and imagine things in their own sweet way, deftly bargaining with the local culture and innovating even as they go forward. But is the centripetal lure all gone? How would then one explain away the aura of the "kolkata artists", equally coveted in probaash even in such nomadic climes as it used to be a few decades ago? Why do we see franchises of branded culinary houses from Kolkata harvesting it rich in far flung shores? The deeply middle class lure of clutching on to the authentic and an accompanying nostalgia easily seeps in and reproduces endlessly a kitschy and durable version of Bengaliness. The see-saw game that an average Kolkatan plays during the pujas, ever balancing between the demands of tradition and incursions of modernity, is repeated in newer forms among those engaged in recreating home in their own microcosms, beyond the borders of Bengal.

Where is then the lightly held spirit of generosity with which we began? I think it is very much present. One has to salvage it from nooks and crannies, amidst all the pomp and grandeur. I am fortunate to know a couple of people who still practice distribution and sharing as a necessary component of homecoming. There are scores of others who do the same and more and would rather remain unidentified. Talking about homecoming and large-heartedness, at one remove, there hangs a tale of one bhuli-pishima in Sunanda Sikdar's recently published brilliant memoir Dayamoyeer Kawtha (Dayamoyee's Tale). The notion of mercy (karuna / daya) unfurls as a key motif as her tale unfolds. A widow at the age of ten, bhuli-pishima, the author's aunt, simply used to travel in long distance trains, creating and recreating fresh homes across the nation. She often toured without ticket. Sometimes she would be detained and abandoned by the ticket checker in some godforsaken station, where she would spend a few months or a year building up fresh attachments. She'd merrily acknowledge all and sundry as relations and hence had no qualms in accepting money from her benefactors. Someone who was deprived of a family/home thanks to a horrendous human practice, bhuli-pishima's faith in humans never wavered, Sikdar reminds us. Bhuli-pishima's imagination helped her master dynamic correspondences within the lived and the everyday. Images truly did speak to her. And so the whole cosmos awaited her.

In the larger scheme of things, the minutely relational may end up sustaining a notion of home and homecoming during the pujas. Modern innovations ideally could provide the base of a sensitive public sphere to that end, if sufficiently radicalised. Situatedness is a wider notion to be held delicately. And discovered innovatively. It is not to be confused with nostalgic locatedness. This is true especially of the pujas, a time of the year when the very idea of home evolves and transforms itself routinely.
http://kafila.org/2008/10/26/durga-puja-as-a-homecoming-metaphor-prasanta-chakravarty/

Tracking the Goddess: Religion, Community, and Identity in the Durga Puja Ceremonies of Nineteenth-Century Calcutta

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Tithi Bhattacharya
 Abstract
Focusing on colonial Calcutta in the later decades of the nineteenth century, this essay explores the evolution of a particular festival, the Durga Puja, to explore the ways in which religion negotiated its place in the ideological determinants of modernity. The essay surveys the evolution of the goddess Durga from premodern times and shows why and how the perception of both the deity (in gender terms) and the festival (in historical terms) had to be recalibrated following the imperatives of new classes and new discursive parameters. While the essay interrogates the development of new particular categories introduced by modernity, such as urban spatiality and the rhetoric of individual rights in colonial Calcutta, it also aligns these developments to answer the general paradigmatic question of the actual relationship between religion/faith and the modern moment.

Footnotes
Tithi Bhattacharya (tbhattac@purdue.edu) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Purdue University.

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http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=7399C43FFAEE47399D4C073CF860AC70.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=1395612

Elusive tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, spearheading an agitation since November last year against alleged police atrocities at Lalgarh  in West Midnapore district, was arrested on Saturday!.Another Nandigram is brewing in West Bengal. Yet again there are fears of a virtual civil war. The state government seems to be groping to CRPF and Police goes to Lalgarh PS with CRPF and WB Police protection. handle an explosive situation where one slip could result in a bloodbath with disastrous consequences for the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee regime.

The Goddess is widely worshiped in Bengal in her cruel forms as Kali and Durga. Ultimately, Siva and the Goddess are one deity only, not two, ...Kali redirects here. See Kali (disambiguation) for other uses. What is it that makes one rhetoric rather than another prevail in a ... Jayalalitha represented herself as the goddess Durga!

I Never know why the Brahaminical media cover everything related to Durga Puja festival Contrywide and abroad from Europe to Americas, Africa to far East, but it never focuses on the Dalit Bengali Refugees resettled out of Bengal. Dinsesh Pur in Udhamsingh Nagar district of uttarakhand hardly a five hours drive from new delhi Celebrates fifty years of Durga Puja this time. West bengal is never Interested. Bengali colonies around Koraput, Malkan Giri, Raipur, Nagpur, Kota, Guahati, Raichur in karantaka, cuttack and Bhuvneshwar are easy to REACH. bengali media Never reaches these areas! Why?

Not to be confused with Kali (demon), the personification of Kali Yuga
Kali, also known as Kalika (Bengali: ????, Kali / ?????? Kalika ; Sanskrit: ????), is a Hindu goddess associated with death and destruction. The name Kali means "black", but has by folk etymology come to mean "force of time (kala)". Despite her negative connotations, she is today considered the goddess of time and change. Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation still has some influence. More complex Tantric beliefs sometimes extend her role so far as to be the "ultimate reality" or Brahman. She is also revered as Bhavatarini (literally "redeemer of the universe"). Comparatively recent devotional movements largely conceive Kali as a benevolent mother goddess.

Kali is represented as the consort of god Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing. She is associated with many other Hindu goddesses like Durga, Bhadrakali, Sati, Rudrani, Parvati and Chamunda. She is the foremost among the Dasa-Mahavidyas, ten fierce Tantric goddesses.

 

Maha Ashtami is celebrated in Bengal with Demonsed MAHISHASUR arrested this time. He has to be killed as the War Goddess, Durga returns from United States of America with Nuclear Armament belted with Indo US Nuke Deal besides latest DRIVE for Space Adventure like Chandrayaan and yet to be launched Mangal Abhiyaan besides the shopping list in Global weapon market. The ASURAS have to be targeted by DRONA Missile. Ancient Drona , the Pandava Coach did HANDICAP EKLAVYA, mind you. MAHATO Arrest heralds disaster for the Aboriginal Indigenous Minority Coomunitis in the status of INSURRECTION against SUSTAINED Persecution and Repression justified with Vedic as well as legal Rituals!

Devotees celebrated on Saturday the Maha Ashtami festival of Goddess Durga, to mark the eighth and the most auspicious of the nine-day Navaratri festival. The day is considered significant as life is "breathed" into the idol of Durga by priests who perform elaborate rituals amidst chanting of religious verses.

We try hard for gender Equality and virtually tend to land in Post Modern DARK Most Ages of Disincrimination as Manusmriti, the Holy Script running the Brahaminical system in India keeps the WOMAN ENSLAVED and STRIPPED of Every Social, Economic, Political, Legal, Religious and Human Rights whtasoever with CODES Never to be DECODED!Indian Woman is SHUDRA and the Patriarchial Hegemony apeases her with a STATUS STATUS quo , Motherhood, so CELESTIALLY hyped but in fact, it means SEX Machine or a COMMODITY saleable in Post Modern capitalist age of Global village!

Thus, Flirting Festival mothers all the damned Luxury retail Chains as Fairness, Adult, Enterment and Information Industries SUSTAIN the ENSLAVEMENT of Bonded Indian Woman ENLIGHTENED and EMPOWERED. The FREE Woman in Matriarchial Aboriginal Indigenous communities in India have not the Purchasing Power with Plastic Money to hold on with any Survival strategy whatsoever. Moreover, these women being leaders of their communities as in entire North east and some parts of South and East India, in Tribal belt of Maoist Branded States withinn the Caste Hindu Hegemony sphere, they happen to be predestined to be gangraped virtually or physiacaly and then, be KILLED! The caste system and manusmriti have made Sex revolution and counter Revolution, woman Lib, Gender Equality and coalition for FREE Speech quite Irrelevant in this HEMISPHERE where a Rebel Woman like Taslima nasreen has no Place to hide her face as she simply demands for Human and civil Rights for the Women Citzens!

Out of the surface of her (Durga's) forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff ), decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger's skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas.[17]

Kali destroys Raktabija by sucking the blood from his body and putting the many Raktabija duplicates in her gaping mouth. Pleased with her victory, Kali then dances on the field of battle, stepping on the corpses of the slain. Her consort Shiva lies among the dead beneath her feet, a representation of Kali commonly seen in her iconography as Daksinakali'.[18]

In Devi Mahatmya version of this story, Kali is also described as an Matrika and as a Shakti or power of Devi. She is given the epithet Ca?u??a (Chamunda) i.e the slayer of demons Chanda and Munda.[19] Chamunda is very often identified with Kali and is very much like her in appearance and habit.

Mahato, the leader of People's Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), was arrested from Pirka near Lalgarh when he was preparing to give an interview to a journalist, who was trailed by the police, a top police official said.

Left Front partner Forward Bloc today questioned the timing of the arrest of tribal leader Chhatradhar Mahato, saying it could affect normalcy in the state which is hard-pressed to maintain law and order during Durga Puja festivities.

"I wonder whether his arrest at this time would help normalise the situation. The state government should justify the timing of the arrest at a time when there is a warning from the Centre about a possible terrorist attack in the state," party's state general secretary Ashok Ghosh told PTI.

Ghosh said that Mahato, who has been in open contact with political leaders for sometime and was issuing statements regularly, could have been arrested three months ago through the same process as today.

"Every action has a reaction and the government should justify the timing of the arrest of Mahato," he said.

The tribal leader, who had been giving regular interviews to local television news channels when the anti-Maoist operations by central para-military forces and the state police at Lalgarh began on June 19, had gone underground shortly afterwards.

The tribals under him had "liberated" Lalgarh and had free run for nine months with the police withdrawing from camps before the central forces and the local police recaptured the areas from the grip of Maoists, who were assisting the tribal agitation.

The agitation started after police raided the homes of tribals shortly after West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and then union ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitin Prasada narrowly escaped a landmine blast at Salboni on November two.

The tribals under Mahato had demanded that the then Superintendent of Police Rajesh Singh should appear before them and apologise for the "atrocities" committed by the police.

 They got the ammunition from the ruling CPM to combat the Trinamool-BJP armed motorbike gangs that raided villages at Keshpur in  West Midnapore. That was in May 2000. Nine years later, Maoist guerrillas are leading the resistance against police and armed CPM cadres in Lalgarh and Nandigram.
 
In Nandigram, Trinamool Congress supplied them arms. Alongside Trinamool ranks, trained Maoists put up a resistance for months after the Nandigram carnage on March 14, 2007, until last November, when they ran out of ammunition and had to beat a retreat.

All this from the man who was in the thick of it — Koteswar Rao alias Kishanji, CPI(Maoist) politburo member in charge of Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa and head of the party's central military commission. He spoke during a rare interview, deep in the forests of Jangalkhand in Bengal which straddles the borders of Jharkhand and Orissa.

Unlike other mainstream political parties, Rao is not bothered about the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections. This 51-year-old master strategist is busy training Maoist squads scattered across the forests in the Bengal-Jharkhand-Orissa belt to face "state repression" once the polls are over.

An hour-long trek into the forests of Jangalkhand — 'guides' showing the way up to a certain point, and then accompanied by an SLR-flaunting group of Maoist commandos -- took us to Kishanji and his squad in the 'liberated zone'. The escorts made sure there was no one following and ensured there was no way of describing where they were.

Rao's strategy is to expand the "base areas" in the entire West Midnapore-Bankura-Purulia belt bordering Jharkhand. And this he wants to do with support of local villagers and not just with firepower. The dream is to set up revolutionary squads that would "create pressure on the powers-that-be and align against the tormentors of the poor".

"It varies from place to place. We fought the feudal lords in Andhra Pradesh. What I found unique in Bengal when I first came to this state in 1998 is the hegemony of political parties. Most of the times it is CPM and at times Trinamool," he said.

"In 2000, the Trinamool-BJP brigades were setting huts of poor villagers on fire in Keshpur. We joined with the CPM ranks to fight the offensive. I distinctly remember that I collected 5,000 cartridges from the CPM party office," Rao claimed.

"We started working among the poor, raised voices against corruption in the panchayats and started mobilizing the poor on social issues. We did not kill any CPM activist till 2000," the Maoist general said.

When asked about the role reversal followed by recent killings of CPM men in this belt, Kishanji went on the offensive. "The media has been highlighting CPM killings only, as though we are out to kill people. How do you reconcile the fact that the CPM brigade treated our men as slaves after a war in Nandigram? Is it democracy? But believe me, we check many times in our committees, trying to gauge the people's pulse before taking any such final action," he said.

"CPM leaders such as Dipak Sarkar (West Midnapore CPM district secretary), Laxman Seth, MP from Tamluk and Anuj Pandey, CPM zonal secretary, have turned tormentors. They want to have the area under their control. People are scared of them," Rao said. "Men like these and their henchmen down the ranks are our targets. Worse, they have lost the political courage to win hearts. Instead, they come with the police and torture villagers in the dead of night. They have recently formed a Ganatantra Suraksha Samiti, and the police distributes their posters," the Maoist commander said.

The protracted struggle against the "deviated Marxists" will continue, Rao said. "We will oppose Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's dream project in Nayachar, the steel project in Salboni, and if villagers want we will forcibly occupy the acquired land in Singur and give it back to the tillers. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was never our target before the Nandigram carnage in 2007. But if the government chooses to usurp the rights of the poor and forest dwellers, we can't but resist the move."
 
"Today is Mahaashtami. All gods collectively created Goddess Durga when they were attacked by demons. Durga killed most of the demons on the day of Ashtami. That's why this is the main puja," said Sisir Bhattacharya, a priest.

 
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee offered prayers at his family temple at Mirthi in Birbhum district of West Bengal.

 
He has been worshipping here during Durga Puja for the past 20 years.

 
Goddess Durga is worshipped all over the country in different forms. The festival is called Durga Puja in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura, while in the rest of the country, it is known as Dussehra and Navaratri.

 
Goddess Durga is depicted as a powerful goddess, riding a raging lion, holding aloft ten weapons of war in her ten hands.

 
Her trident is depicted plunging into the side of a monstrous buffalo, out of whose body emerges a demon symbolising evil.

 

Meanwhile, Scientists here have completed a study mapping the genes of various ethnic groups in India, the largest such study on any population anywhere in the world that shows which groups are susceptible to which diseases and responsive to which medicines.According to this study, salbutamol, a popular drug for treating asthma and other respiratory diseases, may not be as effective on natives of Rajasthan as it is on those from Tamil Nadu, and people in parts of Punjab, Haryana and Kashmir have a natural immunity to HIV/AIDS.The findings have significant implications. They open up new areas of study for anthropologists, for instance, by showing that certain populations in Kashmir are more genetically closer to Keralites, than local Kashmiris.They will help doctors and drug companies understand the genetic predisposition to diseases across the country and, eventually, help them come up with the right treatment for people of a certain genetic profile.

Headed by Samir Brahmachari, director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Indian Genome Variation Consortium (IGVC) including at least 150 scientists has mapped nearly 1,871 human genomes, sourced from 55 endogamous (pertaining to a community, clan or tribe) populations.

Though that's just a fraction of the nearly 28,000 endogamous populations within India, scientists say that the choice of 55 populations has been done in a way to be representative of a quarter of India's genetic diversity.

Scientists with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, have discovered a key gene behind microcephaly, a brain disorder.

Their findings have been published in the International Journal of Human Genetics.  While Arun Kumar of the Department of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics, IISc, is the lead author of the paper, Satish C Girimaji of the Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS is a co-author.

Abdul Kalam advises ISRO, NASA on Chandrayaan-II

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and US space agency NASA should deploy surface robotic penetrator in 'Chandrayaan-II' mission to study more about the presence of water molecules on moon, former President APJ Abdul Kalam has suggested.

"I suggested to both ISRO and NASA to work on future mission of Chandrayaan-II using moon surface robotic penetrator during my recent visit to California Institute of Technology in US, where NASA scientists presented the findings of Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) to Indian scientists," Kalam told students during an interaction today.

The missile man was here to inaugurate the national science seminar on 'Chandrayaan: Promises and Concerns' for school students, organised by the National Council of Science Museum. He said more validations are being carried out by the scientists on India's Moon Impact Probe (MIP) about the presence of water on lunar surface.

Kalam told students that he had also suggested space scientists to make spacecrafts weighing one-kilogram by 2050 to cut costs and bring it down to USD 2,000 from USD 20,000.

India's own device MIP on 'Chandrayaan-I' detected the presence of water on lunar surface, a finding confirmed by NASA which also had an instrument on board the craft.

The MIP while descending from Chandrayaan-I to moon, picked up strong signals of water particles giving a clear indication that hydroxil (OH) as water molecules are present on the surface.

Security Council call on NPT not directed at India: Manmohan Singh

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made it clear that neither will India sign pacts like the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor does the new UN Security Council resolution make such a demand.

"We have been assured that this not a resolution directed at India and the US commitment to carry out its obligations under the civilian nuclear deal that we have signed remains undiluted," the prime minister said here Friday night.

"We have been assured officially by the US government," the prime minister, who had also met US president Barack Obama during the G20 summit, said at a press conference at the conclusion of the summit.

When asked if the stand taken by countries like the US, France and Britain against Iran after the discovery of a new uranium enrichment plant there would force India to sign NPT and similar international treaties, the prime minister said New Delhi's position on Iran remained as before.

"Iran is a signatory to the NPT. As a signatory to the NPT it has all the rights that go with the membership -- that is peaceful use of atomic energy. It must also carry out all its obligations," Manmohan Singh said.

"That is the principled position we have taken in the last five years."

'Birthday boy' Manmohan Singh dedicates himself to nation

 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who turns 77 Saturday, has vowed to dedicate himself to the nation, saying people's renewal of confidence in him after five years in office was a debt he could never pay off.

"I am grateful to people of India for giving me opportunity to serve the nation," he told reporters here Friday. "I completed five years. Again, they renewed their confidence in me that is the debt I can never pay off."

"I can only make an effort to repay it by dedicating my self to the nation and serve it in best of my ability," Manmohan Singh said when asked to give a message on his birthday.

Born on Sep 26, 1932, in Gah village in what is now known as Chakwal district in Punjab, Pakistan, the prime minister will be celebrating his birthday in Geneva on way to New Delhi after attending the G-20 summit here.

Manmohan Singh's spouse Gursharan Kaur, whom he married in 1958, and their second daughter Daman are accompanying him on this tour. Daman is a social worker and writer.

In Pittsburgh their US-based youngest daughter Amrit Singh spent some time with the family. Amrit Singh is a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City.

His eldest daughter Upinder is a professor of history at Delhi University.

India Caste System Discriminates
Thursday September 6 2:27 PM ET

By NIRMALA GEORGE, Associated Press Writer

NEW DELHI, India (AP) - At the end of a network of dusty lanes in Trilokpuri, a suburb on the outskirts of the Indian capital, a scavenger lugs home a plastic bucket of water for her family. It is dusk, and Birum and her two daughters have spent the day collecting used plastic bags from rotting waste in city dumps. The mother and daughters are filthy and hungry - yet they cannot bathe or cook with water from a tap near their home.

``That's the tap for the upper castes. We are not allowed there,'' the 33-year-old Birum says as she sits on the dirt floor making bread on a coal-burning stove. Although water is supplied by municipal authorities, the few public taps in this shantytown of nearly 10,000 people are divided along caste lines. Taps for the lower castes are nearly a half-mile away, and the water barely trickles. Birum is a Dalit, the lowest rank in India's 3,000-year-old caste system, a pernicious practice that discriminates against nearly a fourth of the country's billion-plus population.

The caste system was described in Hinduism's ancient sacred text, the Rig Veda, as a social order intended to maintain harmony in society. It divides people into four main castes, but there also are those outside the system, the ``untouchables,'' who now call themselves ``Dalits,'' literally ``broken people.'' Though discrimination based on caste has been outlawed since India's constitution was adopted in 1950, the practice pervades society.

And while admitting efforts to end caste discrimination have not been implemented as rigorously as they should, the Indian government wants to keep the matter out of the international spotlight. The government sent an official delegation, including many Dalits, to the U.N. World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa. But India also worked to keep caste discrimination off the conference agenda. Condemning the caste system would equate ``casteism with racism, which makes India a racist country, which we are not,'' Omar Abdullah, India's minister of state for foreign affairs, said in Durban.

Ruth Manorama of the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights disagrees with government assertions that the caste system does not amount to racism. ``Discrimination against the Dalits and lower castes is similar to racism, only it's more vulgar, more horrendous,'' she said. ``No one can deny that millions of Dalits suffer the worst forms of discrimination.'' Dipankar Gupta, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, accuses India of a double standard for not wanting caste to be discussed in Durban, saying:

``India is ready to discuss racism so long as it is in other countries, but not caste in its own backyard.'' Indian officials describe caste as an internal problem that can only be cured by implementing - and strengthening - anti-discrimination laws. Ranjana Kumari, a women's rights activist, supported the Dalits' complaints but questioned the wisdom of looking to an international conference for help. ``It should not become a stick for the international community to beat India with,'' she said. Human rights activist Swami Agnivesh says much of the discrimination in the caste system results from the actions of Brahmins, the priestly caste.

``Over time, this system was corrupted by the Brahmins to preserve their superiority and to ensure that people were available to do menial jobs without rising up in revolt,'' he said. Dalits long have done onerous work for low pay. They clean out public toilets, skin dead animals or labor to pay their forefathers' debts. After independence from Britain in 1947, India launched an affirmative action plan to wipe out caste distinctions, setting aside places for Dalits in universities, government employment and legislative assembly seats.

But these moves only benefit about 3 percent of the nearly 240 million Dalits. In the cities, caste distinctions become blurred. The anonymity of urban life - taking buses and working in offices and factories - helps push caste to the background. But in rural India, where nearly 75 percent of Indians live, caste dominates where people live, who they can marry and the work they do. Dalits cannot enter temples used by high-caste Hindus.

Indian newspapers carry daily stories of atrocities against Dalits or young couples being killed, sometimes by relatives, for daring to love someone from another caste. Dalits rarely file complaints with the police. ``Who can we complain to? And what will happen when we return to the village? I tell my sons, just keep quiet. This is a curse on our lives,'' said 71-year-old Kishan Chand. Chand's son Mahesh, a road sweeper, says Dalits must organize and use their political power. ``We have the numbers, which is why the politicians come to us when elections come round,'' he said.

Dalits once were left out of India's power structure. But in the past three decades, they have gained a political voice and a share of prominent public office. India's president is a Dalit. So is the speaker of the lower house of Parliament. ``But that has no bearing on the situation of the Dalits. This is like saying Indira Gandhi was India's prime minister. Did that change the plight of Indian women?'' asked Kumari, the women's rights activist.

While the media debate rages, the Dalits in Trilokpuri shrug at the notion of change. ``My mother did scavenging. I am a scavenger. I don't see my children doing anything else, whatever the politicians may say,'' said Birum. ``This is our caste.''

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

News and Announcements | AAD Home Page

Carl Gutiérrez-Jones,
Department of English
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
E-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu
http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/georgesept62001.html

 

Sex Imbalances in India
By Sam James

The sex composition in a society has direct bearing on the social and economic conditions of a country. Both the sexes have equal importance in the society. The uneven distribution of any one of the sexes can disturb the basic equilibrium within the society. The Indian society is highly masculine and continues to remain like that with minor changes in the percentage of females. The net deficit of females was 9,9 million in 1951 , which has now widened to 35 million.

The sex ratio of the population has shown a declining trend in India except some marginal increase in the censuses of 1951, 1981 and now in 2001. It remains to be seen whether the observed increases in ratio of sex between 1991 and 2001 constitutes phenomenon like the 4 point increase between 1971 and 1981 which was followed by a 7 point decline between 1981 and 1991.

According to the census 2001, of India's population the number of females per thousand males has increased from 927 to 933. It means ratio of males to females in a population has grown up by six points. This has resulted to narrow down the gender disparity prevailing in India.

The proportion of females to males is unevenly distributed throughout India. There is variation form one State to another and within a State from one district to another. In some States it is more than unity whereas is some states it is less than unity. Eighteen States/Union territories showed sex ratio higher than the national level of 927 during 1991 census. Kerala, chhatisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orrisa, Karnataka, Uttaranchal, Gujarat and Maharashtra were the major States showing women per 100 men is higher than the national average. Kerala was the only State, Goa, Manipur, Megalaya and Tripura had more female population. Pondichery, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep were the Union territories which recorded sex ratio higher than 927 of the nation.

During 2001, the number of State/Union territories having sex ratio above the national level of population came down to seventeen. It is a matter of concern that whereas the ratio of males to females in a population showed an improvement, the number of States/Union territories is declining. Seventeen State/Union territories recorded sex ratio higher than national average of 933. Kerala remained to occupy the first rank Kerala is the only State, which is recording ratio of males to females in a population more than unity for the last who decades. Pondichery had emerged as the only Union territory having sex ratio more than unity in the 2001 census. Gujarat, Maharastra, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu have shifted from the group 1, having sex ratio higher that national average to the second group having sex ratio lower than national average whereas West Bengal, Mizoram and Jharkand have shown acceleration in sex ratio and moved to first group.

The distribution of women per 100 men of the population at district level reveals a diverse pattern. Only 324 districts have shown sex ratio above the national average that accounts around 55 percent of the total districts. Four districts are having the ratio of males to females in a population exactly equal to national average and remaining 265 districts are recording sex ratio below national average.

The Mahe district of Pondichery recorded highest sex ratio at, 1148 followed closely by Almora in Uttaranchal in 2001 census. Ratnagiri district, which recorded highest the ratio of males to females in a population during 1991 has slipped down to third place. Kerala at State level is at the top whereas only one of its district.

Pathanamthitta occupies the tenth position. The Daman district figures the lowest sex ratio at 591. it is followed by West Kameng district with sex ratio at 749 and North district of Sikkim at 752. it is heartening to observe that even metropolitan areas like Delhi and Mumbai are occupying place in the bottom ten districts list. If we compare district-wise data of 1991 and 2001 censuses then we observe that majority of States/Union territories register an overall increase in their sex ratio. It is noteworthy that none of the districts in the Southern part of the country have recorded a the ratio of males to females in a population less than 900 during the census of India 2001.

It is interesting to observe that the sex ratio has accelerated in census 2001 of India. The sex disparity has reduces in a large number of the districts, Government is realizing the importance of sex ratio. Several efforts have been done to decrease the gap of male and female ratio. More efforts have to be done to narrow down the gap of sex disparity.

But the humanity need not be unnecessarily alarmed of the the ratio of males to females in a population, as nature has the natural capability of bridging the gap.

Sam James is a freelance writer and has written content for several web & print media projects. Sample Question Papers Kids Science Articles Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_James Other Recent EzineArticles from the News-and-Society:International Category: The Role of Private Sector in a Developing Country Dr Akong Rinpoche - Providing Hope and Fighting Hunger in Nepal and Tibet Hamas Will Not Abandon Terrorism New Super Powers After American Dissolution - A Possible "Super Power Portfolio" AP Moller-Maersk - The World's Largest Shipping Company Costa Rica Tops the Polls Swine Flu in France - French Locals Hesitant Over Cheek-To-Cheek Kiss MDG and 2020 Goals - Nigeria's Hidden Potential IGR and Formalising the Informal Economy in Nigeria The Informal Economy and Entrepreneurial Development Developing Entrepreneurial Spirit in Nigeria Getting to Know Our Russian Comrades POEA - How Filipinos Benefit From the Role of POEA to Cut Placement Fees Japanese Urban Dictionary Vices and Their Impact in My Country Most Viewed EzineArticles in the News-and-Society:International Category (90 Days) International Cost of Living Rankings July 2009 Amnesty Accuses Hamas of War Crimes Philippine Economy Overcoming the Global Challenge Michael Jackson Awards Life China to Become Preeminent Super Power in 2050 - World's Policeman? International Literacy Day - Sustain the Commitment China's Mercantilism and New Global Economic Order World Tourism Day - Challenges Galore! Global Vote For "New 7 Wonders of Nature" Online Global Marketing Profile 2010 Forecast - Canada Russian Banking Sector - An Overview The 2012 Prophecy - Read What the Experts Are Saying About Our Fate in 2012 South Korea - Birth Rates and Modern Day Korea World Population Day - The Key is Women Empowerment Sweden Adds Backing to UK Call on AIFM Draft Directive Most Published EzineArticles in the News-and-Society:International Category International Cost of Living Rankings July 2009 Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund Invests in US Electric Car Company Tesla Motors The 2012 Prophecy - Read What the Experts Are Saying About Our Fate in 2012 Happy Birthday to You President Obama Is China Testing Biological Weapons in Their Rural Provinces? PAN Party Versus PRI in Mexico - This Could Get Interesting Is Taiwan's Safety Guaranteed by the USA? Hong Kong PolyU Design Annual Show Isle of Man Economy Set to Improve by the End of 2009 Why is China Trading With Venezuela and Iran, and Selling Them Weapons? Conflicting Value Systems - The Paradox at the Heart of the American Dream Amnesty Accuses Hamas of War Crimes Mobile Phone and Internet Charges in France Bombing Continues in Baghdad As Motorbike Bomb Kills 15 The New Bolivian Constitution Grants More Rights to the Previously Forgotten Indigenous Citizens

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Gender equality

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It has been suggested that Gender inequality be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

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Gender equality (also known as gender equity, gender egalitarianism, or sexual equality) is the goal of the equality of the genders or the sexes,^[1] stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.

World bodies have defined gender equality as related to human rights, especially women's rights, and economic development.^[2][3] UNICEF defines gender equality as "levelling the playing field for girls and women by ensuring that all children have equal opportunity to develop their talents."^[4] The United Nations Population Fund declared gender equality "first and foremost, a human right."^[5] "Gender equity" is one of the goals of the United Nations Millennium Project, to end world poverty by 2015; the project claims, "Every single Goal is directly related to women's rights, and societies where women are not afforded equal rights as men can never achieve development in a sustainable manner."^[3]

Thus, promoting gender equality is seen as an encouragement to greater economic prosperity.^[2] For example, nations of the Arab world that deny equality of opportunity to women were warned in a 2008 United Nations-sponsored report that this disempowerment is a critical factor crippling these nations' return to the first rank of global leaders in commerce, learning and culture.^[6]

Contents [hide] 1 See also 1.1 General issues 1.2 Specific issues 1.3 Laws 1.4 Organizations and ministries 1.5 Other related topics 2 References 3 External links

[edit] See also

Gender studies portal

[edit] General issues

• Complementarianism
• Egalitarianism
• Gender equality and climate change
• Gender mainstreaming
• Sex and gender distinction
• List of gender equality lawsuits
• List of important publications in sociology of gender
• Right to equal protection

[edit] Specific issues

• Bahá'í Faith and gender equality
• Female economic activity
• Female education
• Gender Parity Index (in education)
• Mixed-sex education
• Quaker Testimony of Equality

[edit] Laws

• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW (United Nations, 1979)
• Danish Act of Succession referendum, 2009
• Equal Pay Act of 1963 (United States)
• Equality Act 2006 (UK)
• Equality Bill (UK)
• European charter for equality of women and men in local life
• Gender Equality Duty in Scotland
• Gender Equity Education Act (Taiwan)
• Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (United States, 2009)
• Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (United States)
• Uniform civil code (India)
• Women's Petition to the National Assembly (France, 1789)

[edit] Organizations and ministries

• Afghan Ministry of Women Affairs (Afghanistan)
• Centre for Development and Population Activities
• Christians for Biblical Equality
• Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (European Parliament)
• Equal Opportunities Commission (UK)
• European Institute for Gender Equality
• Gender Empowerment Measure, a metric used by the United Nations
• Gender-related Development Index, a metric used by the United Nations
• Government Equalities Office (UK)
• International Center for Research on Women
• Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality (Sweden)
• Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (Malaysia)
• National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (Philippines)
• Total E-Quality (Germany)

[edit] Other related topics

• Women's Equality Day

[edit] References

1. ^ United Nations. Report of the Economic and Social Council for 1997. A/52/3.18 September 1997, at 28: "Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality."
2. ^ ^{a b} World Bank (September, 2006). Gender Equality as Smart Economics: A World Bank Group Gender Action Plan (Fiscal years 2007–10). http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGENDER/Resources/GAPNov2.pdf. 
3. ^ ^{a b} United Nations Millennium Campaign (2008). "Goal #3 Gender Equity". United Nations Millennium Campaign. http://www.endpoverty2015.org/goals/gender-equity. Retrieved 2008-06-01. 
4. ^ UNICEF (May 12, 2008). "Gender equality". UNICEF. http://www.unicef.org/gender/. Retrieved 2008-06-01. 
5. ^ UNFPA (February 2006). "Gender Equality: An End in Itself and a Cornerstone of Development". United Nations Population Fund. http://www.unfpa.org/gender/. Retrieved 2008-06-01. 
6. ^ Gender equality in Arab world critical for progress and prosperity, UN report warns, E-joussour (21 October 2008)

Dennis O'Brien (May 30, 2008). "Gender gap clues". Baltimore Sun. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.gender30may30,0,4246291,full.story. 

[edit] External links

• HillarysVillage, Forum for women, minorities, members of the gay community and those who are otherwise marginalized.
• The OneWorld Guide to Gender Equality
• WomenWatch, the United Nations Internet Gateway on Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women
• Women's Empowerment, the United Nations Development Program's Gender Team
• GENDERNET, International forum of gender experts working in support of gender equality. Development Co-operation Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
• Gender at the OECD Development Centre, gender activities at the OECD Development Centre
• Gender Equality as Smart Economics World Bank
• The Local Gender equality in Sweden (news collection)
• Women Can Do It!
• Sexism Discussion Group
• Sexual Equality and Romantic Love
• Gender Equality Tracker

Gender Inequality

 

Sociologically the word gender refers to the socio-cultural definition of man and woman, the way societies distinguish men and women and assign them social roles. The distinction between sex and gender was introduced to deal with the general tendency to attribute women's subordination to their anatomy. For ages it was believed that the different characteristics, roles and status accorded to women and men in society are determined by sex, that they are natural and therefore not changeable. Gender is seen closely related to the roles and behavior assigned to women and men based on their sexual differences. As soon as a child is born families and society begin the process of gendering. The birth of the son is celebrated, the birth of a daughter filled with pain; sons are showered with love, respect, better food and proper health care. Boys are encouraged to be tough and outgoing; girls are encouraged to be homebound and shy. All these differences are gender differences and they are created by society. Gender inequality is therefore a form of inequality which is distinct from other forms of economic and social inequalities. It dwells not only outside the household but also centrally within it. It stems not only from pre-existing differences in economic endowments between women and men but also from pre-existing gendered social norms and social perceptions. Gender inequality has adverse impact on development goals as reduces economic growth. It hampers the overall well being because blocking women from participation in social, political and economic activities can adversely affect the whole society. Many developing countries including India have displayed gender inequality in education, employment and health. It is common to find girls and women suffering from high mortality rates. There are vast differences in education level of two sexes. India has witnessed gender inequality from its early history due to its socio-economic and religious practices that resulted in a wide gap between the position of men and women in the society.

The origin of the Indian idea of appropriate female behavior can be traced to the rules laid down by Manu in 200 B.C.: "by a young girl, by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house". "In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent." Women's lives are shaped by customs that are centuries old. "May you be the mother of a hundred sons" is a common Hindu wedding blessing. Statistics reveal that in India males significantly outnumber females and this imbalance has increased over time. The sex ratio according to 2001 census report stands at 933 per 1000 males. Out of the total population, 120 million are women who live in abject poverty. The maternal mortality rate in rural areas is among the world's highest. From a global perspective India accounts for 19% of all live births and 27% of all maternal deaths. The deaths of young girls in India exceed those of young boys by over 300,000 each year and every 6th infant death is specifically due to gender discrimination. Women face discrimination right from the childhood. Gender disparities in nutrition are evident from infancy to adulthood. In fact, gender has been the most statistically significant determinant of malnutrition among young children and malnutrition is a frequent, direct or underlying, cause of death among girls below age 5. Girls are breast-fed less frequently and for a shorter duration in infancy. In childhood and adulthood, males are fed first and better. Adult women consume approximately 1,000 fewer calories per day than men according to one estimate. Nutritional deprivation has two major consequences for women: they never reach their full growth potential, and suffer from anemia, which are risk factors in pregnancy. This condition complicates childbearing and results in women and infant deaths, and low birth weight infants. The tradition also requires that women eat last and least throughout their lives even when pregnant and lactating. Malnourished women give birth to malnourished children, perpetuating the cycle. Women receive less healthcare facilities than men. A primary way that parents discriminate against their girl children is through neglect during illness. As an adult they tend to be less likely to admit that they are sick and may wait until their sickness has progressed far before they seek help or help is sought for them. Many women in rural areas die in childbirth due to easily preventable complications. Women's social training to tolerate suffering and their reluctance to be examined by male personnel are additional constraints in their getting adequate health care.

The Constitution of India ensures gender equality in its preamble as a fundamental right but also empowers the state to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favor of women by ways of legislation and policies. India has also ratified various international conventions and human rights forums to secure equal rights of women, such as ratification of Convention on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women in 1993. Women have been finding place in local governance structures, overcoming gender biases. Over one million women have been elected to local panchayats as a result of 1993 amendment to the Indian Constitution requiring that 1/3 rd of the elected seats to the local governing bodies be reserved for women. The passing of Pre-natal Diagnostic Tech Act in 1994 also is a step in removing gender discrimination. This Act seeks to end sex-determination tests and female foeticide and prohibits doctors from conducting such procedures for the specific purpose of determining the sex of the fetus. The Government also announced the National policy for empowerment of women in 2001 to bring out advancement, development and empowerment of women. The Government has also drawn up a draft National policy for the empowerment of women which is a policy statement outlining the state's response to problems of gender discrimination. As persistent gender inequalities continue we need to rethink concepts and strategies for promoting women's dignity and rights. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has stated, "Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance." There is a need for new kinds of institutions, incorporating new norms and rules that support equal and just relations between women and men. Today women are organizing themselves to meet the challenges that are hampering their development.

http://www.azadindia.org/social-issues/GenderInequality.html

COVER STORY

MANY FACES OF GENDER INEQUALITY

An essay by Amartya Sen.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen's work on gender inequality is of seminal importance. His work on the theory of the household represents the household not as an undifferentiated unit, but as a unit of cooperation as well as of inequality and internal discrimination. He has worked on problems of discrimination against women in the development process, on survivorship differentials between men and women under conditions of social discrimination against women, and on women's agency in the process of social development. Along with his academic collaborator Jean Drze, Professor Sen proposed and popularised the concept of "missing women" - estimated to exceed 100 million round the world - which has given us a new way of understanding and mapping the problem. SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY In this Cover Story essay, which is based on the text of his inauguration lecture for the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, Professor Sen takes a comprehensive and deeply concerned look at the "many faces of gender inequality." Focussing on South Asia, he discovers in the data thrown up by the Census of 2001 an interesting phenomenon - a split India, "something of a social and cultural divide across India, splitting the country into two nearly contiguous halves, in the extent of anti-female bias in natality and post-natality mortality." He concludes by identifying the principal issues, emphasising the need to "take a plural view of gender inequality," and calling for a new agenda of action to combat and put an end to gender inequality. Frontline features this important essay by Amartya Sen as its Cover Story.

I. Seven Types of Inequality

IT was more than a century ago, in 1870, that Queen Victoria wrote to Sir Theodore Martin complaining about "this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights'." The formidable empress certainly did not herself need any protection that the acknowledgment of women's rights might offer. Even at the age of eighty, in 1899, she could write to A.J. Balfour, "We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist." That, however, is not the way most people's lives go - reduced and defeated as they frequently are by adversities. And within each community, nationality and class, the burden of hardship often falls disproportionately on women.

The afflicted world in which we live is characterised by deeply unequal sharing of the burden of adversities between women and men. Gender inequality exists in most parts of the world, from Japan to Morocco, from Uzbekistan to the United States of America. However, inequality between women and men can take very many different forms. Indeed, gender inequality is not one homogeneous phenomenon, but a collection of disparate and interlinked problems. Let me illustrate with examples of different kinds of disparity.

(1) Mortality inequality: In some regions in the world, inequality between women and men directly involves matters of life and death, and takes the brutal form of unusually high mortality rates of women and a consequent preponderance of men in the total population, as opposed to the preponderance of women found in societies with little or no gender bias in health care and nutrition. Mortality inequality has been observed extensively in North Africa and in Asia, including China and South Asia.

(2) Natality inequality: Given a preference for boys over girls that many male-dominated societies have, gender inequality can manifest itself in the form of the parents wanting the newborn to be a boy rather than a girl. There was a time when this could be no more than a wish (a daydream or a nightmare, depending on one's perspective), but with the availability of modern techniques to determine the gender of the foetus, sex-selective abortion has become common in many countries. It is particularly prevalent in East Asia, in China and South Korea in particular, but also in Singapore and Taiwan, and it is beginning to emerge as a statistically significant phenomenon in India and South Asia as well. This is high-tech sexism.

KAMAL KISHORE/REUTERS
A woman worker in New Delhi.

(3) Basic facility inequality: Even when demographic characteristics do not show much or any anti-female bias, there are other ways in which women can have less than a square deal. Afghanistan may be the only country in the world the government of which is keen on actively excluding girls from schooling (it combines this with other features of massive gender inequality), but there are many countries in Asia and Africa, and also in Latin America, where girls have far less opportunity of schooling than boys do. There are other deficiencies in basic facilities available to women, varying from encouragement to cultivate one's natural talents to fair participation in rewarding social functions of the community.

(4) Special opportunity inequality: Even when there is relatively little difference in basic facilities including schooling, the opportunities of higher education may be far fewer for young women than for young men. Indeed, gender bias in higher education and professional training can be observed even in some of the richest countries in the world, in Europe and North America.

Sometimes this type of division has been based on the superficially innocuous idea that the respective "provinces" of men and women are just different. This thesis has been championed in different forms over the centuries, and has had much implicit as well as explicit following. It was presented with particular directness more than a hundred years before Queen Victoria's complaint about "woman's rights" by the Revd James Fordyce in his Sermons to Young Women (1766), a book which, as Mary Wollstonecraft noted in her A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), had been "long made a part of woman's library." Fordyce warned the young women, to whom his sermons were addressed, against "those masculine women that would plead for your sharing any part of their province with us," identifying the province of men as including not only "war," but also "commerce, politics, exercises of strength and dexterity, abstract philosophy and all the abstruser sciences."¹ Even though such clear-cut beliefs about the provinces of men and women are now rather rare, nevertheless the presence of extensive gender asymmetry can be seen in many areas of education, training and professional work even in Europe and North America.

(5) Professional inequality: In terms of employment as well as promotion in work and occupation, women often face greater handicap than men. A country like Japan may be quite egalitarian in matters of demography or basic facilities, and even, to a great extent, in higher education, and yet progress to elevated levels of employment and occupation seems to be much more problematic for women than for men.

In the English television series called "Yes, Minister," there is an episode where the Minister, full of reforming zeal, is trying to find out from the immovable permanent secretary, Sir Humphrey, how many women are in really senior positions in the British civil service. Sir Humphrey says that it is very difficult to give an exact number; it would require a lot of investigation. The Minister is still insistent, and wants to know approximately how many women are there in these senior positions. To which Sir Humphrey finally replies, "Approximately, none."

(6) Ownership inequality: In many societies the ownership of property can also be very unequal. Even basic assets such as homes and land may be very asymmetrically shared. The absence of claims to property can not only reduce the voice of women, but also make it harder for women to enter and flourish in commercial, economic and even some social activities.² This type of inequality has existed in most parts of the world, though there are also local variations. For example, even though traditional property rights have favoured men in the bulk of India, in what is now the State of Kerala, there has been, for a long time, matrilineal inheritance for an influential part of the community, namely the Nairs.

K. GAJENDRAN
At a family welfare centre in Tamil Nadu.

(7) Household inequality: There are, often enough, basic inequalities in gender relations within the family or the household, which can take many different forms. Even in cases in which there are no overt signs of anti-female bias in, say, survival or son-preference or education, or even in promotion to higher executive positions, the family arrangements can be quite unequal in terms of sharing the burden of housework and child care. It is, for example, quite common in many societies to take it for granted that while men will naturally work outside the home, women could do it if and only if they could combine it with various inescapable and unequally shared household duties. This is sometimes called "division of labour," though women could be forgiven for seeing it as "accumulation of labour." The reach of this inequality includes not only unequal relations within the family, but also derivative inequalities in employment and recognition in the outside world. Also, the established fixity of this type of "division" or "accumulation" of labour can also have far-reaching effects on the knowledge and understanding of different types of work in professional circles. When I first started working on gender inequality, in the 1970s, I remember being struck by the fact that the Handbook of Human Nutrition Requirement of the World Health Organisation (WHO), in presenting "calorie requirements" for different categories of people, chose to classify household work as "sedentary activity," requiring very little deployment of energy.³ I was, however, not able to determine precisely how this remarkable bit of information had been collected by the patrician leaders of society.

II. Focussing on South Asia

It is important to take note of the variety of forms that gender inequality can take. First, inequality between women and men cannot be confronted and overcome by any one set of all-purpose remedy. Second, over time the same country can move from one type of gender inequality to harbouring other forms of that inequity. I shall presently argue that there is new evidence that India is undergoing just such a transformation right at this time. Third, the different forms of gender inequality can impose diverse adversities on the lives of men and boys, in addition to those of women and girls. In understanding the different aspects of the evil of gender inequality, we have to look beyond the predicament of women and examine the problems created for men as well by the asymmetric treatment of women. These causal connections, which (as I shall presently illustrate) can be very significant, can vary with the form of gender inequality. Finally, inequalities of different kinds can also, frequently enough, feed each other, and we have to be aware of their interlinkages.

Even though part of the object of this paper is to discuss the variety of different types of gender inequality, a substantial part of my empirical focus will, in fact, be on two of the most elementary kinds of gender inequality, namely, mortality inequality and natality inequality. I shall be concerned, in particular, with gender inequality in South Asia, or the Indian subcontinent. While I shall separate out the subcontinent for special attention, I must also warn against the smugness of thinking that the United States or Western Europe is free from gender bias simply because some of the empirical generalisations that can be made about the subcontinent would not hold in the West. Given the many faces of gender inequality, much would depend on which face we look at.

For example, India, along with Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, has had female heads of governments, which the United States or Japan has not yet had (and does not seem very likely to have in the immediate future, if I am any judge). Indeed, in the case of Bangladesh, where both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are women, one might begin to wonder whether any man could possibly rise to a leadership position there in the near future. To take another example, I had a vastly larger proportion of tenured women colleagues when I was a Professor at Delhi University - as early as the 1960s - than I had at Harvard University in the 1990s, or presently have at Trinity College, Cambridge. To take another type of example (of a rather personal kind), in preparing my last book, Development as Freedom,⁴ when I was looking for a suitably early formulation of the contrast between the instrumental importance of income and wealth, on the one hand, and the intrinsic value of human life, on the other (a point of departure for my book), I found it in the words of Maitreyee, a woman intellectual depicted in the Upanishads (from the eighth century B.C.). The classic formulation of this distinction would, of course, come about four centuries later, from Aristotle, in Nicomachean Ethics, but it is interesting that the first sharp formulation of the value of living for men and women should have come from a woman thinker in a society that has not yet - three thousand years later - been able to overcome the mortality differential between women and men.

Indeed, in the scale of mortality inequality, India - as well as Pakistan and Bangladesh - is close to the bottom of the league in gender disparity. And, as I shall presently argue, natality inequality is also beginning to rear its ugly head very firmly and very fast right at this time in the subcontinent.

III. Exceptions and Trends

In the bulk of the subcontinent, with only a few exceptions (such as Sri Lanka and the State of Kerala in India), female mortality rates are very significantly higher than what could be expected given the mortality patterns of men (in the respective age groups). This type of gender inequality need not entail any conscious homicide, and it would be a mistake to try to explain this large phenomenon by invoking the occasional cases of female infanticide that are reported from China or India; these are truly dreadful events when they occur, but they are relatively rare. Rather, the mortality disadvantage of women works mainly through a widespread neglect of health, nutrition and other interests of women that influence survival.

It is sometimes presumed that there are more women than men in the world, since that is well-known to be the case in Europe and North America, which have a female to male ratio of 1.05 or so, on the average (that is, about 105 women per 100 men). But women do not outnumber men in the world as a whole; indeed there are only about 98 women per 100 men on the globe. This "shortfall" of women is most acute in Asia and North Africa. For example, the number of females per 100 males in the total population is 97 in Egypt and Iran, 95 in Bangladesh and Turkey, 94 in China, 93 in India and Pakistan, and 84 in Saudi Arabia (though the last ratio is considerably reduced by the presence of male migrant workers from elsewhere who come to Saudi Arabia).

It has been widely observed that given similar health care and nutrition, women tend typically to have lower age-specific mortality rates than men do. Indeed, even female foetuses tend to have a lower probability of miscarriage than male foetuses have. Everywhere in the world, more male babies are born than female babies (and an even higher proportion of male foetuses are conceived compared with female foetuses), but throughout their respective lives the proportion of males goes on falling as we move to higher and higher age groups, due to typically greater male mortality rates. The excess of females over males in the population of Europe and North America comes about as a result of this greater survival chance of females in different age groups.

BRENNAN LINSLEY/AP
There is relatively little bias against women in terms of health care and social status in sub-Saharan Africa.

However, in many parts of the world, women receive less attention and health care than men do, and particularly girls often receive very much less support than boys. As a result of this gender bias, the mortality rates of females often exceed those of males in these countries. The concept of "missing women" was devised to give some idea of the enormity of the phenomenon of women's adversity in mortality by focussing on the women who are simply not there, due to unusually high mortality compared with male mortality rates. The basic idea is to find some rough and ready way to understand the quantitative difference between (1) the actual number of women in these countries, and (2) the number we could expect to see if the gender pattern of mortality were similar in these countries as in other regions of the world that do not have a significant bias against women in terms of health care and other attentions relevant for survival.

For example, if we take the ratio of women to men in sub-Saharan Africa as the standard (there is relatively little bias against women in terms of health care, social status and mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa, even though the absolute numbers are quite dreadful for both men and women), then its female-male ratio of 1.022 can be used to calculate the number of missing women in women-short countries.⁵ For example, with India's female-male ratio of 0.93, there is a total difference of 9 per cent (of the male population) between that ratio and the standard used for comparison, namely, the sub-Saharan African ratio of 1.022. This yielded a figure of 37 million missing women already in 1986 (when I first did the estimation). Using the same sub-Saharan standard, China had 44 million missing women, and it was evident that for the world as a whole the magnitude of shortfall easily exceeded 100 million.⁶ Other standards and different procedures can also be used, as has been done by Ansley Coale and Stephan Klasen, getting somewhat different numbers, but invariably very large ones (Klasen's total number is about 80 million missing women).⁷ Gender bias in mortality does take an astonishingly heavy toll.

How can this be reversed? Some economic models have tended to relate the neglect of women to the lack of economic empowerment of women. While Ester Boserup, an early feminist economist, discussed how the status and standing of women are enhanced by economic independence (such as gainful employment), others have tried to link the neglect of girls to the higher economic returns for the family from boys compared with girls.⁸ I believe the former line of reasoning, which takes fuller note of social considerations that take us beyond any hard-headed calculation of relative returns from rearing girls vis-a-vis boys, is both appropriately broader and more promising, but no matter which interpretation is taken, women's gainful employment, especially in more rewarding occupations, clearly does play a role in improving the deal that women and girls get. And so does women's literacy, and other factors that can be seen as adding to the status, standing and voice of women in family decisions.⁹

An example that has been discussed in this context is the experience of the State of Kerala in India, which provides a sharp contrast with many other parts of the country in having little or no gender bias in mortality. Indeed, not only is the life expectancy of Kerala women at birth above 76 (compared with 70 for men), the female-male ratio of Kerala's population is 1.06 according to the 2001 Census (possibly somewhat raised by greater migration for work by men, but certainly no lower than the West European or North American ratios, which are around 1.05 or so). With its 30 million population, Kerala's example also involves a fair number of people. The causal variables related to women's empowerment can be seen as playing a role here, since Kerala has a very high level of women's literacy (nearly universal for the younger age groups), and also much more access for women to well paid and well respected jobs. One of the other influences of women's empowerment, namely a fertility decline, is also observed in Kerala, where the fertility rate has fallen very fast (much faster, incidentally, than China, despite the rigours of Chinese coercive measures in birth control), and Kerala's present fertility rate around 1.7 or 1.8 (roughly interpretable as an average of 1.7 or 1.8 children per couple) is one of the lowest in the developing world (about the same as in Britain and France, and much lower than in the United States). All these observations link with each other very well in a harmonious causal story.

However, there is further need for causal discrimination in interpreting Kerala's experience. There are other special features of Kerala which may also be relevant, such as female ownership of property for an influential part of the Hindu population (the Nairs), openness to and interaction with the outside world (with the presence of Christians - about a fifth of the population - who have been much longer in Kerala - since around the fourth century - than they have been in, say, Britain, not to mention Jews who came to Kerala shortly after the fall of Jerusalem), and activist left-wing politics with a particularly egalitarian commitment, which has tended to focus strongly on issues of equity (not only between classes and castes, but also between women and men).¹⁰

IV. Issues that Need Investigation

I now move away from the old - and by now much discussed - problems of gender bias in life and death (illustrated by the enormity of the size of "missing women") to other issues which are in need of greater investigation at this time. We begin by noting four substantial phenomena that happen to be quite widely observed in South Asia.

(1) Undernourishment of girls over boys: At the time of birth, girls are obviously no more nutritionally deprived than boys are, but this situation changes as society's unequal treatment takes over from nature's non-discrimination. There has, in fact, been plenty of aggregative evidence on this for quite some time now.¹¹ But this has been accompanied by some anthropological scepticism of the appropriateness of using aggregate statistics with pooled data from different regions to interpret the behaviour of individual families. However, there have also been some detailed and concretely local studies on this subject, which confirm the picture that emerges on the basis of aggregate statistics.¹² One case study from India, which I myself undertook in 1983, along with Sunil Sengupta, involved the weighing of every child in two large villages. The time pattern that emerged from this micro study, which concentrated particularly on weight-for-age as the chosen indicator of nutritional level for children under five, brings out clearly how an initial condition of broad nutritional symmetry turns gradually into a situation of significant female disadvantage.¹³ The detailed local studies tend to confirm rather than contradict the picture that emerges from aggregate statistics.

In interpreting the causal process, it is important to emphasise that the lower level of nourishment of girls may not relate directly to their being underfed vis-a-vis boys. Often enough, the differences may particularly arise from the neglect of health care of girls compared with what boys get. There is, in fact, some direct information of comparative medical neglect of girls vis-a-vis boys in South Asia. Indeed, when I studied, with Jocelyn Kynch, admissions data from two large public hospitals in Bombay (Mumbai), it was very striking to find clear evidence that the admitted girls were typically more ill than boys, suggesting the inference that a girl has to be more stricken before she is taken to the hospital.¹⁴ Undernourishment may well result from greater morbidity, which can adversely affect both the absorption of nutrients and the performance of bodily functions.

JORGE SILVA/REUTERS
A malnourished mother and her daughter in Guatemala.

(2) High incidence of maternal undernourishment: In South Asia maternal undernutrition is more common than in most other regions of the world.¹⁵ Comparisons of Body Mass Index (BMI), which is essentially a measure of weight for height, bring this out clearly enough, as do statistics of such consequential characteristics as the incidence of anaemia.¹⁶

(3) Prevalence of low birthweight: In South Asia, as many as 21 per cent of children are born clinically underweight (in accepted medical standards) - more than in any other substantial region in the world.¹⁷. The predicament of being low in weight in childhood seems often enough to begin at birth in the case of South Asian children. In terms of weight for age, South Asia has around 40 to 60 per cent children undernourished compared with 20 to 40 per cent undernourishment even in sub-Saharan Africa. The children start deprived and stay deprived.

(4) High incidence of cardiovascular diseases: South Asia stands out as having more cardiovascular diseases than any other part of the third world. Even when other countries, such as China, have greater prevalence of the standard predisposing conditions, the Indian population seems to have more heart problems than these other countries have.

It is not difficult to see that the first three observations are very likely causally connected. The neglect of the care of girls and of women in general and the underlying gender bias that they reflect would tend to yield more maternal undernourishment, and through that more foetal deprivation and distress, underweight babies, and child undernourishment. But what about the last observation - the higher incidence of cardiovascular diseases among South Asian adults? In interpreting it, we can, I would argue, draw on some pioneering work of a British medical team, led by Professor D.J.P. Barker.¹⁸

Based on English data, Barker has shown that low birth weight is closely associated with higher incidence, many decades later, of several adult diseases, including hypertension, glucose intolerance, and other cardiovascular hazards. The robustness of the statistical connections as well as the causal mechanisms involved in intrauterine growth retardation can, of course, be further investigated, but as matters stand these medical findings offer a possibility of causally interconnecting the different empirical observations related to South Asia, as I have tried to discuss in a joint paper with Siddiq Osmani.¹⁹ The application of this medical understanding to the phenomenon of high incidence of cardiovascular diseases in South Asia strongly suggests a causal pattern that goes from the nutritional neglect of women to maternal undernourishment, from there to foetal growth retardation and underweight babies, and thence to greater incidence of cardiovascular afflictions much later in adult life (along with the phenomenon of undernourished children in the shorter run). What begins as a neglect of the interests of women ends up causing adversities in the health and survival of all - even at an advanced age.

Given the uniquely critical role of women in the reproductive process, it would be hard to imagine that the deprivation to which women are subjected would not have some adverse impact on the lives of all - men as well as women and adults as well as children - who are "born of a woman" (as the Book of Job describes every person, not particularly daringly). Indeed, since men suffer disproportionately more from cardiovascular diseases, the suffering of women hit men even harder, in this respect. The extensive penalties of neglecting women's interests rebounds, it appears, on men with a vengeance.

V. What Women's Agency Can Achieve

These biological connections illustrate a more general point, to wit, gender inequality can hurt the interests of men as well as women. There are other - non-biological - connections that operate through women's conscious agency. The expansion of women's capabilities not only enhances women's own freedom and well-being, but also has many other effects on the lives of all.²⁰ An enhancement of women's active agency can, in many circumstances, contribute substantially to the lives of all people - men as well as women, children as well as adults. As many studies have brought out, the greater empowerment of women tends to reduce child neglect and mortality, cut down fertility and overcrowding, and more generally, broaden social concern and care.

These illustrations can be supplemented by considering the functioning of women in other areas, including in economic and political fields.²¹ Substantial linkages between women's agency and social achievements have been noted in many different countries.

AVENTURIER PATRICK/GAMMA
An Afghan mother and children at a refugee camp in Pakistan.

There is, for example, plenty of evidence that whenever social and economic arrangements depart from the standard practice of male ownership, women can seize business and economic initiative with much success. It is also clear that the result of women's participation is not merely to generate income for women, but also to provide many other social benefits that come from women's enhanced status and independence. The remarkable success of organisations like the Grameen Bank and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in Bangladesh is a good example of this, and there is some evidence that the high profile presence of women in social and political life in that country has drawn substantial support from women's economic involvement and from a changed image of the role of women. While the Revd James Fordyce might disapprove of "those masculine women," as he called them, straying into men's "province," the nature of modern Bangladesh reflects in many different ways the increasing agency of women. The precipitate fall of the total fertility rate in Bangladesh from 6.1 to 3.0 in the course of two decades (perhaps the fastest such fall in the world) is clearly related to the changed economic and social roles of women, along with increases in family planning facilities. There have also been cultural influences and developments in that direction.²² Similar changes can be observed also in parts of India where women's empowerment has expanded, with more literacy and greater economic and social involvements outside the home.²³

VI. Behind a Split India

While there is something to cheer in the developments I have just been discussing, and there is considerable evidence of a weakened hold of gender disparity in several fields in the subcontinent, there is also, alas, some evidence of a movement in the contrary direction, at least in one aspect of gender inequality, namely, natality inequality. This has been brought out particularly sharply by the early results of the 2001 decennial national Census of India, which are now available. Early results indicate that even though the overall female to male ratio has improved slightly for the country as a whole (with a corresponding reduction of the proportion of "missing women"), the female-male ratio for children has had a substantial decline. For India as a whole, the female-male ratio of the population under age 6 has fallen from 94.5 girls for hundred boys in 1991 to 92.7 girls per hundred boys in 2001. While there has been no such decline in some parts of the country (most notably Kerala), it has fallen very sharply in others, such as Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra, which are among the richer Indian States.

Taking together all the evidence that exists, it is clear that this change reflects not a rise in female child mortality, but a fall in female births vis-a-vis male births, and is almost certainly connected with increased availability and use of gender determination of foetuses. Fearing that sex-selective abortion might occur in India, the Indian Parliament banned some years ago the use of sex determination techniques for foetuses, except when it is a by-product of other necessary medical investigation. But it appears that the enforcement of this law has been comprehensively neglected, and when questioned by Celia Dugger, the energetic correspondent of The New York Times, the police often cited difficulties in achieving successful prosecution thanks to the reluctance of mothers to give evidence of use of such techniques.

I do not believe that this need be an insurmountable difficulty (other types of evidence can in fact be used for prosecution), but the reluctance of the mothers to give evidence brings out perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this natality inequality, to wit, the "son preference" that many Indian mothers themselves seem to have. This face of gender inequality cannot, therefore, be removed, at least in the short run, by the enhancement of women's empowerment and agency, since that agency is itself an integral part of the cause of natality inequality. Policy initiatives have to take adequate note of the fact that the pattern of gender inequality seems to be shifting in India, right at this time, from mortality inequality (the female life expectancy at birth is by now two years higher than male life expectancy in India) to natality inequality.

Indeed, there is clear evidence that traditional routes of changing gender inequality, through using public policy to influence female education and female economic participation, may not serve as a path to the removal of natality inequality. A sharp pointer in that direction comes from countries in East Asia, which all have high levels of female education and economic participation. Despite these achievements, compared with the biologically common ratio across the world of 95 girls being born per hundred boys, Singapore and Taiwan have 92 girls, South Korea only 88, and China a mere 86. In fact, South Korea's overall female-male ratio for children is also a meagre 88 girls for 100 boys and China's 85 girls for 100 boys. In comparison, the Indian ratio of 92.7 girls for 100 boys (though lower than its previous figure of 94.5) still looks far less unfavourable.²⁴

However, there are more grounds for concern than may be suggested by the current all-India average. First, there are substantial variations within India, and the all-India average hides the fact that there are States in India where the female-male ratio for children is very much lower than the Indian average. Second, it has to be asked whether with the spread of sex-selective abortion, India may catch up with - and perhaps even go beyond - Korea and China. There is, in fact, strong evidence that this is happening in a big way in parts of the country.

There is, however, something of a social and cultural divide across India, splitting the country into two nearly contiguous halves, in the extent of anti-female bias in natality and post-natality mortality. Since more boys are born than girls everywhere in the world, even without sex-specific abortion, we can use as a classificatory benchmark the female-male ratio among children in advanced industrial countries. The female-male ratio for the 0-5 age group is 94.8 in Germany, 95.0 in the U.K., and 95.7 in the U.S., and perhaps we can sensibly pick the German ratio of 94.8 as the cut-off point below which we should suspect anti-female intervention.

The use of this dividing line produces a remarkable geographical split of India. There are the States in the north and the west where the female-male ratio of children is consistently below the benchmark figure, led by Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Gujarat (with ratios between 79.3 and 87.8), and also including, among others, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, and Bihar (a tiny exception is Dadra and Nagar Haveli, with less than a quarter million people altogether). On the other side of the divide, the States in the east and the south tend to have female-male ratios that are above the benchmark line of 94.8 girls per 100 boys: with Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam (each between 96.3 and 96.6), and also, among others, Orissa, Karnataka and the northeastern States to the east of Bangladesh (Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh).

S. GOPAKUMAR
At the start of a new school year in Kerala.

One significant exception to this neat pattern of adjoining division is, however, provided by Tamil Nadu, where the female-male ratio is just below 94, which is higher than the ratio of any State in the deficit list, but still just below the cut-off line used for the partitioning (94.8). The astonishing finding is not that one particular State seems to provide a marginal misfit, but how the vast majority of the Indian States fall firmly into two contiguous halves, classified broadly into the north and the west, on one side, and the south and the east, on the other. Indeed, every State in the north and the west (with the slight exception of the tiny Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli) has strictly lower female-male ratio of children than every State in the east and the south (even Tamil Nadu fits into this classification), and this indeed is quite remarkable.

The pattern of female-male ratio of children produces a much sharper regional classification than does the female-male ratio of mortality of children, even though the two are also fairly strongly correlated. The female-male ratio in child mortality varies between 0.91 in West Bengal and 0.93 in Kerala, on one side, in the southern and eastern group, to 1.30 in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, with high ratios also in Gujarat, Bihar and Rajasthan, in the northern and western group.

The north and the west have clear characteristics of anti-female bias in a way that is not present - or at least not yet visible - in most of the east and the south. This contrast does not have any immediate economic explanation. The States with anti-female bias include rich ones (Punjab and Haryana) as well as poor States (Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh), and fast-growing States (Gujarat and Maharashtra) as well as growth failures (Bihar and Uttar Pradesh). Also, the incidence of sex-specific abortions cannot be explained by the availability of medical resources for determining the sex of the foetus: Kerala and West Bengal in the non-deficit list, both with the ratio of 96.3 girls to 100 boys (comfortably higher than the benchmark cut-off of 94.8), have at least as much medical facilities as in such deficit States as Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan. If commercial facilities for sex-selected abortion are infrequent in Kerala or West Bengal, it is because of a low demand for those specific services, rather than any great supply side barrier.

This suggests that we have to look beyond economic resources or material prosperity or GNP growth into broadly cultural and social influences. There are a variety of potential connections to be considered here, and the linking of these demographic features with the rich subject matter of social anthropology and cultural studies would certainly be important to pursue.²⁵ There is perhaps a common link with politics as well. Indeed, it has been noted, in other contexts, that the States in the north and the west have, by and large, given much more room to religion-based sectarian politics than have the east or the south, where religion-centred parties have had very little success. For example, of the 197 members of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena elected in 1999, as many 169 won from States in the north and the west. Even if we take out the BJP members who, though elected from Bihar or Madhya Pradesh, come from the recently formed relatively "eastern" States of Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh (which, incidentally, do have "eastern" female-male ratios above the benchmark line), the predominance of the north and the west in the representation of the Sangh Parivar remains strong. It is not easy to settle, without further scrutiny, how significant these regional, cultural or political associations are, and how (and even in which direction) the causal influences operate. But the remarkable geographical division of India into two largely contiguous parts in terms of female-male ratio among children (reflecting the combined influence of inequality in natality and post-natal mortality) does call for acknowledgement and further analysis. It would also be important to keep a close watch on whether the incidence of sex-specific abortions will significantly increase in States in which they are at this time quite uncommon.

VII. Summing up

I may end by trying briefly to identify some of the principal issues I have tried to discuss. First, I have argued for the need to take a plural view of gender inequality, which can have many different faces. The prominent faces of gender injustice can vary from one region to another, and also from one period to the next.

Second, the effects of gender inequality, which can impoverish the lives of men as well as women, can be more fully understood by taking detailed empirical note of specific forms of inequality that can be found in particular regions. Gender inequality hurts the interests not only of girls and grown-up women, but also of boys and men, through biological connections (such as childhood undernourishment and cardiovascular diseases at later ages) and also through societal connections (including in politics and in economic and social life).

Fetching water, a scene from rural Rajasthan.

To have an adequate appreciation of the far-reaching effects of disparities between women and men, we have to recognise the basic fact that gender inequality is not one affliction, but many, with varying reach on the lives of women and men, and of girls and boys. There is also the need to reexamine and closely scrutinise some lessons that we have tended to draw from past empirical works. There are no good reasons to abandon the understanding that the impact of women's empowerment in enhancing the voice and influence of women does help to reduce gender inequality of many different kinds, and can also reduce the indirect penalties that men suffer from the subjugation of women. However, the growing phenomenon of natality inequality raises questions that are basically much more complex. When women in some regions themselves strongly prefer having boys to girls, the remedying of the consequent natality inequality calls at least for broader demands on women's agency, in addition to examining other possible influences.

Indeed, in dealing with the new - "high tech" - face of gender disparity, in the form of natality inequality, there is a need to go beyond just the agency of women, but to look also for more critical assessment of received values. When anti-female bias in action (such as sex-specific abortion) reflects the hold of traditional masculinist values from which mothers themselves may not be immune, what is needed is not just freedom of action but also freedom of thought - in women's ability and willingness to question received values. Informed and critical agency is important in combating inequality of every kind. Gender inequality, including its many faces, is no exception.

Based on the text of an inauguration lecture for the new Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, on April 24, 2001. A shortened version of this paper was published in The New Republic on September 17, 2001; this is the full text.

ENDNOTES 1. See William St. Clair, The Godwins and the Shelleys (New York: Norton, 1989), pp. 504-8. 2. Bina Agarwal, among others, has investigated the far-reaching effects of landlessness of women in many agricultural economies; see particularly her A Field of One's Own (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 3. World Health Organisation, Handbook of Human Nutrition Requirement (Geneva: WHO, 1974); this was based on the report of a high-level Expert Committee jointly appointed by the WHO and FAO - the Food and Agriculture Organisation. 4. Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf, and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), Chapter 1. 5. Presented in my "More Than a Hundred Million Women Are Missing," The New York Review of Books, Christmas Number, December 20, 1990, and in "Missing Women," British Medical Journal, 304 (March 1992). 6. The fact that I had used the sub-Saharan African ratio as the standard, rather than the European or North American ratio, was missed by some of my critics, who assumed (wrongly as it happens) that I was comparing the developing countries with advanced Western ones; see for example Ansley Coale, "Excess Female Mortality and the Balances of the Sexes in the Population: An Estimate of the Number of 'Missing Females'," Population and Development Review, 17 (1991). In fact, the estimation of "missing women" was based on the contrasts within the so-called third world, in particular between sub-Saharan Africa, on the one hand, and Asia and North Africa, on the other. The exact methods used were more elaborately discussed in my "Africa and India: What Do We Have to Learn from Each Other?," in Kenneth J. Arrow, ed., The Balance between Industry and Agriculture in Economic Development (London: Macmillan, 1988); and (with Jean Drze), Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). 7. Stephan Klasen, "'Missing Women' Reconsidered," World Development, 22 (1994). 8. See Ester Boserup, Women's Role in Economic Development (London: Allen & Unwin, 1970); M.R. Rosenzweig and T.P. Schultz, "Market Opportunities, Genetic Endowments, and Intrafamily Resource Distribution," American Economic Review, 72 (1982). 9. On this see my "Women and Cooperative Conflict," in Irene Tinker, Persistent Inequalities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). See also J.C. Caldwell, "Routes to Low Mortality in Poor Countries," Population and Development Review, 12 (1986); Jere Behrman and B.L. Wolfe, "How Does Mother's Schooling Affect Family Health, Nutrition, Medical Care Usage and Household Sanitation," Journal of Econometrics, 36 (1987); Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). 10. I have discussed these factors in my "More Than a Hundred Million Women Are Missing" (1990). See also Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), and particularly V.K. Ramachandran, "Kerala's Development Achievements," in Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, eds., Indian Development: Selected Regional Perspectives (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996). 11. See the literature on this cited in Development as Freedom (1999). 12. One of the earliest and pioneering studies was by Lincoln Chen, E. Huq and S. D'Souza, "Sex Bias in the Family Allocation of Food and Health Care in Rural Bangladesh," Population and Development Review, 7 (1981). 13. See my joint paper with Sunil Sengupta, "Malnutrition of Rural Indian Children and the Sex Bias," Economic and Political Weekly, 19 (1983). 14. See my joint paper with Jocelyn Kynch, "Indian Women: Well-being and Survival," Cambridge Journal of Economics, 7 (1983), and also Resources, Values and Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). 15. See Peter Svedberg, Poverty and Undernutrition: Theory and Measurement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), for an illuminating and thorough analysis of comparative nutrition in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. 16. See S.R. Osmani, "Poverty and Nutrition in South Asia," in ACC/SCN, Nutrition and Poverty (1997), and also Nutrition Policy Paper No. 16 (Geneva: WHO, 1997). This is the First Abraham Horowitz Lecture of the United Nations. See also the references to the literature cited by Osmani. 17. On this see Osmani, "Poverty and Nutrition in South Asia" (1997), and also the references cited there. 18. See D.J.P. Barker, "Intrauterine Growth Retardation and Adult Disease," Current Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 3 (1993); "Foetal Origins of Coronary Heart Disease," British Medical Journal, 311 (1995); Mothers, Babies and Diseases in Later Life (London: Churchill Livingstone, 1998). See also P.D. Gluckman, K.M. Godfrey, J.E. Harding, J.A. Owens, and J.S. Robinson, "Fetal Nutrition and Cardiovascular Disease in Adult Life," Lancet, 341 (1995). 19. Siddiq Osmani and Amartya Sen, "The Hidden Penalties of Gender Inequality: Fetal Origins of Ill-Health," mimeographed, Trinity College, Cambridge, 2001. 20. On the extensive role and reach of capabilities of women, see particularly Martha Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 21. UNDP's Human Development Report 1995 (New York: United Nations, forthcoming: 1995) presents an inter-country investigation of gender differences in social, political and business leadership, in addition to reporting on gender inequality in terms of more conventional indicators. See also Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen, "Gender Inequality in Human Development: Theories and Measurement," in UNDP, Background Papers: Human Development Report 1995 (New York: United Nations, 1996). 22. The complex influences that operate in fertility decline, including cultural adaptations, have been discussed by Alaka Basu and Sajeda Amin in "Conditioning Factors for Fertility Decline in Bengal: History, Language Identity, and Openness to Innovations," Population and Development Review, 26 (2000). 23. A recent study of local governmental decisions in India brings out the substantial nature of this change, as a consequence of women coming to occupy leadership positions in the "Panchayats" (local administrative bodies); see Raghabendra Chattopadhyay and Esther Duflo, "Women's Leadership and Policy Decisions: Evidence from a Nationwide Randomised Experiment in India," mimeographed, Department of Economics, MIT, 2001. 24. Note, however, that the Chinese and Korean figures cover children between 0 and 4, whereas the Indian figures relate to children between 0 and 6. However, even with appropriate age adjustment, the general comparison of female-male ratios holds in much the same way. 25. See, among other contributions, Irawati Karve, Kinship Organization in India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1965); Pranab Bardhan, "On Life and Death Questions," Economic and Political Weekly, Special Number, 9 (1974); David Sopher, ed., An Exploration of India: Geographical, Perspectives on Society and Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); Barbara Miller, The Endangered Sex (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981); Tim Dyson and Mick Moore, "On Kinship Structure, Female Autonomy, and Demographic Behaviour in India," Population and Development Review, 9 (1983); Monica Das Gupta, "Selective Discrimination against Female Children in Rural Punjab," Population and Development Review, 13 (1987); Alaka M. Basu, Culture, the Status of Women and Demographic Behaviour (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Satish Balram Agnihotri, Sex Ratio Patterns in the Indian Population (New Delhi: Sage, 2000). http://www.thehindu.com/fline/fl1822/18220040.htm History of sex in India From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (October 2007) Human sexual behaviour in India has been influenced by different attitudes and opinions over time. Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Ancient times 1.2 Colonial era 1.3 Modern India 2 Current issues 2.1 Sexuality in popular entertainment 2.2 Sex industry 2.3 AIDS 3 See also 4 Further reading 5 References 6 External links [edit] History See also: History of sex and History of India A Sculpture depicting a sexual Pose The seeming contradictions of Indian attitudes towards sex can be best explained through the context of history. India played a significant role in the history of sex, from writing the first literature that treated sexual intercourse as a science, to in modern times being the origin of the philosophical focus of new-age groups' attitudes on sex. India pioneered the use of sexual education through art and literature. As in all societies, there was a difference in sexual practices in India between common people and powerful rulers, with people in power often indulging in hedonistic lifestyles that were not representative of common moral attitudes. Depictions of Apsarases from the Khajuraho temple [edit] Ancient times Indian culture can be considered amongst the most ancient, with the ancient Indus Valley civilization being contemporary to ancient Egypt and Sumer, spreading across modern India and Pakistan at its peak, 4000 years ago. During this period, not much is known about social attitudes toward sex. One thing that has been observed about sexuality in the Indus Valley civilization is the practice of fertility rituals. Early philosophy and theology related to sexuality may have developed during this time. The first evidence of attitudes towards sex comes from the ancient texts of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, the first of which are perhaps the oldest surviving literature in the world. These most ancient texts, the Vedas, reveal moral perspectives on sexuality, marriage and fertility prayers. The epics of ancient India, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, which may have been first composed as early as 1400 BCE, had a huge effect on the culture of Asia, influencing later Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan and South East Asian culture. These texts support the view that in ancient India, sex was considered a mutual duty between a married couple, where husband and wife pleasured each other equally, but where sex was considered a private affair, at least by followers of the aforementioned Indian religions. It seems that polygamy was allowed during ancient times. In practice, this seems to have only been practiced by rulers, with common people maintaining a monogamous marriage. It is common in many cultures for a ruling class to practice polygamy as a way of preserving dynastic succession. Nudity in art, was considered acceptable, as shown by the paitings at Ajanta and the sculptures of the time. It is likely that as in most countries with tropical climates, Indians from some regions did not need to wear clothes, and other than for fashion, there was no practical need to cover the upper half of the body. This is supported by historical evidence, which shows that men and women in many parts of ancient India mostly dressed only the lower half of their bodies. Whilst this has changed in modern times, it is likely that taboo against nudity was not present in many Asian, African and South American civilisations and the taboo in Europe is a matter of climatic necessity. The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana As Indian civilisation further developed over the 1500 years after the births of Buddha and Mahavira, and the writing of the Upanishads around 500 BCE, further historical evidence, art, and literature shows that ancient Indian society was perhaps as sexually tolerant as many modern European and East Asian countries.[citation needed] It was somewhere between the 1st and 6th centuries that the Kama Sutra, originally known as Vatsyayana Kamasutram ('Vatsyayana's Aphorisms on Love'), was written. This philosophical work on kama shastra, or 'love science', was intended as both an exploration of human desire, including seduction and infidelity, and a technical guide to pleasing a sexual partner within a marriage. This is not the only example of such a work in ancient India, but is the most widely known in modern times. It is probably during this period that the text spread to ancient China, along with Buddhist scriptures, where Chinese versions were written. The Tantric school of Indic/Hindu philosophy formed at some point in this period, and part of the philosophical system was the idea that sex, as a basic and powerful desire experienced by all humans, could be utilised as a way of achieving enlightenment. Some ardent devotees of this system for example might deliberately break sexual taboos that were ridiculed, such as extramarital sex, to master human nature and achieve greater understanding of the universe, their soul. The Tantric tradition spread throughout Asia as far as Japan. An ancient fresco from the Ajanta cave complex It is also during this period that some of India's most famous ancient works of art were produced, often freely depicting nudity, romantic themes or sexual situations. Examples of this include the depiction of Apsarases, roughly equivalent to nymphs or sirens in European and Arabic mythology, on some ancient temples, which were used to remind people of the romantic duty that married couples should perform as part of dharma. The best and most famous example of this can be seen at the Khajuraho temple complex in central India. Other examples of this classical art include the ancient frescos of various cave temples, such as those at Ajanta. [edit] Colonial era At the end of the medieval period in India and Europe, colonial powers such as the Portuguese, British and French were seeking ways of circumventing the Muslim controlled lands of western Asia, and re-opening ancient Greek and Roman trade routes with the fabled rich lands of India, resulting in the first attempts to sail around Africa, and circumnavigate the globe. Various European powers eventually found ways of reaching India, where they allied with various post-Mughal Indian kings, and later managed to annex India. Although the Portuguese and French had managed to set up some small enclaves in India, such as Goa, where the Catholic inquisition forcibly converted some of the population of the small region to Catholicism, it was the arrival of the British, who managed to annex the entire Indian subcontinent through alliances with various monarchs, that had the largest effect on the culture of India and its attitudes to sex. Early British exposure to India occurred at a time when Europe was entering the Age of Reason, and so, whilst there was a lot of Protestant discrimination of Hindu beliefs and Indian society along the lines of early Muslim invaders, there was also a significant number of orientalists who saw India as a great civilization, and invented the field of Indology. However the main moral influence that led to stigmatisation of Indian sexual liberalism by Indians within India itself was the effect of the ideas of the Victorian era, in which other cultures, from European view, were seen as primitive if they did not conform to the ideas of European culture. The pluralism of Hinduism, and its liberal attitudes were condemned as 'barbaric' by a colonial Europe and proof of inferiority of the East. The effects of British education, administration, scholarship of Indian history and biased literature all led to the effective 'colonization' of the Indian mind with European values. This led some Indians wanting to conform their religious practices and moral values to Victorian ideas of "high" civilization. A number of movements were set up by prominent citizens, such as the Brahmo Samaj in Bengal and the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay Presidency, to work for the 'reform' of Indian private and public life. Paradoxically while this new consciousness led to the promotion of education for women and (eventually) a raise in the age of consent and reluctant acceptance of remarriage for widows, it also produced a puritanical attitude to sex even within marriage and the home. The liberality of precolonial India had allowed individuals sexual latitude within the home while imposing strict seclusion from public life. This hid sexual abuses such as intimidating relatives into incest and the rape of spouses from public view, but it also left individuals comparatively free to explore their sexual identities. With the influence of colonial morality, women were comparatively freer to mix with men not related to them, but the rules for what could or could not be done in their presence were far harsher. These new ideas of 'temperance' and good conduct overlay and reinforced ancient ideas of asceticism and yogic self-containment, the 'brahmacharya' of ancient tradition. Countries such as India became more conservative after being influenced by European ideas. At the same time, translations of the Kama Sutra and other 'exotic' texts became available in Europe, where they gained notorious status, and ironically may have triggered early foundations of the sexual revolution in the west. [edit] Modern India Conservative views of sexuality are now the norm in the modern republic of India, and South Asia in general. This is partly related to the pious elements of Islam (e.g. the new Islamic movement, which has influenced many societies such as those in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and also many within India). While during the 1960s and 1970s the west attempted to proliferate sexual liberalism in India, such as western free love movements, and neo-Tantric philosophy. India itself remains cultured embodying cultural sensibilities that were abandoned ages ago in England and western Europe. However despite the increased exposure to western culture and the perverted lusts of Hollywood, India remains as it has for decades. Places value on morals and marriage over submitting to primordial sexual emotions. This can be contrasted between the sexual themes exhibited in the mainstream films of the west and those of Bollywood. [edit] Current issues Main article: Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India Modern issues that affect India, as part of the sexual revolution, have become points of argument between conservative and liberal forces, such as political parties and religious pressure groups. Many sexual issues are used as ways of political parties garnering votes amongst conservative Indians. These issues are also matters of ethical importance in a nation where freedom and equality are guaranteed in the constitution. [edit] Sexuality in popular entertainment Main article: Sex in Indian entertainment The entertainment industry is an important part of modern India, and is expressive of Indian society in general. Historically, Indian television and film has lacked the frank depiction of sex; until recently, even kissing scenes were considered taboo. Currently, some Indian states show soft-core sexual scenes and nudity in films, whilst other areas don't. Mainstream films are still largely catered for the masses of India, however art films and foreign films containing sexuality are watched by middle-class Indians. Because of the same process of glamourisation of film entertainment that occurred in Hollywood, Indian cinema, mainly the Hindi speaking Bollywood industry, which is the largest film industry in the world[citation needed], is also beginning to add sexual overtones. [edit] Sex industry Main article: Prostitution in India While trade in sex was frowned upon in ancient India, it was tolerated and regulated so as to reduce the damage that it could do. However, stigmatisation in modern times has left the many poor sex workers with problems of exploitation and rampant infection, including AIDS, and has allowed a huge people-trafficking industry like that of Eastern Europe to take hold. Many poor young women are kidnapped from villages and sold into sexual slavery.[1][2] There have been some recent efforts to regulate the Indian sex industry. [edit] AIDS Main article: HIV/AIDS in India India has a modern AIDS problem, which is partly to do with its immense population, but also a product of poor sexual health education, stigmatisation, and general ignorance. The first case of AIDS in India was reported in 1986, and since then, around 2.5 million people have become infected, most of them without any access to proper care, and many of them unaware they are carrying the disease and infecting others. This is a major problem in India. [edit] See also History of human sexuality Homosexuality in India Homosexuality and Hinduism Homosexuality and Sikhism Kamashastra Non-westernized concepts of male sexuality [edit] Further reading Daniélou, Alain (1993), The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Modern Translation of the Classic Indian Text, Inner Traditions, ISBN 0-89281-525-6. [edit] References ^ Sex workers to combat trafficking, BBC News, 2001 ^ HIV fears over trafficked Nepal sex workers, BBC News, 2007 [edit] External links BBC Article on AIDS Awareness in India History of Sex: Ancient India IASSTD & AIDS - Indian Association for the Study of Sexually Transmitted Diseases & AIDS India In World Sex Survey - Frequency of sex in India & other data [hide] v • d • e Life in India Arts and Entertainment · Cinema · Citizenship · Climate · Cuisine · Culture · Demographics · Economy · Education · Flag · Foreign Relations · Geography · Government · Police · History · Holidays · Languages · Law · Literacy · Military · Politics · Religion · Sports · Transport Sexual revolution From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For the Macy Gray song, see Sexual Revolution (song). The sexual revolution encompasses the changes in social thought and codes of behaviour related to sexuality throughout the Western world. Contents [hide] 1 Overview 2 Historical development 3 Modern revolutions 4 Freudian school 5 Kinsey & Masters and Johnson 6 Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill 7 Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa 8 Nonfiction sex manuals 9 Medicine and sex 10 Contraception 11 UK 12 Free love 13 Explicit sex on screen 14 Pre-marital sex 15 Politics of sex 16 Normalization of pornography 17 Criticism of the sexual revolution concept 18 The End Of The Revolution? 19 See also 20 Notes 21 References [edit] Overview In general use, the term "sexual liberation" is used to describe a socio-political movement, witnessed from the 1960s into the 1970s.[1] However, the term has been used at least since the late 1920s[2] and is often attributed as being influenced by Freud's writing on sexual liberation and psychosexual issues. During the 1960s, shifts in regards to how society viewed sexuality began to take place, heralding a period of de-conditioning in some circles away from old world antecedents, and developing new codes of sexual behaviour, many of which are now integrated into the mainstream.[3] The 1960s heralded a new culture of "free love" with millions of young people embracing the hippie ethos and preaching the power of love and the beauty of sex as a natural part of ordinary life. Hippies believed that sex was a natural biological phenomenon which should not be denied or repressed. Changes in attitudes reflected a perception that traditional views on sexuality were both hypocritical and male-chauvinistic. Sexual liberalisation heralded a new ethos in experimenting with open sex in and outside of marriage,[4] contraception and the pill, public nudity, gay Liberation, liberalisation of abortion, interracial marriage, a return to natural childbirth, women's rights and feminism.[5][6] Many of the era's countercultural people were celibate because of personal preferences. These choices had nothing to do with issues of morality, but were ones of personal deliberation due in part to spiritual conviction.[citation needed] The consideration that relationships and sex could become distractions upon the path of personal spiritual deliverance, ensured that many hippies refrained from all sexual activity.[citation needed] Celibate hippies were not critical of others who chose the paths of "free love" and "sexual liberalisation".[7] In the late seventies and eighties new won sexual freedoms were exploited by big business looking to capitalise on a more open society, with the advent of public pornography and hardcore.[8] While the extent to which the sexual revolution involved major changes in sexual behaviour is debated, many observers suggest that the main change was not that people had more sex or different types of sex, it was simply that they talked about it more openly than previous generations had done - which in itself can be described as revolutionary by supportive historians.[citation needed] Historian David Allyn argues that the sexual revolution was a time of "coming-out": about premarital sex, masturbation, erotic fantasies, pornography use, and sexuality.[1] [edit] Historical development The sexual revolution can be seen as an outgrowth of a process in recent history, though its roots may be traced back as far as the Enlightenment (Marquis de Sade) and the Victorian era (A. C. Swinburne's scandalous Poems and Ballads of 1866). It was a development in the modern world which saw the significant loss of power by the values of a morality rooted in the Christian tradition and the rise of permissive societies, of attitudes that were accepting of greater sexual freedom and experimentation that spread all over the world and were captured in the phrase free love. Historians argue that the ongoing Sexual Revolution in the new century is continued liberalisation after a conservative period that existed between the 1930s and 1950s. They note that the Cold War sparked a socially conformist identity which tended to be self-conscious of its appearance to the outside world.[citation needed] Within the United States, this conformity took on puritanical overtones which contradicted natural or even culturally-established human sexual behaviours. It was this period of Cold War puritanism, some say,[weasel words] which led to a cultural rebellion in the form of the "sexual revolution". Despite this, however, before the 1920s the Victorian era was much more conservative than even the 1930s and 1950s. Due to the invention of TV and the increasingly wide use of it in the 50s, by the 1960s a vast majority of Americans had television. This mass communication device, along with other media outlets such as radio and magazines, could broadcast information in a matter of seconds to millions of people, while only a few wealthy people would control what millions of people would watch. Some have now theorised that perhaps these media outlets helped spread new ideas among the masses. A prime example of this occurred in 1964 when the Beatles came to America and were introduced on the Ed Sullivan Show. Once the show was over, they were an instant hit. Forty million Americans had watched it that night and thus morals in one perspective changed instantly; although obviously it would take longer for this to occur. The mass media's broadcasting of new ideas to the population was radical, and during the late 1960s the counterculture was becoming well known on radio, newspapers, TV and other media outlets. One suggested[who?] trigger for the modern revolution was the development of the birth control pill in 1960, which gave women access to easy and reliable contraception. Another likely factor was vast improvements in obstetrics, which greatly reduced the number of women who die in childbirth and thus increases the life expectancy of women. Other data suggest[weasel words] the "revolution" was more directly influenced by the financial independence gained by many women who entered the workforce during and after World War II, making the revolution more about individual equality rather than biological independence. Many people, however, feel that one specific cause cannot be selected for this large phenomenon.[9] [edit] Modern revolutions The Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century and the growth of science and technology, medicine and health care, resulted in better contraceptives being manufactured. Advances in the manufacture and production of rubber made possible the design and production of condoms that could be used by hundreds of millions of men and women to prevent pregnancy at little cost. Advances in steel production and immunology made abortion readily available and less dangerous. Advances in chemistry, pharmacology, and knowledge of biology, and human physiology led to the discovery and perfection of the first oral contraceptives also known as "The Pill". Purchasing an aphrodisiac and various sex toys became "normal". Sado-masochism ("S&M") gained popularity, and "no-fault" unilateral divorce became legal and easier to obtain in many countries during the 1960s and 1970s. All these developments took place alongside and combined with an increase in world literacy and decline in religious observances. Old values such as the biblical notion of "be fruitful and multiply" (thought to be applicable in modern times despite the opinion even of 1st millennium Church Fathers that it's already fulfilled) were cast aside as people continued to feel alienated from the past and adopted the life-styles of modernizing westernised cultures. Another thing that helped bring about this more modern revolution of sexual freedom was the writing of Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich, who took the philosophy of Karl Marx and other such philosophers, and mixed together this chant for freedom of sexual rights and release in modern culture. When speaking of sexual revolution, historians make a distinction between the first and the second sexual revolution. In the first sexual revolution (1870-1910), Victorian morality lost its universal appeal. However, it did not lead to the rise of a "permissive society". Exemplary for this period is the rise and differentiation in forms of regulating sexuality. [edit] Freudian school Doctor Sigmund Freud of Vienna believed human behavior was motivated by unconscious drives, primarily by the libido or "Sexual Energy". Freud proposed to study how these unconscious drives were repressed and found expression through other cultural outlets. He called his therapy Psychoanalysis. While Freud's ideas were ignored and embarrassing to Viennese society, his work provoked a serious challenge to Victorian prudishness by providing the groundwork for the ideas of sex drive and infant sexuality. Freud's theory of psychosexual development proposed a model for the development of sexual orientations and desires; children emerged from the Oedipus complex, a sexual desire towards their mother. According to Freud's theory, in the earliest stage in a child's psychosexual development, the oral stage, the mother's breast became the formative source of all later erotic sensation. This new philosophy was the new intellectual and cultural underpinning ideology of the new age of sexual frankness. Nonetheless, much of his research is widely discredited by professionals in the field. Anarchist Freud scholars Otto Gross and Wilhelm Reich (who famously coined the phrase "Sexual Revolution") developed a sociology of sex in the 1910s to 1930's. [edit] Kinsey & Masters and Johnson In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Alfred C. Kinsey published two surveys of modern sexual behaviour. In 1948, Alfred C. Kinsey and his co-workers, responding to a request by female students at Indiana University for more information on human sexual behaviour, published the book Sexual behaviour in the Human Male. They followed this five years later with Sexual behaviour in the Human Female. These books began a revolution in social awareness of, and public attention given to, human sexuality. It is said that at the time, public morality severely restricted open discussion of sexuality as a human characteristic, and specific sexual practices, especially sexual behaviours that did not lead to procreation. Kinsey's books contained studies about controversial topics such as the frequency of homosexuality, and the sexuality of minors ages two weeks to thirteen years. Scientists working for Kinsey reported data which led to the conclusion that people are capable of sexual stimulation from birth. These books laid the groundwork for Masters and Johnson's life work. A study called Human Sexual Response in 1966 revealed the nature and scope of the sex practices of young Americans. [edit] Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill In the United States in the years 1959 through 1966, bans on three books with explicit erotic content were challenged and overturned. Prior to this time, a patchwork of regulations (as well as local customs and vigilante actions) governed what could and could not be published. For example the United States Customs Service "banned" James Joyce's Ulysses by refusing its importation into the USA. The Roman Catholic Church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum carried great weight among Catholics and amounted to an effective and instant boycott of any book appearing on it. Boston's Watch and Ward Society, a largely Protestant creation inspired by Anthony Comstock, made "banned in Boston" a national by-word. In 1959, Grove Press published an unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence. The U.S. Post Office confiscated copies sent through the mail. Lawyer Charles Rembar sued the New York city postmaster, and won in New York and then on federal appeal. In 1965, Tom Lehrer was to celebrate the erotic appeal of the novel in his cheerfully satirical song "Smut" with the couplet "Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?/I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley." Henry Miller's 1934 novel, Tropic of Cancer, had explicit sexual passages and could not be published in the United States; an edition was printed by the Obelisk Press in Paris and copies were smuggled into the United States. (As of 2003[update], used book dealers asked $7500 and up for copies of this edition.) In 1961, Grove Press issued a copy of the work, and lawsuits were brought against dozens of individual booksellers in many states for selling it. The issue was ultimately settled by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Miller v. California. In this decision, the court defined obscenity by what is now called the Miller test. In 1965, Putnam published John Cleland's 1750 novel Fanny Hill. This was the turning point, because Charles Rembar appealed a restraining order against it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. In Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413, the court ruled that sex was "a great and mysterious motive force in human life", and that its expression in literature was protected by the First Amendment. Only books primarily appealing to "prurient interest" could be banned. In a famous phrase, the court said that obscenity is "utterly without redeeming social importance" — meaning that, conversely, any work with redeeming social importance was not obscene, even if it contained isolated passages that could "deprave and corrupt" some readers. This decision was especially significant, because, of the three books mentioned, Fanny Hill has by far the largest measure of content that seems to appeal to prurient interest, and the smallest measures of literary merit and "redeeming social importance". Whereas an expurgated version of Lady Chatterley's Lover had actually once been published, no expurgated version of Fanny Hill has ever been (and it is difficult even to imagine what such a work could possibly consist of). By permitting the publication of Fanny Hill, the Supreme Court set the bar for any ban so high that Rembar himself called the 1966 decision "the end of obscenity." [edit] Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa Main articles: Margaret Mead and Coming of Age in Samoa The publication of renowned anthropologist and student of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa brought the sexual revolution to the public scene, as her thoughts concerning sexual freedom pervaded academia. Published in 1928, Mead's ethnography focused on the psychosexual development of adolescent children on the island of Samoa. She recorded that their adolescence was not in fact a time of "storm and stress" as Erikson's stages of development suggest, but that the sexual freedom experienced by the adolescents actually permitted them an easy transition from childhood to adulthood. Her findings were later challenged by anthropologist Derek Freeman who later investigated her claims of promiscuity and conducted his own ethnography of Samoan society. Mead called for a change in suppression of sexuality in America and her work directly resulted in the advancement of the sexual revolution in the 1930s. [edit] Nonfiction sex manuals The court decisions that legalised the publication of Fanny Hill had an even more important effect: freed from fears of legal action, nonfiction works about sex and sexuality started to appear. In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown published Sex and the Single Girl: The Unmarried Woman's Guide to Men, Careers, the Apartment, Diet, Fashion, Money and Men. The title itself would have been unthinkable a decade earlier. (In 1965 she went on to transform Cosmopolitan magazine into a life manual for young career women.[citation needed]) In 1969, Joan Garrity, identifying herself only as "J.", published The Way to Become the Sensuous Woman, replete with everything from exercises for improving the dexterity of the tongue, to how to have anal sex. The same year saw the appearance of Dr. David Reuben's book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). Despite the dignity of Reuben's medical credentials, this book was light-hearted in tone. For many readers, it delivered quite literally on its promise. Despite the book's one-sided and prejudiced statements about gay men, one middle-aged matron from a small town in Wisconsin was heard to say "Until I read this book, I never actually knew precisely what it was that homosexuals did". In 1970, the Boston Women's Health Collective published Women and their Bodies (which became far better known a year later under its subsequent title, Our Bodies, Ourselves). Not an erotic treatise or sex manual, the book nevertheless included frank descriptions of sexuality, and contained illustrations that could have caused legal problems just a few years earlier. Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Love Making. appeared in 1972. In later editions though, Comfort's libertinism was tamed as a response to AIDS. In 1975 Will McBride's Zeig Mal!, Show Me!, written with psychologist Helga Fleichhauer-Hardt for children and their parents, appeared in bookstores on both sides of the Atlantic. Appreciated by many parents for its frank depiction of pre-adolescents discovering and exploring their sexuality, it scandalised others and eventually it was pulled from circulation in the United States and some other countries. It was followed up in 1989 by Zeig Mal Mehr! ("Show Me More!"). These books had a number of things in common. They were factual and, in fact, educational. They were available to a mainstream readership. They were stacked high on the tables of discount bookstores, they were book club selections, and their authors were guests on late-night talk shows. People were seen reading them in public. In a respectable middle-class home, Playboy magazine and Fanny Hill might be present but would usually be kept out of sight. But at least some of these books might well be on the coffee table. Most important, all of these books acknowledged and celebrated the conscious cultivation of erotic pleasure. The contribution of such books to the sexual revolution cannot be overstated. Earlier books such as What Every Girl Should Know (Margaret Sanger, 1920) and A Marriage Manual (Hannah and Abraham Stone, 1939) had broken the utter silence in which many people, women in particular, had grown up. By the 1950s, in the United States, it had finally become rare for women to go into their wedding nights literally not knowing what to expect. But the open discussion of sex as pleasure, and descriptions of sexual practices and techniques, was truly revolutionary. There were practices which, perhaps, some had heard of. But many adults did not know for sure whether they were realities, or fantasies found only in pornographic books. Were they "normal", or were they examples of psychopathology? (When we use words such as fellatio we are still using the terminology of Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis). Did married ladies do these things, or only prostitutes? The Kinsey report revealed that these practices were, at the very least, surprisingly frequent. These other books asserted, in the words of a 1980 book by Dr. Irene Kassorla, that Nice Girls Do -- And Now You Can Too. [edit] Medicine and sex The development of antibiotics in the 1940s made most of the severe venereal diseases of the time curable, namely gonorrhea and syphilis. In the early 1960s, The Pill became available; at first for married women only, but demand and changes in attitudes later led to it becoming available to unmarried women as well. With the threat of disease and pregnancy now reduced, much of the post-WW2 baby boom generation fearlessly experimented with sex without considering marriage. [edit] Contraception As birth control become more available, men and women gained unprecedented control of their reproductive capabilities. The 1916 invention of thin, disposable latex condoms for men led to widespread affordable condoms by the 1930s; the demise of the Comstock laws in 1936 set the stage for promotion of available effective contraceptives such as the diaphragm and cervical cap; the 1960s introduction of the IUD and oral contraceptives for women gave a sense of freedom from barrier contraception. Opposition of Churches (e.g. Humanae Vitae) led parallel movement of secularization and exile from religion. [10] [edit] UK In the UK the new generation growing up after the Second World War had grown tired of the rationing and austerity of the 1940s and 1950s and the Victorian values of their elders, so the 1960s were a time of rebellion against the fashions and social mores of the previous generation. An early inkling of changing attitudes came in 1960, when the government of the day tried unsuccessfully to prosecute Penguin Books for obscenity, for publishing the D. H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, which had been banned since the 1920s for its racy (for the time) content. The prosecution counsel Mervyn Griffith-Jones famously stood in front of the jury and asked, in his closing statement: "Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?". When the case collapsed, the novel went on to become a best seller, selling 2 million copies. The Pill became available free of charge on the National Health Service in the 1960s, at first restricted to married women, but early in the 1970s its availability was extended to all women. [edit] Free love Main article: Free love Beginning in San Francisco in the mid 1960s, a new culture of "free love" emerged, with thousands of young people becoming "hippies" who preached the power of love and the beauty of sex as part of ordinary student life. This is part of a counterculture that exists to the present. By the 1970s it was acceptable for colleges to allow co-educational housing where male and female students mingled freely. Free love continued in different forms throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, but its more assertive manifestations ended abruptly (or disappeared from public view) in the mid 1980s when the public first became aware of AIDS, a deadly sexually transmitted disease. [edit] Explicit sex on screen Swedish filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Vilgot Sjöman contributed to sexual liberation with sexually themed films that challenged conservative international standards. The 1951 film Hon dansade en sommar (She Danced a Summer AKA One Summer of Happiness) starring Ulla Jacobsson and Folke Sundquist depicted scenes that were at the time considered too sexual, but by today's standards would be fairly mild. This film, as well as Bergman's Sommaren med Monika (The Summer with Monika), caused an international uproar, not least in the US where the films were charged with violating standards of decency. Vilgot Sjöman's film I Am Curious (Yellow), also created an international uproar, but it was very popular in the United States. Another of his films, 491, highlighted homosexuality among other things. Kärlekens språk (The Language of Love) was an informative documentary about sex and sexual techniques that featured the first real act of sex in a mainstream film, and inevitably it caused intense debate around the world, including in the US. From these films the concept of "the Swedish sin" (licentiousness) developed, even though Swedish society was at the time still fairly conservative regarding sex, and the international concept of Swedish sexuality was and is largely exaggerated. The films caused debate there as well. The films eventually helped the publics attitudes toward sex progress, especially in Sweden and other northern European countries, which today tend to be more sexually liberal than others. Explicit sex on screen and frontal nudity of men and women on stage became acceptable in many American and European countries, as the twentieth century ended. Special places of entertainment offering striptease and lap dancing proliferated. The famous Playboy Bunnies set a trend. Men came to be entertained by topless women at night-clubs which also hosted "peep shows." [edit] Pre-marital sex Once heavily stigmatised, pre-marital sex became more widespread during the sexual revolution. The increased availability of birth control (and the quasi-legalisation of abortion in some places) helped reduce the chance that pre-marital sex would result in unwanted children. By the mid 1970s the majority of newly married American couples had experienced sex before marriage. [edit] Politics of sex Politics in the USA has become intertwined with sexually related issues, called the "politics of sex". A woman's desire for an abortion pitted traditionalist Pro-Life activists against Pro-Choice activists permitting abortions. Sex between people of the same gender, the homosexuality that was strictly taboo in times when the Christian Church still exercised much influence in society, is still stigmatized by some groups to this day. Women and men who lived with each other without marriage sought "palimony" equal to the alimony. Teenagers assumed their right to a sexual life with whomever they pleased, and bathers fought to be topless or nude at beaches. [edit] Normalization of pornography Further information: History of pornography The fact that pornography was no longer stigmatised by the end of the 1980s, and more mainstream movies depicted sexual intercourse as entertainment, was indicative of how normalised sexual revolution had become in society. Magazines depicting nudity, such as the popular Playboy and Penthouse magazine, won some acceptance as mainstream journals, in which public figures felt safe expressing their fantasies. Feminists have had mixed responses to pornography. Some figures in the feminist movement, such as Andrea Dworkin, challenged the depiction of women as objects in these pornographic magazines. The gay porn industry also became much more widespread throughout the western world, even permeating areas better known for the repression of non-normative sexualities, such as Eastern Europe[citation needed] Keeping in mind that throughout the 1950s and 1960s, pornography depicting homosexual acts was rare and illegal in some US states, we can see the big change that has taken place. [edit] Criticism of the sexual revolution concept Counter forces such as Fraenkel (1992) say that the "sexual revolution", that the West supposedly experienced in the late 60s, is indeed a misconception and that sex is not actually enjoyed freely, it is just observed in all the fields of culture; that's a kind of taboo behaviour technically called "repressive desublimation".[11] In his writing Marcuse explores the concept that Establishment sanctioned forms of sensual release, what he calls "repressive desublimation", complete our enslavement on the instinctual level. In order to move from that to an actual sexual liberation, it is necessary a change in our mental structures and our moral inhibitions;[citation needed] instead the Judeo-Christian morals still basically hold,[citation needed] and the small social changes are exaggerated because they are seen in that light. Even most of the self-claimed atheists, have just secularised and internalised the same old morals.[citation needed][12] In the Americas, considered by many a part of the 'West', the indigenous peoples of the Americas were seen by the first European explorers such as Columbus with amazement: "although the slaves were 'naked as the day they were born,' they showed 'no more embarrassment than animals.'" [13] In the present, even though it is not acceptable to be publicly naked for many Roman Catholic people (a religion that was imported from Europe during colonial times) in countries of Latin America, some Western tourists go topless in public [14]. [edit] The End Of The Revolution? Main articles: Meese Commission and Bowers v. Hardwick Some people argue that the elections of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 in the United Kingdom, as well as events such as Disco Demolition Night in Chicago in 1979, the election of US President Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the rise of televangelism marked the beginning of the end of the "liberal wave" that had gradually engulfed the Anglosphere, the developed world and subsequently the Western world since the late 1950s.[citation needed] And with the outbreak of the AIDS epidemy in early 1980s — culminating with the publicly-known death of Rock Hudson in 1985 — marked the return of conservative values into society and the juridical and political questioning of the achievements of Sexual Revolution.[citation needed] This situation would prevail until the mid-to-late-1990s when the discovery of more effective ways to control AIDS infections, the election of Bill Clinton to the United States Presidency in 1992 (and his re-election in 1996), cultural phenomena like internet pornography, the introduction of viagra, higher visibility of gays and lesbians in the media, the legalisation of same sex marriage in countries such as The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Canada (and a few states in the USA), and popular sex oriented shows like Sex And The City made the moral-cultural tide slowly turn again.[citation needed] Ironically, teenage sexual activity (as measured by age at first intercourse and current sexually active status) actually increased significantly from about 1984-1991, especially among females, but this was often overlooked since such changes were erroneously assumed to have already happened a decade before, and that the revolution was presumably over. Teen pregnancy also increased as a result. This was followed by a fairly steady decline in teen sexual activity (and teen pregnancy) from about 1991 to the present day, at a time when many presumed the opposite was occurring. [edit] See also Free love Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements (LGBT) Miscegenation Open marriage Combined oral contraceptive pill Sex-positive movement Sexual objectification Sexual revolution in 1960s America Feminist Sex Wars [edit] Notes ^ a b Allyn, 2000. ^ The term appeared as early as 1929; the book Is Sex Necessary?, by Thurber & White, has a chapter titled The Sexual Revolution: Being a Rather Complete Survey of the Entire Sexual Scene. ^ Time, 1967. ^ Escoffier, 2003. ^ Germaine Greer and The Female Eunuch ^ http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR9913.aspx The 1960s Cultural Revolution. ^ Dudley 2000, pp. 203-206. Timothy Miller notes that the counterculture was a "movement of seekers of meaning and value...the historic quest of any religion." Miller quotes Harvey Cox, William C. Shepard, Jefferson Poland, and Ralph J. Gleason in support of the view of the hippie movement as a new religion. See also Wes Nisker's The Big Bang, The Buddha, and the Baby Boom: "At its core, however, hippie was a spiritual phenomenon, a big, unfocused, revival meeting." Billy Bob Joe Nisker cites the San Francisco Oracle, which described the Human Be-In as a "spiritual revolution". ^ http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1560255250/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-9728303-1778302#reader-link/ Sexual Revolution by Erica Jong, Jeffrey Escoffier, Fred W. McDarrah. ^ Alan Petigny, "Illegitimacy, Postwar Psychology, and the Reperiodisation of the Sexual Revolution" Journal of Social History, fall 2004 ^ Irish Times article ^ Herbert Marcuse (1964) pp.59, 75-82 ^ Fraenkel 92, p.19 ^ http://www.newhumanist.com/md2.html ^ Gal 5:22-23 Book of the Latin American Bible [edit] References Allyn, David. (2000). Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution: An Unfettered History. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316039306. Escoffier, Jeffrey. (Editor). (2003). Sexual Revolution. Running Press. ISBN 1560255250. Fraenkel, Boris. (1936). Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf. Erre emme (pub). Klepacki, Linda. (2008). A Look at the Sexual Revolution in the United States. Focus on the Family Action, Inc. Retrieved 2008-04-20. Marcuse, Herbert. (1964). One-Dimensional Man. (pp.59, 75-82). Routledge. ISBN 0415289777. Richardson, Diane. (2000). Critical Social Policy, Vol. 20, No. 1, 105-135. Constructing sexual citizenship: theorizing sexual rights. Sage Journals Online. Retrieved 2008-04-20. Time Magazine. (1967-07-07). The Hippies. Time Inc. Retrieved 2008-04-20. [hide] v • d • e Sex History History of erotic depictions · Sexual revolution · Feminist Sex Wars Sexual acts Sexual intercourse (foreplay · positions list) · Oral sex · Anal sex · Group sex · Masturbation Anal–oral sex · Sexual sublimation · Barebacking · Dirty talk · Facial · Fisting · Non-penetrative sex (syn. Petting, e.g. Fingering/Handjob · Sumata) · Quickie · Ass to mouth · Creampie · Snowballing · Deep-throating · BDSM · Seminophagia Physiological events Sexual arousal · Erection · Orgasm (Ejaculation · Female ejaculation) · Insemination · Pregnancy Health and education Birth control · Condom · Reproductive medicine (Andrology · Gynaecology · Urology) · Safe sex · Sexual dysfunction (Erectile dysfunction · Hypersexuality) · Sex education · Sex therapy · Sexually transmitted disease · Sex surrogate Identity Sexual identity · Sexual orientation Law Age of consent · Criminal transmission of HIV · Incest · Obscenity · Public indecency · Sexual abuse (Sexual harassment · Rape · Sexual assault · Sexual violence) Relationships and society Family planning · Marriage · Paraphilia · Polyamory · Promiscuity · Religion and sexuality · Romance · Sexual abstinence · Sexual attraction · Sexual ethics · Sexual objectification Sex industry Adult video game · Erotica · Pornography · Prostitution · Sex toys · Sex doll · Sex shop · Sex tourism · Female sex tourism Human sexual behavior · Human sexuality · Sexology · Sexual slang · Animal sexual behavior

Mahabharata and the Indian caste system
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The Indian epic Mahabharata gives glimpses of caste system prevailed in ancient India. Apart from the four basic orders (varnas or castes) Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra the epic mentions several other castes that sprang from their intermixing.

Contents [hide]
1 Intermixing of the four basic castes
2 Emergence of numerous other castes
3 Caste based on character
4 Societies with caste based on choice
 
[edit] Intermixing of the four basic castes
The son that a Sudra begets upon a Brahmana woman is called a Chandala. Begotten upon a Kshatriya woman by a person of the Sudra order, the son is called a Vratya. He who is born of a Vaisya woman by a Sudra father is called a Vaidya. The Vaisya, by uniting himself with a woman of the Brahmana order, begets a son that is called a Magadha, while the son that he gets upon a Kshatriya woman is called a Vamaka. The son begotten by a Kshatriya upon a Brahmana woman, is called a Suta (13:14).

If a Kshatriya begets a son upon a Brahmana woman, such a son, comes to be regarded as a Suta. The son begotten by a Vaisya upon a woman of the Brahmana order comes to be regarded as a Vaidehaka. If a Sudra unites with a woman belonging to Brahmana, the son that is begotten is called a Chandala. The son begotten by a Vaisya upon a Kshatriya woman becomes a Vandi or Magadha. The son begotten by a Sudra upon a Kshatriya women, becomes a Nishada (occupation: fishing) and upon a Vaisya women, becomes an Ayogava (occupation: Takshan: carpenter) Intermixing within these new classes create more castes. There were as many as fifteen such castes (13:48).

[edit] Emergence of numerous other castes
From the union of Magadhas of a certain class with women of the caste called Sairindhri, there springs up another caste called Ayogava. Vaidehas, by uniting themselves with women of the Sairindhri caste, beget children called Maireyakas whose occupation consists in the manufacture of wines and spirits. From the Nishadas spring a caste called Madgura and another known by the name of Dasas whose occupation consists in plying boats. From the Chandala springs a race called Swapaka whose occupation consists in keeping guard over the dead. The women of the Magadhi caste, by union with these four castes of wicked dispositions produce four others. These are Mansa, Swadukara, Kshaudra, and Saugandha. From the Nishadas again springs up the Madranabha caste whose members are seen to ride on cars drawn by asses. From the Chandalas springs up the caste called Pukkasa. The caste called Kshudra springs from the Vaidehaka. The caste called Andhra which takes up its residence in the outskirts of towns and cities, also springs up (from the Vaidehakas). Then again the Charmakara, uniting himself with a woman of Nishada caste, begets the class called Karavara. From the Chandala again springs up the caste known by the name of Pandusaupaka whose occupation consists in making baskets and other things with cleft bamboos. From the union of the Nishada with a woman of the Vaidehi caste springs one who is called by the name of Ahindaka (13:48). Some names like Vaidehaka, Magadha, Andhra etc were indicative of tribal names like Videha, Magadha and Andhra. The whole description seems to be the result of an attempt to include the non-Vedic tribes into the structure of four-order caste system.

[edit] Caste based on character
The idea that four orders and castes were based on birth was different from another school of thought that they were mere descriptions of different people in the society based on their character and occupation. In the second case caste was flexible, more a matter of choice and not based on birth. In later periods, caste system based on birth became rigid and numerous other castes started getting created.

Many passages in Mahabharata describes the flexible caste system which in later periods was totally forgotten by the Indian society. An example is the conversation between Yudhisthira and Naga Nahusha (3:179):-

Naga:- "O Yudhishthira, say, Who is a Brahmana ?"

Yudhishthira"-"O foremost of Nagas, he, it is asserted by the wise, in whom are seen truth, charity, forgiveness, good conduct, benevolence, observance of the rites of his order and mercy is a Brahmana. "

Naga:- "O Yudhishthira, truth, charity, forgiveness, benevolence, benignity, kindness and the Veda which worketh the benefit of the four orders, which is the authority in matters of religion and which is true, are seen even in the Sudra."Mahabharata

Yudhishthira:- "Those characteristics that are present in a Sudra, do not exist in a Brahmana; nor do those that are in a Brahmana exist in a Sudra. And a Sudra is not a Sudra by birth alone, nor a Brahmana is Brahmana by birth alone. He, it is said by the wise, in whom are seen those virtues is a Brahmana. And people term him a Sudra in whom those qualities do not exist, even though he be a Brahmana by birth."

Naga:- "O king, if thou recognise a person as a Brahmana by characteristics, then, O long-lived one, the distinction of caste becometh futile as long as conduct doth not come into play."

Yudhishthira:- "In human society, O mighty and highly intelligent Naga, it is difficult to ascertain one's caste, because of promiscuous intercourse among the four orders. This is my opinion. Men belonging to all orders beget offspring upon women of all the orders. And of men, speech, sexual intercourse, birth and death are common. And to this the Rishis have borne testimony by using as the beginning of a sacrifice such expressions as—of what caste so ever we may be, we celebrate the sacrifice. Therefore, those that are wise have asserted that character is the chief essential requisite. The natal ceremony of a person is performed before division of the umbilical cord. His mother then acts as its Savitri and his father officiates as priest. He is considered as a Sudra as long as he is not initiated in the Vedas. Doubts having arisen on this point, Naga , Swayambhuba Manu has declared, that the mixed castes are to be regarded as better than the other castes, if having gone through the ceremonies of purification, they do not conform to the rules of good conduct, O excellent Naga! Whosoever now conforms to the rules of pure and virtuous conduct, him have I, here now, designated as a Brahmana."

[edit] Societies with caste based on choice
Mahabharata provides evidence of societies where caste was just a matter of personal choice. At (MBh 8:45) is the following passage:- Among the Bahlikas one at first becomes a Brahmana and then he becomes a Kshatriya. Indeed, a Vahika would, after that, become a Vaishya, and then a Shudra, and then a barber. Having become a barber, he would then again become a brahmana. Returning to the status of a brahmana, he would again become a slave. One person in a family becomes a brahmana: all the others act as they like. The whole narration is the opinion of Karna on the tribe of Shalya viz. the Bahlika tribe, Shalya was disliked by Karna due to some circumstances. So this opinion is biased against the Bahlikas. Yet, it gives evidence that the Bahlikas had a society where caste was a matter of personal choice.

A murderous arithmetic
The 'importation' of brides from poorer states keeps dowry rates in Haryana high, despite alarming levels of female infanticide. Ranjit Devraj reports.
 
July 2003, Rohtak - A profusion of shops selling firearms marks this dusty town, 100 kilometers north-west of New Delhi, as one that is no place for women. Popular in these parts, the practice of female feticide is ensuring that there are not too many members of the female sex around.

What we are up against is a deeply ingrained patriarchal attitude to which even the medical profession and the women, who in spite of being the victims, unthinkingly subscribe to. 
 
 "This is essentially a feudal, patriarchal society where women are neither seen nor heard," explains Manjeet Rathee, who teaches English literature in a local college and is also a volunteer with the Janwadi Mahila Samiti (JMS) or Democratic Women's Association. For a decade now, the group has been campaigning in India's Haryana state against medically assisted and selective abortions of female fetuses. Its campaigns have included the publication of booklets, awareness campaigns and noisy demonstrations in front of private clinics that have been making tidy profits out of the demand for sex-determination tests and abortions.

Just how relevant the campaigns have been are borne out by plummeting sex ratios. The results of the last decennial census in 1991 shows that Rohtak and the surrounding Haryana districts of Kurukshetra, Sonipat and Ambala had, on average 782 women for 1,000 males. "What we are up against is a deeply ingrained patriarchal attitude to which even the medical profession and the women, who in spite of being the victims, unthinkingly subscribe to - and this will take a long time changing," said Jagmati, a field worker for JMS.

The relative prosperity of farm-rich Haryana and the advent of affordable and convenient sex determination methods, especially ultra-sound imaging, in private clinics seem to have only bolstered patriarchal values and further undermined the status of women in the state. Until the JMS campaigns succeeded in inducing a government ban on sex determination tests years ago, private clinics openly advertised their services and enterprising radiologists. Obstetricians invested in mobile vans, equipped with ultra-sound equipment, that could be driven into remote agricultural villages where the preference for male offspring runs high.

Even after the ban, it was not uncommon to see in Haryana signs put up by sex selections clinics cryptically urging people to "make your choice - spend a few hundred rupees now (on aborting a female foetus) and save a few hundred thousands rupees later (in dowries)".

Apart from the fact that parents find burdensome the custom of having to pay large sums as dowry to get a daughter married off, they see the girl child as a liability and needful of constant protection.

Jagmati also sees ancient inheritance laws, which favour automatic male succession to landed property and the family name, as factors that work against attempts to improve the status of women and any possibility of getting them to take charge of their bodies. "The women we work with do not, in their hearts, discriminate between male and female offspring, but are forced to submit to the patriarchal and consumerist set-ups they find themselves. They are defenseless against dowry demands before marriage and unable to protect their motherhood afterwards," said Jagmati.

Worst off are women who have borne several daughters in a row, because social or family prejudice worsens and they are branded as 'incapable of bearing a male child'. Her daughters can expect to be neglected, remain malnourished and even denied schooling. But the pressure still continues on such mothers to somehow produce a male child who can inherit the family lands and also light the funeral pyre of the father, since Hindu custom demands that this rite be performed by a male successor.

The JMS campaigns have had precious little impact on social attitudes in Rohtak district and served only to drive the female foeticide industry underground, according to Jasmati. "The doctors are now more discreet and many are convinced that they are only helping pregnant women make a choice," she said.

Argued Dr Subash Kant, a doctor from Haryana who now practices in Delhi: "Sex selection clinics are only catering to the demands made on them by society. Logically, if there are fewer potential brides it is logical to expect that dowries would also tend to become lower and that their status would improve." But reality does not bear out Kant's expectations. "There is now a serious shortage of marriageable women in many parts of Haryana. But the overall status of women has only worsened and anyone will tell you that ever higher sums are being demanded at the time of marriage," said Rathee.

Many link the selective abortion of female foetuses to the drive to limit family size. Researchers Sabu George and Ranbir Dahiya have drawn a parallel with East Asia where a decline in fertility rates was accompanied by selective abortions favoring males. 
 
 The shortage of brides is being addressed through the importation into Haryana's villages and towns of women from states like neighboring Himachal Pradesh or more distant ones like poverty-ridden Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. "We have even come across women from Bangladesh and we estimate that most villages in Haryana now have a handful of women brought in from other states," said Jagmati. Many of these "imported" women are treated as slaves, subjected to sexual and physical abuse. "It is about time that the central and state governments step in to enforce existing laws against selective abortions and prevent a social tragedy of colossal proportions that is in the making in Haryana and the neighboring states of Punjab and Delhi," Jagmati said.

That is easier said than done. For one thing, ultrasound imaging has many other important medical uses besides sex determination, and doctors need never reveal that they are using their machines to tip off a woman for a fee that the foetus she is carrying is female. A quick abortion, the next step, is readily available in a country with a billion-plus population and where the government policy is to limit family size. Indeed, many link the selective abortion of female foetuses to the drive to limit family size. Researchers Sabu George and Ranbir Dahiya, who carried out a formal study of female foeticide in Haryana in the late 90s, have drawn a parallel with East Asian phenomenon where a decline in fertility rates was accompanied by selective abortions favoring males.

Still, JMS is determined to target private clinics in Haryana known to perform sex determination tests and by compelling authorities to cancel their licenses. "There is little political will on the part of the government, particularly the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party at the center to interfere with what is seen as a socially popular practice which has religious overtones," said Jagmati. In Rohtak, sporadic raids are now being carried out on private ultrasound facilities by the 'District Appropriate Authority', a government watchdog consisting of officials, non government organizations, doctors, lawyers, mainly through 'sting' operations.

Says Savita Singh, a member of the authority: "The really big fish usually get away because they are tipped off in time -- the ultrasound doctors have very powerful networks."

Ranjit Devraj
July 2003

Ranjit Devraj is a correspondent with Inter Press Service, a global news resource faciliating south-south and south-north dialogue on important economic, social, environmental, and other issues. IPS is distributed by Global Information Network
http://www.indiatogether.org/2003/jul/wom-girls.htm

Are (or were) Meghalaya and Kerala matriarchal societies?
2008 March 19

by Nita
.One hears a lot about matriarchal societies. One hears about Kerala and one hears about the north-east, Meghalaya in particular. The fact is that neither of these states ever practiced Matriarchy.

Matriarchy is not just about descent and inheritance being traced through the female line. The matriarchal system means a system where women have power in "all activities relating to allocation, exchange and production, as well as socio-cultural and political power…" It is the very opposite of a patriarchal system where men "take primary responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole, and also act as representatives via public office." It believed that no society in the world has ever had a matriarchal system. The Indian states of Kerala and Meghalaya are no exception.

When descent and inheritance are traced through women it's called a matrilineal system, but the matriliny is only a sub-system of matriarchy…and does not mean that the women hold any power except in domestic matters (including control over children). In this case the society is termed as a Matrilocal or even a Matrifocal society, but not matriarchal.

However, women in the matrilineal/matrilocal system have a higher status in society than women in a patriarchal system, even if matriliny is not practiced anymore and even if women do not hold more power than the men. Traditionally, in Kerala it was communities like the Nairs and Ezhavas and Warriers and in Meghalaya it's the the Khasi, Jaintias and Garo tribes (majority of the population of Meghalaya) who practice or used to practice this system. The Tulus in Karnataka have also been known to be traditionally matrilineal. However, the matrilineal system has declined considerably.

Meghalaya
Women in traditional matrilineal societies like Meghalaya in the north-east of India do not have matriarchy (as mentioned earlier). Take the political power. In the state legislature, there don't seem to be any women at all. The 2 Lok Sabha MP's from Meghalaya are men and so are the Rajya Sabha MP's. At the level of the local self-government a village head is a 'headman'. Clearly, no matriarchy here!

However, the traditional matrilineal system has empowered women in other spheres. In Meghalaya (and in fact much of the north-east), there is no purdah system imposed on women, there is no restriction on women's physical movement, nor their attire. There is no bride burning, female infanticide or foeticide and no dowry (there are instead cases of a bride's price) and there is no social stigma attached to a widow re-marrying. So, women in Meghalaya are in a better situation than those in other states in India.
A study was conducted to find out the gender disparity in Meghalaya and one question the researchers wanted to answer was:

Was the higher status amongst women in Meghalaya due to the matrilineal system or because of the Christian religion that most practiced?

The Census 2001 data has revealed this about Meghalayans:

Christians – 70 percent (most local people)
Hindus – 13 percent (most non-local)
Tribal Religions – 11 percent (local)
Muslims – 4 percent (most non-local)
Other Religions (Buddhist, Jain, Sikhs) – the rest (most non-local)
The local people tended to be either Christians or of the Tribal Religions.

This is the Religion-wise results of the study regarding the status/deprivation of women vis-à-vis men:

Christians: gender-wise uniform
Muslims: Varied.
Hindus: Varied.
Tribal Religions: gender-wise uniform
The conclusion of the report was that it was indeed the indigenous culture which had led to gender equality and not religion.

Kerala
In Kerala (Southern India) women enjoy a higher status as compared to many other states in India. The sex ratio and high literacy rates show this.

The matrilineal system is believed to have covered almost "half the population of old Kerala" The census of Travancore in 1891 counted 530,000 families, of which 56 percent were classed matrilineal and 44 percent patrilineal. Today however matrilinear system is almost non-existent and not legal either.

When it comes to matriarchy, it is clear that there never was any matriarchy in Kerala. However, women in Kerala seem to be more politically empowered than their sisters in Meghalaya. An article in The Hindu says that a large number of women from Kerala participated in the freedom movement. This tradition has stood them in good stead today and there are not surprisngly, 7 women in the Kerala Legislative assembly. However, there seem to be few women in the Lok Sabha. Overall women are in a minority even in politics.

A study conducted by Ammu Joseph for the Media Foundation amongst women journalists from five states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu) reveals that women constitute hardly one per cent of journalists in the Malayalam media. True these statistics are a decade old but the situation could not have dramatically improved.

There are other states which are doing well in terms of women's participation in politics and in other spheres but if one takes into account the status of women in the family and the sex ratio then certainly both Kerala and Meghalaya stand out as shining examples to the rest of India.

What's the future for these states?
One wonders however if the change to patriarchy which is the 'modern' way will affect the status of women in a bad way. It may not happen in Meghalaya as the state is surrounded by other other states where women are relatively free and heinous crimes against women are not practiced, but Kerala is surrounded by strongly patriarchal societies. In fact even within the state of Kerala itself, amongst the present population, the communities that used to practice matriliny are in a minority.

Another point I wanted to make: If women in patriarchal societies get a raw deal, then men in a hypothetical matriarchal society would get a raw deal too. I guess the men are lucky that there aren't any matriarchal societies around!

Just some interesting information from the wikipedia about animal societies that are matriarchal  Humans may never have had matriarchal system but various animals have it! They include:

• Ants
• Bees
• Bison
• Bonobos
• Elephants
• Killer Whales
• Lions
• Spotted Hyenas
• Naked Mole Rats
• Termites
http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/meghalaya-and-kerala-status-of-women/

Contemporary matriarchal societies   

The Nagovisi, Khasi, Garo, and Machiguenga

The Nagovisi

The Nagovisi are one of three tribes of South Bougainville, a large tropical island west of New Guinea and north of Australia. Jill Nash and her husband Donald D. Mitchell are the anthropologists of Nagovisi, among whom they have done field work in several periods from 1969 to 1973. Jill Nash tells:

"Food production in Melanesia is the basis of all wealth and, in addition to its obvious life-sustaining nature, its connection to the small family-group, its political uses, and its connections to conspicuous display and consumption at large political gatherings cannot be ignored. Women, of course, dominate in food production."

Women are the garden authorities who cultivate sweet potatoes and other food stuff, and their husbands only help them in heavy tasks like clearing the land for a new garden. "There is strong feeling that shared garden labour is almost as much a part of marriage as is shared sexuality." "Widows are sometimes denied assistance in clearing, to encourage them to remarry." Women work in their gardens three times a week, and husband's attendance is not always necessary. "One seventy-year-old groom (a former widower), who insisted on accompanying his aged wife on every garden trip, was the butt of many jokes."

"Every adult woman has the inalienable right to use some of her descent group's land for food gardens and to transfer title to her daughters."

Men are dependent on women's cultivation for food; women take pride in their gardening responsibilities. "Anyone other than a bride feels ashamed to ask another person - even a relative - for sweet potatoes." If a couple quarrels, the man will stop eating coconuts from his wife's trees, sometimes because she forbids him to eat them, and sometimes because he chooses to avoid them. A conciliatory act (usually the gift of a pig) is required. Usually the wife has to give the compensation. A refusal to eat anything from the garden would mean divorce.

To Nagovisi, a good marriage means to garden industriously, raise many pigs, and give big feasts. Because marriage is a relatively flux institutions, the signs of marriage are that the couple sleeps in the same house, the couple walks around together, and the man works in the woman's garden. They consider sex equally pleasurable for men and women.

The Nagovisi are comprehensively divided into two society-wide exogamous and totemic matrilineal moieties (halves), which are divided into numerous land-owning matriclans, which are themselves subdivided into localized, land-using matrilineages. The latter retain their localized character through uxorilocal residence (the practice, wherein a man, upon marriage, goes to live in the home community of his wife). In addition, the clans and lineages of the Nagovisi are the owners of other kinds of valuables, including shell money, and they were the focal points of most religious rituals and of much political influence. The shell money is kept as strands of shell disks or beads. Among Nagovisi the finest are heirloom jewelry, given from mother to daughter; the second best form is used in buying pigs, in marriage exchanges (if there were any), and in compensation for insult, injury, or death.

Nagovisi women share leadership with men; a strong matrilineage system having political functions exists, with women playing significant roles in decision making and ceremonialism. Nevertheless, they have a dislike of chiefs and communal efforts. "The Nagovisi indicate their opinion of leaders in the often repeated joke that the greatest 'big man' of all is 'ma', shit, because only that can make you leave your warm bed on a cold rainy night."

Jill Nash summarizes the status of women: "If all we want to know is that women in some societies are not under the oppressive control of men, that they can own property and exercise their rights over it freely, and that they can enjoy their work, even when it is not an exciting career, I can do no more than offer the evidence of Nagovisi women, for whom, I believe, all of this is true."

The Nagovisi are one of three tribes of South Bougainville. The two others are interestingly different in their social organization. The Siuai are a typical Big Man society where matrilineal clans and lineages regulate marriage, land tenure, etc., but men make use of their own matrilineage property. The Buin have a hereditary system of stratification, they dwell closest to the shore and outside contacts. Theirs is a male-dominated society with some polygynous marriages, and chiefs have slave-girls who serve as prostitutes during feasts. No stigma is attached to prostitution, though, and girls later marry. Men are brutal against wives, even infanticide has been practised. A sexual antagonism unlike among the Nagovisi is prominent. Also feast giving, trading and war are more developed among Siuai and Buin than Nagovisi.

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The Khasi and the Garo

The Khasi and the Garo are agricultural peoples who live in hill districts in Meghalaya state in North-Eastern India. They practice wet rice (paddy) agriculture. As opposed to the Aryan Indians, the Khasis speak a Mon-Khmer language, and the Garos a Tibeto-Burman language. They are both known as hospitable, mild and well humoured people. Both inheritance of property and succession to tribal office run through female line, passing from mother to youngest daughter.

Among the Garo, one daughter, usually the youngest, is chosen as heiress. For the heiress, the husband is selected by her parents, and the groom ceremonially captured - the groom may even run away twice. The youngest son-in-law comes to live in his wife's parents' house and becomes his father-in-law's nokrom, or clan representative in the mother-in-law's family. If the father-in-law dies, the nokrom marries (and the marriage has to be consummated) the widowed mother-in-law, thus becoming the husband of both mother and daughter. This custom is now falling into disuse. The Garos usually live as extended families in large longhouses.

Other girls select their own husbands. 'Initiative is always taken by the Garo girl. Boys behave demurely and fight shy of entering into wedlock without social pressure.' However, no able-bodied adult must remain without mate; replacement marriages are arranged in case of death or dissolution of the marriage. Incompatible marriages can be dissolved; and illegitimately born child suffers no indignity (as the parents may marry anyway soon) if it is not a sequence of an incest within the same lineage. Marriages are exogamous, that means that the husband belongs to another matrilineage than the wife.

The managerial head of the land of the Garo lineage is the husband of the 'matron'. Village council is formed by all the adult male members of the village.

In the folktales of the Khasi, the earth Ka Blei is the mother of celestial bodies, fire and water. The sun is her daughter and the moon her son. Because of his bad behaviour against his sister, the moon was punished and his face tainted by soot forever – a very similar story to the legend of the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu and her unruly brother. The Earth Goddess has a prominent position in the religion of Meghalaya and Assam, she is often revered in the form of the Hindu goddess Durga. A Khasi clan mother is viewed as the wordly equivalent of the Primal Mother, Ka Blei. She is the most important person of the community, its chief and priestess, who administers the clan property. The high priestes of the village of Smit is the most powerful shaman in Northeast India, and she selects the dates of important ceremonies and appoints Khasi village chiefs. Every young Khasi girl takes part in a ceremonial dance where she absorbs the powers of the earth: girls dance in a large square protected by youths who wave yaks tails to keep evil spirits away. The girls' postures remain upright while the only movement is the rolling of their feet from heel to toe thus absorbing power from the earth. The forces flow through the spine into their heads. Later in their lives they need these forces to fulfill their role in the society as women and mothers.

We can see from the article which Syed Zubair Ahmed wrote about the Khasi in New York Times February 18, 1994 "What do men want" that the matriliny continues among this 800,000 strong people. According to the article, a men's right organization was founded. It says that women are overbearing and dominating. Men complain: "We are sick of playing the roles of breeding bulls and baby-sitters." "We have no lines of succession. We have no land, no business." The husband of the youngest daughter moves into the family house. Women say that they prefer to marry outsiders because their own tribesmen tend to be irresponsible in family matters. A Khasi child takes the surname of the mother."We Khasis tend to underestimate the contributions of our fathers to the family. Our fathers do a lot, but the credit goes to the mothers."

However, Khasi men had tradionally important duties as hunters and defending the community in case of war. The government administration is solely the responsibility of Khasi men. Important questions and decisions are discussed among all clan members, and most Khasi men feel that their opinions are taken into consideration. The elder men of the tribe support the fairer sex. "The matriarchal system should not be changed, or it will destroy the moral values of the younger generation," said Glorence Syiem Malngiang, a tribal king in the East Khasi hill district subdivision of Mawsynram. "We shall see to it that the custom continues," he said. (Seema Hussain, The Week, India, Mar 21, 1999)

See pictures by Ricardo Coler taken in January 2002

An excellent source of information and pictures about hill tribes of northeast India (including the Khasi):
Stirn, A. & van Ham, P.: The seven sisters of India. Tribal worlds between Tibet and Burma.
Prestel books 2000.
ISBN 3-7913-2399-7
Stirn & van Ham Web site

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The Machiguenga

Orna and Allen Johnson have studied the Machiguenga people of Peru, who live in the rainforest east of Cuzco, and speak an Arawakan language (11,000 speakers). They live in marginal areas deep in the jungle, in small hamlets of three to five households, together only 20-35 members. They practise slash-and burn agriculture, from which they get their subsistence because of the scarcity of fish and game in their area.

A Machiguenga myth tells how a young husband goes to live with his wife after his oncle arranges their marriage against father's will. This may be how it was earlier, but at present however, marriages are neolocal - which means that the couple builds a house of their own. Women are in charge of the cultivation and men help their wives in horticulture. Women form co-operative groups but men very seldom.

There are no male interest groups. Men come together only sporadically for beer feasts and poison-fishing, which are organized by an influential shaman.

Machinguenga family life is peaceful. Males are typically quiet, reserved, and generous with their kin. A man is loyal to both his family of origin and procreation. Men have affectionate relationships with their mothers and sisters, as well as wives and children. Fathers take care of their sons. People are shy about sexual matters and adultery is not common. A Machiguenga man is not expected to be violent and aggressive. Men who are "plenty-the-male-is" are avoided, even driven off or killed. Warfare is rare. This has been a mixed blessing during the 1990's, when the Shining Path guerillas and militias entered their grounds and made it their battlefield. Many villages have been destroyed and their inhabitants killed or captured.
http://www.sci.fi/~penelope/Feminism/KhasiGaro.html

The Menace of Dowry is Claiming More Lives Than Ever Before
By Sakuntala Narasimhan, Womens Feature Service
In a faraway country called Ethiopia in Africa, every young woman was given a 'cike' (pronounced sik-ki) - a wooden staff with bells, at the time of her marriage by her family. The 'cike' was left in a corner of her marital home. The cike played a very important role - if a wife was abused by her husband, she picked it up and walked out to the village common.

That was the signal for other women to pick up their 'cikes' and join her, leaving all the housework, cooking, cleaning, milking of cows, and other chores undone. The men in the village, hungry and forced to take note, would then put collective pressure on the abusive husband to apologise so that life could return to normal in every household. The man had no option but to ask his wife's forgiveness and promise good behaviour.

The Indian Court of Women held in Bangalore on July 28, 2009, as part of a global series of unique 'courts', or public hearings, on violence against women, initiated by the Asian Women's Human Rights Council across the world, began with an arresting enactment of this tradition of the 'cike', with renowned dancer-activist Mallika Sarabhai following it up with another enactment of an Indian story. She presented the true but tragic tale of four sisters, aged between 17 and 26 years, who 20 years ago in the state of Kerala - a state enjoying high literacy and a matriarchal tradition - hanged themselves as their poor parents could not find them grooms because they could not afford the dowry entailed. Unable to bear the humiliation of being 'shown' repeatedly to prospective husbands, more interested in the enticement package, the sisters took their lives.

Two decades on, despite changes in the law and rise in incomes and literacy levels among women, the menace of dowry is claiming more lives than ever before. Where once the annual figures were 400 'dowry deaths' during the 1980s, today official figures put the number at around 7,800, even though women's groups estimate that the real figure is closer to 25,000 per year. In Bangalore, Karnataka, on an average, three women die unnatural deaths, each day, mostly in the burns wards. Most of them are dowry-related fatalities.

In keeping with the global tradition of focusing on issues specific to each country, the Bangalore session of the Indian Court of Women, called Daughters of Fire, concentrated on dowry-related violence - bride burnings; harassment for dowry; and the related epidemic of female foeticide. Activist Sabu George, who participated in the Bangalore 'court' hearings, estimates that more girls have been eliminated before birth in India in the last seven years, than those killed in the Holocaust. This is a chilling revelation. Albeit illegal, sex determination tests continue with the connivance of the medical profession and have become a Rs 1,000-crore business, with ultrasound technology now available even in rural areas.

While farmers' suicides have merited frequent media coverage, the court decided to focus on the gender dimension of this horror in the prosperous states of Punjab and Haryana, where prosperity itself can kill under the current pattern of globalised and 'market-driven' development. Mechanisation in the name of progress has meant that the productive inputs that the women traditionally supplied are now no longer required. As a result, Jat women - barred by social norms and traditions from seeking paid employment - find themselves marginalised as 'worthless' dependents. Ironically, prosperity perpetuates the social menace, with grooms hiking their demands for larger dowries beyond the reach of most families. It is against such a scenario that the tragedy of marriage debts, suicides when these debts become insurmountable and female foeticide plays out.

With fewer brides available for marriage, families in many northern states are 'buying' wives from southern regions. Alternatively, several brothers can even share a woman if they cannot afford to pay for wives. This commodifies women and results in trauma for the brides, living isolated lives in distant regions amidst an alien culture. They have nowhere to turn to for succour when they find themselves exploited.

Lax enforcement means that existing legislation does not address this continuum of violence. Twenty-five women testified at Bangalore, describing how a daughter's death by burning (or being driven to suicide through unbearable torture for dowry) got recorded by the police as "accidental death" because there were no witnesses.

Siddamma, Sharifunissa, Malathi, Binapani - whether they were from the north, south, east or west of India, whether they spoke in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam (the court offered simultaneous translations to the audience), whether they were educated or illiterate - all had similar tales of losing a daughter or sister to dowry, with the perpetrator invariably going unpunished because there was no "evidence".

This silence, this failure to speak up collectively as a community and nation against brutal murders of women in our midst, is what this 'court' process seeks to fight. It brought private testimonies into the public sphere, in the presence of experts (judges, activists, academics and bureaucrats) who served as the 'jury' and offered suggestions for alternative mechanisms that could impart more dignity to women's lives.

One of the testimonies was from a qualified medical practitioner from Delhi, Dr Mithu Khurana. Assaulted, starved and tortured because she refused to abort her female foetuses, Dr Mithu wrote to the prime minister and sent e-mails to high-placed officials, only to be faced with dire threats if she did not withdraw her complaints. This is the reality that cuts across lines of class, caste, religion and economic background.

Six round-table groups, organised by Vimochana, an activists' group of Bangalore along with 40 other NGOs, discussed different aspects of dowry and related violence at a day-long pre-court sitting on July 27, and offered suggestions for action at the personal and community levels. Among the suggestions made were the need to teach sons to respect sisters and wives, promote networking among women to garner group strength (such as the 'cike'-tradition), use new community initiatives like 'nari adalats' (women's courts at the local level) to promote gender justice, and boycott weddings where dowries were paid.

Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, nonagenarian activist and former Supreme Court judge, went to the extent of suggesting that July 28 should be declared a "national day of the death sentence on dowry", while a number of young men stood up to promise that they would not take a dowry or attend marriages where dowry was demanded. But as the jury pointed out, dowry is but a symbol of a larger malaise, a pattern of marriage where the woman's contribution to the family and society is seen as so worthless that the men have to be "compensated" for marrying them.

The testimonies included accounts by some gutsy young women in their twenties and thirties, who described how they resisted and survived dowry harassment and made new lives for themselves. These examples could encourage other young women to stand up against practices that demean them as human beings or measure them in terms of cars, scooters, refrigerators, TV sets, or hard cash.

Womens Feature Service covers developmental, political, social and economic issues in India and around the globe. To get these articles for your publication, contact WFS at the www.wfsnews.org website.

http://newsblaze.com/story/20090915153112iwfs.nb/topstory.html

Happy fusion of opposites
POULOMI BANERJEE
Puja mirrors the happy co-existence of contradictions that often mar rather than make Calcutta in less celebratory times.

From fashion to food, pandal décor to choice of entertainment, the contrast between traditional and trendy is as pronounced as the thread of festive fervour that binds the two. Metro scans the two faces of autumn festivity to trace the meeting point of tradition and trend.

 
Arati after Bodhan on Sashthi evening at a puja by a branch of Sovabazar Rajbari. Picture by Simon Wheatley 
Sovabazar Rajbari, 8.30pm on Sashthi: The thakurdalan reverberates with the beats of the dhak as the priest emerges with the arati and members of the clan crowd around him. Someone blows the conch. In that solitary moment, the old courtyard with its carved pillars is transported to a different era.

"This puja started in 1757, and very little has changed since. The grandeur of the celebrations may have dimmed somewhat but the rituals remain the same," explains Krishna Anjana Mitra, one of the daughters of the family.

Tradition is the buzzword at Sovabazar Rajbari, where 80 families with common roots meet every year. The women are all in sari and gold jewellery, with the aanchal over the head. The men, young and old, look not the least bit awkward in their dhotis. "You don't try to maintain a tradition, you imbibe it," says Mitra.

The teenagers flaunt capris and skirts but none of them miss pandal-hopping because the fun is all at home.

Some may miss the event but the heart is here. "My younger daughter could not come this year; she called just now and became sad on hearing the dhak," says Nandini Deb, who has never been out of the house during Puja all her married life.

 
Click click click is the new craze at puja pandals. Revellers armed with cellphone cameras and camcorders capture Bosepukur Sitala Mandir in Kasba on Saptami afternoon. Picture by Pabitra Das 
A south Calcutta puja, 11.30pm on Sashthi: The crowd, comprising mostly youngsters, erupts as Bangla band Cactus belts outs Halud Pakhi. The other face of Puja is bolder, brighter and louder.

"Our puja is very traditional when it comes to rituals. But we do aim to strike a balance by weaving in modern elements," says one of the organisers.

The dress code is casual. "I wear fusion clothes but I also wear saris. I might wear one on Ashtami," says Shreya, dressed in orange harem pants.

If you thought only GeneratioNext goes for the modern look near the mandap, think again. A mother in her forties buying popcorn for her son is dressed in a short tunic paired with leggings a la Deepika Padukone in Love Aaj Kal.

Another woman of similar age in a bold, sleeveless blouse jokes: "I wasn't allowed to wear these as a young girl."
 http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090926/jsp/calcutta/story_11544638.jsp

All in the family
OVER 100 HOUSING COMPLEXES AROUND THE CITY HIT THE HIGH NOTES WITH THE TELEGRAPH HAND IN HAND
HAND IN HAND IN YOUR HOUSING COMPLEX
 
Koyla Vihar, Vasundhara, VIP Road: It's the ninth puja for the residents of 144 flats here. Residents are having a blast with The Telegraph Hand In Hand and Anandamela, where the ladies have set up food stalls. "We celebrated Sashthi with 120 children from an orphanage," says secretary Tarak Roy.

 

 
VIP Enclave Puja Committee, VIP Road, Raghunathpur: It's the 13th puja for the residents of the 382 flats in this complex. Song-and-dance competitions and two plays are the top draws. "We are planning on getting a band for a musical evening," says general secretary Rana Ghosh.

 

 
Green Valley, Chiriamore, Kaikhali: It's the fifth puja together for the 200 flats in this Kaikhali housing complex. Song-and-dance and recitation contests are popular. "Everyone is looking forward to the quiz that is open to all age groups," says organiser Swarup Nandy.

 

 

 
Vidyakut Abasan, Rajarhat: Residents of 400 flats have come together to celebrate their 11th puja. Besides sruti natak and palli geeti, Otoshorgo Bichitra, a play by the women of the complex, is a highlight. "Members of all communities get together to celebrate puja here," says treasurer A. Saha Roy.

 

 
Fortune City, Madhyamgram: 600 flats will celebrate their fourth puja this year. Housie, regional dance and bhangra are the attractions. "On Panchami, we released a book written by resident Deepankar Bagchi," says Swagata Mukherjee, general secretary of the flat owners' association.

 

 
Sundaram Apartments, Madhyamgram: It's the seventh puja for the residents of 68 flats in Sundaram Apartments. "Sruti natak, welcome songs and the homely ambience of the festival are our special attractions," says secretary A. Chowdhury.

 

 
West Wind, Ramgarh: It's the fourth puja for the residents of 360 flats, who are looking forward to Purono Shei Diner Kotha, a tribute to old Bengali songs. "The pandal has been decorated by Tollywood art director Gautam Barat," says media and event management coordinator Shekhar Aley.

 

 
Hiland Park, Chak Garia: The puja at the complex, in its seventh year, is modelled on Dutch architecture. "Residents of the 1,000 flats are looking forward to the Baul, Jhumur and Chhau dances by folk artistes," says secretary Rajib Bandopadhyay.

 

 

 
Niva Park, Phase I, Brahmapur, Badamtala: 'Women are special' is the theme that brings residents of the 250 flats together during their 20th puja. "Our focus is on women's events, and our residents will actively participate in The Telegraph Hand In Hand events," says convener V.P. Pillai.

 

 
Sherwood Estate, Narendrapur: 600 residents of Sherwood Estate in Narendrapur have much fun planned over the four festive days. "Magic show and a performance by a Bangla band are our prime attractions," says press and media in-charge Sankar Banerjee.

 

 
Merujeen Housing Complex, Narendrapur: Though from different cultural backgrounds, residents of the 324 flats all celebrate the festival together. "We host Anandamela, where the women cook and sell food, and contribute the money for a picnic," says secretary N.K. Mukherjee.

 

 
Dream Park, Sonarpur Station Road: This is the third puja for more than 150 residents of this Sonarpur housing complex. "A series of songs based on the theme of Ma Durga is our highlight," says association president Rabindranath Bag.

 

 

 
Calcutta Greens, Phase I, Ajaynagar: The cultural events at this puja are designed to invite participation from residents of all age groups. "The harmonious participation of all our residents adds a warm ambience to the festive days," says president Soumitra Ray.

 

 

 
Mohan Garden, Kamalgazi, Narendrapur: Residents of the 188 flats here are stressing on environmental concerns by creating a no-smoking zone and having dustbins in every corner of the housing complex. "Everyone is looking forward to the children's cultural events," says secretary Sipra Roy.

Orbit City, Ganguly Bagan, Big Bazaar: Residents of the 100 flats of Orbit City are celebrating their second puja together. "The get-together on the festive days is a grand affair," says Onus Association member Suman Ghosh. The DJ night on Navami is the special attraction, he adds.

 

 
Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Garia: "Since this is the first puja in our housing complex, residents of the 94 flats are very excited about the celebrations," says society president Sagar Pal. "The feeling of unity and harmony fills us with joy," he adds.

 

 

 
Kamal Residency Green Park, Sonarpur: Residents of 252 flats are thoroughly enjoying their fourth puja together. "The highlight is the Anandamela event, where the women of the complex cook and sell the food," explains secretary Soumitra Maitra.

 

 

 
EC Block, Salt Lake: The residents of the 280 plots of EC Block are mostly senior citizens. "We celebrate the pujas in its traditional form. A musical performance by Dohar is our highlight," says cultural committee member Debabrata Bhattacharya.

 

 

 
Falguni Abasan Samity, FB Block, Salt Lake: Residents of the 333 flats come together to celebrate their 31st puja. "Everyone actively participates in the pujas and the cultural events. Puja is the time for one big carnival," says joint secretary Shyamal Pal.

 

 

 
Srabani Abasan, FC Block, Salt Lake: The homely ambience for the 28th year running makes the residents of the 152 flats look forward to the festive days. "A Baul performance is our prime attraction," says housing committee secretary Pratul Sardar.
 
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090926/jsp/calcutta/story_11544608.jsp

Daksinakali

Bhadrakali (A gentle form of Kali), circa 1675.
Painting; made in India, Himachal Pradesh, Basohli,
now placed in LACMA Museum.In her most famous pose as Daksinakali, it is said that Kali, becoming drunk on the blood of her victims on the battlefield, dances with destructive frenzy. In her fury she fails to see the body of her husband Shiva who lies among the corpses on the battlefield.[21] Ultimately the cries of Shiva attract Kali's attention, calming her fury. As a sign of her shame at having disrespected her husband in such a fashion, Kali sticks out her tongue. However, some sources state that this interpretation is a later version of the symbolism of the tongue: in tantric contexts, the tongue is seen to denote the element (guna) of rajas (energy and action) controlled by sattva, spiritual and godly qualities.[22]

One South Indian tradition tells of a dance contest between Shiva and Kali. After defeating the two demons Sumbha and Nisumbha, Kali takes residence in a forest. With fierce companions she terrorizes the surrounding area. One of Shiva's devotees becomes distracted while doing austerities and asks Shiva to rid the forest of the destructive goddess. When Shiva arrives, Kali threatens him, claiming the territory as her own. Shiva challenges her to a dance contest, and defeats her when she is unable to perform the energetic Tandava dance. Although here Kali is defeated, and is forced to control her disruptive habits, we find very few images or other myths depicting her in such manner.[23]

Maternal Kali
Another myth depicts the infant Shiva calming Kali, instead. In this similar story, Kali again defeated her enemies on the battlefield and began to dance out of control, drunk on the blood of the slain. To calm her down and to protect the stability of the world, Shiva is sent to the battlefield, as an infant, crying aloud. Seeing the child's distress, Kali ceases dancing to take care of the helpless infant. She picks him up, kisses his head, and proceeds to breast feed the infant Shiva.[24] This myth depicts Kali in her benevolent, maternal aspect; something that is revered in Hinduism, but not often recognized in the West.

Ekamukhi or "One-Faced" Murti of Mahakali displaying ten hands holding the signifiers of various Devas
Mahakali
Main article: Mahakali
Mahakali (Sanskrit: Mahakali, Devanagari: ???????), literally translated as Great Kali, is sometimes considered as greater form of Kali, identified with the Ultimate reality Brahman. It can also simply be used as an honorific of the Goddess Kali,[25] signifying her greatness by the prefix "Maha-". Mahakali, in Sanskrit, is etymologically the feminized variant of Mahakala or Great Time (which is interpreted also as Death), an epithet of the God Shiva in Hinduism. Mahakali is the presiding Goddess of the first episode of Devi Mahatmya. Here she is depicted as Devi in her universal form as Shakti. Here Devi serves as the agent who allows the cosmic order to be restored.

Iconography

Statue from Dakshineswar Kali Temple, West Bengal, India; along with her Yantra.Kali is portrayed mostly in two forms: the popular four-armed form and the ten-armed Mahakali form. In both of her forms, she is described as being black in color but is most often depicted as blue in popular Indian art. Her eyes are described as red with intoxication and in absolute rage, her hair is shown disheveled, small fangs sometimes protrude out of her mouth and her tongue is lolling. She is often shown naked or just wearing a skirt made of human arms and a garland of human heads. She is also accompanied by serpents and a jackal while standing on a seemingly dead Shiva, usually right foot forward to symbolize the more popular Dakshinamarga or right-handed path, as opposed to the more infamous and transgressive Vamamarga or left-handed path.[26]

In the ten armed form of Mahakali she is depicted as shining like a blue stone. She has ten faces and ten feet and three eyes. She has ornaments decked on all her limbs. There is no association with Siva.[27]

The Kalika Purana describes Kali as possessing a soothing dark complexion, as perfectly beautiful, riding a lion, four armed, holding a sword and blue lotuses, her hair unrestrained, body firm and youthful.[28]

In spite of her seemingly terrible form, Kali is often considered the kindest and most loving of all the Hindu goddesses, as she is regarded by her devotees as the Mother of the whole Universe. And, because of her terrible form she is also often seen as a great protector. When the Bengali saint Ramakrishna once asked a devotee why one would prefer to worship Mother over him, this devotee rhetorically replied, "Maharaj, when they are in trouble your devotees come running to you. But, where do you run when you are in trouble?"[29]

According to Ramakrishna darkness is Ultimate Mother or Kali:

My Mother is the principle of consciousness. She is Akhanda Satchidananda; indivisible Reality, Awareness, and Bliss. The night sky between the stars is perfectly black. The waters of the ocean depths are the same; The infinite is always mysteriously dark. This inebriating darkness is my beloved Kali.

-Sri Ramakrishna

Throughout her history artists the world over have portrayed Kali in myriad poses and settings, some of which stray far from the popular description, and are sometimes even graphically sexual in nature. Given the popularity of this Goddess, artists everywhere will continue to explore the magnificence of Kali's iconography. This is clear in the work of such contemporary artists as Charles Wish, and Tyeb Mehta, who sometimes take great liberties with the traditional, accepted symbolism, but still demonstrate a true reverence for the Shakta sect.

Popular form
Classic depictions of Kali share several features, as follows:

Kali's most common four armed iconographic image shows each hand carrying variously a sword, a trishul (trident), a severed head and a bowl or skull-cup (kapala) catching the blood of the severed head.

Two of these hands (usually the left) are holding a sword and a severed head. The Sword signifies Divine Knowledge and the Human Head signifies human Ego which must be slain by Divine Knowledge in order to attain Moksha. The other two hands (usually the right) are in the abhaya and varada mudras or blessings, which means her initiated devotees (or anyone worshiping her with a true heart) will be saved as she will guide them here and in the hereafter.[30]

She has a garland consisting of human heads, variously enumerated at 108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of countable beads on a Japa Mala or rosary for repetition of Mantras) or 51, which represents Varnamala or the Garland of letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, Devanagari. Hindus believe Sanskrit is a language of dynamism, and each of these letters represents a form of energy, or a form of Kali. Therefore she is generally seen as the mother of language, and all mantras.[31]

She is often depicted naked which symbolizes her being beyond the covering of Maya since she is pure (nirguna) being-consciousness-bliss and far above prakriti. She is shown as very dark as she is brahman in its supreme unmanifest state. She has no permanent qualities — she will continue to exist even when the universe ends. It is therefore believed that the concepts of color, light, good, bad do not apply to her — she is the pure, un-manifested energy, the Adi-shakti.[32]

Mahakali form

The Dasamukhi MahakaliKali is depicted in the Mahakali form as having ten heads, ten arms, and ten legs. Each of her ten hands is carrying a various implement which vary in different accounts, but each of these represent the power of one of the Devas or Hindu Gods and are often the identifying weapon or ritual item of a given Deva. The implication is that Mahakali subsumes and is responsible for the powers that these deities possess and this is in line with the interpretation that Mahakali is identical with Brahman. While not displaying ten heads, an "ekamukhi" or one headed image may be displayed with ten arms, signifying the same concept: the powers of the various Gods come only through Her grace.

Shiva in Kali iconography

In both these images she is shown standing on the prone, inert or dead body of Shiva. There is a mythological story for the reason behind her standing on what appears to be Shiva's corpse, which translates as follows:

Once Kali had destroyed all the demons in battle, she began a terrific dance out of the sheer joy of victory. All the worlds or lokas began to tremble and sway under the impact of her dance. So, at the request of all the Gods, Shiva himself asked her to desist from this behavior. However, she was too intoxicated to listen. Hence, Shiva lay like a corpse among the slain demons in order to absorb the shock of the dance into himself. When Kali eventually stepped upon her husband she realized her mistake and bit her tongue in shame.[33]

The Tantric interpretation of Kali standing on top of her husband is as follows:

The Shiv tattava (Divine Consciousness as Shiva) is inactive, while the Shakti tattava (Divine Energy as Kali) is active. Shiva, or Mahadeva represents Brahman, the Absolute pure consciousness which is beyond all names, forms and activities. Kali, on the other hand, represents the potential (and manifested) energy responsible for all names, forms and activities. She is his Shakti, or creative power, and is seen as the substance behind the entire content of all consciousness. She can never exist apart from Shiva or act independently of him, i.e., Shakti, all the matter/energy of the universe, is not distinct from Shiva, or Brahman, but is rather the dynamic power of Brahman.[34]

Kali in Traditional Form, standing on Shiva's chest.While this is an advanced concept in monistic Shaktism, it also agrees with the Nondual Trika philosophy of Kashmir, popularly known as Kashmir Shaivism and associated most famously with Abhinavagupta. There is a colloquial saying that "Shiva without Shakti is Shava" which means that without the power of action (Shakti) that is Mahakali (represented as the short "i" in Devanagari) Shiva (or consciousness itself) is inactive; Shava means corpse in Sanskrit and the play on words is that all Sanskrit consonants are assumed to be followed by a short letter "a" unless otherwise noted. The short letter "i" represents the female power or Shakti that activates Creation. This is often the explanation for why She is standing on Shiva, who is either Her husband and complement in Shaktism or the Supreme Godhead in Shaivism.

To properly understand this complex Tantric symbolism it is important to remember that the meaning behind Shiva and Kali does not stray from the non-dualistic parlance of Shankara or the Upanisads. According to both the Mahanirvana and Kularnava Tantras, there are two distinct ways of perceiving the same absolute reality. The first is a transcendental plane which is often described as static, yet infinite. It is here that there is no matter, there is no universe and only consciousness exists. This form of reality is known as Shiva, the absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda — existence, knowledge and bliss. The second is an active plane, an immanent plane, the plane of matter, of Maya, i.e., where the illusion of space-time and the appearance of an actual universe does exist. This form of reality is known as Kali or Shakti, and (in its entirety) is still specified as the same Absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is here in this second plane that the universe (as we commonly know it) is experienced and is described by the Tantric seer as the play of Shakti, or God as Mother Kali.[35]

Kali and Bhairava (the terrible form of Shiva) in Union, 18th century, NepalFrom a Tantric perspective, when one meditates on reality at rest, as absolute pure consciousness (without the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to this as Shiva or Brahman. When one meditates on reality as dynamic and creative, as the Absolute content of pure consciousness (with all the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to it as Kali or Shakti. However, in either case the yogini or yogi is interested in one and the same reality — the only difference being in name and fluctuating aspects of appearance. It is this which is generally accepted as the meaning of Kali standing on the chest of Shiva.[36]

Although there is often controversy surrounding the images of divine copulation, the general consensus is benign and free from any carnal impurities in its substance. In Tantra the human body is a symbol for the microcosm of the universe; therefore sexual process is responsible for the creation of the world. Although theoretically Shiva and Kali (or Shakti) are inseparable, like fire and its power to burn, in the case of creation they are often seen as having separate roles. With Shiva as male and Kali as female it is only by their union that creation may transpire. This reminds us of the prakrti and purusa doctrine of Samkhya wherein prakasa- vimarsa has no practical value, just as without prakrti, purusa is quite inactive. This (once again) stresses the interdependencies of Shiva and Shakti and the vitality of their union.[37]

Gopi Krishna proposed that Kali standing on the dead Shiva or Shava (Sanskrit for dead body) symbolised the helplessness of a person undergoing the changing process ( psychologically and physiologically) in the body conducted by the Kundalini Shakti.[38]

Development
In the later traditions, Kali has become inextricably linked with Shiva. The unleashed form of Kali often becomes wild and uncontrollable, and only Shiva is able to tame her. This is both because she is often a transformed version of one of his consorts and because he is able to match her wildness.

Bharatanatyam dancer portraying Kali with a tridentThe ancient text of Kali Kautuvam describes her competition with Shiva in dance, from which the sacred 108 Karanas appeared. Shiva won the competition by acting the urdva tandava, one of the Karanas, by raising his feet to his head. Other texts describe Shiva appearing as a crying infant and appealing to her maternal instincts. While Shiva is said to be able to tame her, the iconography often presents her dancing on his fallen body, and there are accounts of the two of them dancing together, and driving each other to such wildness that the world comes close to unravelling.

Shiva's involvement with Tantra and Kali's dark nature have led to her becoming an important Tantric figure. To the Tantric worshippers, it was essential to face her Curse, the terror of death, as willingly as they accepted Blessings from her beautiful, nurturing, maternal aspect. For them, wisdom meant learning that no coin has only one side: as death cannot exist without life, so life cannot exist without death. Kali's role sometimes grew beyond that of a chaos — which could be confronted — to that of one who could bring wisdom, and she is given great metaphysical significance by some Tantric texts. The Nirvana-tantra clearly presents her uncontrolled nature as the Ultimate Reality, claiming that the trimurti of Brahma, Visnu and Rudra arise and disappear from her like bubbles from the sea. Although this is an extreme case, the Yogini-tantra, Kamakhya-tantra and the Niruttara-tantra declare her the svarupa (own-being) of the Mahadevi (the great Goddess, who is in this case seen as the combination of all devis).

The final stage of development is the worshipping of Kali as the Great Mother, devoid of her usual violence. This practice is a break from the more traditional depictions. The pioneers of this tradition are the 18th century Shakta poets such as Ramprasad Sen, who show an awareness of Kali's ambivalent nature. Ramakrishna, the 19th century Bengali saint, was also a great devotee of Kali; the western popularity of whom may have contributed to the more modern, equivocal interpretations of this Goddess. Rachel McDermott's work, however, suggests that for the common, modern worshipper, Kali is not seen as fearful, and only those educated in old traditions see her as having a wrathful component. Some credit to the development of Devi must also be given to Samkhya. Commonly referred to as the Devi of delusion, Mahamaya, acting in the confines of (but not being bound by) the nature of the three gunas, takes three forms: Maha-Kali, Maha-Lakshmi and Maha-Saraswati, being her tamas-ika, rajas-ika and sattva-ika forms. In this sense, Kali is simply part of a larger whole.

1947 TIME Magazine cover by Boris Artzybasheff depicting a self-hurting Kali as a symbol of the partition of IndiaLike Sir John Woodroffe and Georg Feuerstein, many Tantric scholars (as well as sincere practitioners) agree that, no matter how propitious or appalling you describe them, Shiva and Devi are simply recognizable symbols for everyday, abstract (yet tangible) concepts such as perception, knowledge, space-time, causation and the process of liberating oneself from the confines of such things. Shiva, symbolizing pure, absolute consciousness, and Devi, symbolizing the entire content of that consciousness, are ultimately one and the same — totality incarnate, a micro-macro-cosmic amalgamation of all subjects, all objects and all phenomenal relations between the "two." Like man and woman who both share many common, human traits yet at the same time they are still different and, therefore, may also be seen as complementary.[39]

Worshippers prescribe various benign and horrific qualities to Devi simply out of practicality. They do this so they may have a variety of symbols to choose from, symbols which they can identify and relate with from the perspective of their own, ever-changing time, place and personal level of unfolding. Just like modern chemists or physicists use a variety of molecular and atomic models to describe what is unperceivable through rudimentary, sensory input, the scientists of ontology and epistemology must do the same. One of the underlying distinctions of Tantra, in comparison to other religions, is that it allows the devotee the liberty to choose from a vast array of complementary symbols and rhetoric that which suits one's evolving needs and tastes. From an aesthetic standpoint, nothing is interdict and nothing is orthodox. In this sense, the projection of some of Devi's more gentle qualities onto Kali is not sacrilege and the development of Kali really lies in the practitioner, not the murthi.

A TIME Magazine article of October 27, 1947 used Kali as a symbol and metaphor for the human suffering in British India during its partition that year.[40]

In New Age and Neopaganism

A Western Shacan representation of KaliAn academic study of Western Kali enthusiasts noted that, "as shown in the histories of all cross-cultural religious transplants, Kali devotionalism in the West must take on its own indigenous forms if it is to adapt to its new environment."[41] The adoption of Kali by the West has raised accusations of cultural misappropriation:

"A variety of writers and thinkers […] have found Kali an exciting figure for reflection and exploration, notably feminists and participants in New Age spirituality who are attracted to goddess worship. [For them], Kali is a symbol of wholeness and healing, associated especially with repressed female power and sexuality. [However, such interpretations often exhibit] confusion and misrepresentation, stemming from a lack of knowledge of Hindu history among these authors, [who only rarely] draw upon materials written by scholars of the Hindu religious tradition. The majority instead rely chiefly on other popular feminist sources, almost none of which base their interpretations on a close reading of Kali's Indian background. […] The most important issue arising from this discussion – even more important than the question of 'correct' interpretation – concerns the adoption of other people's religious symbols. […] It is hard to import the worship of a goddess from another culture: religious associations and connotations have to be learned, imagined or intuited when the deep symbolic meanings embedded in the native culture are not available."[42]

Offerings to Durga and Pretiwi in Bali
Journal article by Francine Brinkgreve; Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 56, 1997
 
Journal Article Excerpt
 

Offerings to Durga and Pretiwi in Bali

 

by Francine Brinkgreve

The Balinese pantheon is very extensive, encompassing deified ancestors, local deities, and Hindu gods and goddesses.(1) Although the importance of many of these invisible beings varies from place to place, most Balinese are familiar with two goddesses, Betari Durga and Ibu Pretiwi, who personify several of the most basic aspects of life. The powerful Durga, terrifying spouse of the important deity Siwa, is in Bali very much associated with death and destruction, while Ibu Pretiwi, "Mother Earth," is connected with fertility, germinating life, and abundance. But the relationship between these goddesses, who represent two complementary aspects of the cycle of life, is not made explicit by the Balinese themselves. Thus they are worshiped on different occasions using different hymns, they do not appear together in any myth, and they are not represented together in the visual or performing arts.

However, in the course of my research on the meaning of Balinese offerings I encountered two important and common offerings that are quite closely related and are often dedicated to both Durga and Pretiwi.(2) Through an analysis of these two kinds of offerings, called bebangkit and pulagembal, it became clear that, at least in this context, the goddesses are indeed conceptually related. In particular, the structures of the two offerings represent not only the connection between the offerings and the goddesses but also a structural relationship between the goddesses themselves.

In the present article I explore how Balinese ideas on and images of the deities Durga and Pretiwi are reflected in the bebangkit and pulagembal offerings, and what these offerings tell us about ...
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=K2mM15GfmLTQ8R2gqHy0g7hksyLWx3SdLTYMpQCFb8gs2yPtN94h!-804807688!879976065?docId=5001523278

Giving Birth to Right

Hinduism and other religions cannot be used as a whip to punish artists who believes in the notion of freedom expression and choice. Culling examples from the recent Baroda incident Johny ML says that the growing subculture in the world wide web would ultimately subvert the agenda of the fundamentalists.

A society with a certain level of tolerance only can enjoy jokes. Jokes come out of irreverance. A joke is not a residual of the cultural memory, on the contrary it is a by product of the culture itself. Joke and spirituality result from a deeper understanding of a cultural situation. Culture includes religion also. There is a story; a wise mad man (most of the mad men are wise) namely Naranathu Bhranthan was spending a night in a cemetry. At midnight Chudala Bhadrakali (an incarnation of Goddess Durga) with ten heads and twenty hands came to the cemetry for performing her nocturnal dance. She saw this man sitting there without any fear. She tried to frighten him away. He started laughing. The puzzled Goddess asked him why he was laughing. Then he said, "Last week I was having a bad cold and my nose was running. I was just thinking how you would manage a cold with these twenty noses?"

This sense of humor is what makes religion acceptable. It was from this same sense of humor late Bhupen Khakkar painted 'A Man from Vasad with Five Penises Suffering from a Running Nose'. Who is this five penise-d monster? A man or a God? Bhupen Khakkar does not answer this question. Art need not give answer to all questions. Its role to ask new questions thereby becoming the energy houses for pushing the culture ahead.

There is a reason why I draw parallel between the mad man's story and Bhupen's painting. The Baroda fame Neeraj Jain is offended by a painting by Chandramohan. The painting depicts a woman who looks like the representation of Goddess Durga, seen in the act of delivering a man. This painting has not been seen by many. The only 'objectionable' painting seen by the people is a cross with suggestions of limbs, apparently sending out a feeling of crucifixion. There is a real western commode kept just below the cross. One need not think too much to make a connection between the cross and the commode.

Before going into the issue of Cross, let us look the issue of Goddess Durga. Consider any world religion, from paganistic to the monotheistic, woman is held high in esteem. In Hindu philosophy woman is treated as goddess. She is the mother nature. She is The Mother. Where woman is worshipped there Gods resides. Even Manu, the codifier of Hindu laws says that woman should be protected at all stages of her life (even at the cost of her own freedom!). If woman is invested with all godliness and capacity to create and procreate, then how can one avoid the issues of menstruation, sexuality, pregnancy and giving birth? Interestingly, no religion has banned such depictions. Right from the paleolithic times to post-post modern times, human beings with artistic bend have tried to depict these issues. Anthropologists and sociologists say that taboos came into being for the simple reason that they were necessary for social ordering and governance. One cannot hoodwink the fact that these social ordering and governance were mostly the making of the Males.

Despite all these taboos, artists have been creating images of goddesses and women throughout the human history. Neeraj Jain thinks that it is an act of desecration. He thinks so because he feels that he is one of the new age messiahs who is born to protect the edicts of Hinduism. He does not know that Chandramohan also holds the same right on Hinduism and its pantheon of Gods. He has the right to depict a woman (as he is the son of a woman) and a Goddess as he has his natural right of being a Hindu. His act of depicting a Hindu Goddess in labour is primarily his freedom of choice and expression. Besides, he has the right to be irreverent towards what he believes in or what he comprehends out of it. Neeraj Jain cannot dictate terms on artists' choice.

My argument naturally would raise a question regarding M.F.Husain's right to depict a Hindu Goddess. If the fundamentalists argue that whoever born in India/Hindustan must be a Hindu, then Husain is a better Hindu than anybody else. He has lived a longer term in India than any hooligans braying for his blood. Husain's right to depict a Hindu Goddess comes from his natural right of being an Indian and an artist. He has the right to interpret anything that belongs to his cultural heritage, irrespective of religious sentiments.

If one goes by the same line of Neeraj Jain, one has to ask whether he belongs to the Hindu religion. His surname, Jain shows that he belongs to Jainism. Jainism is a religion established around 6th century BC. The Jains who believe in the Pantheon of Thirthankaras is a minoirity religion in India. Jainism stresses on spiritual independence, equality of all life and non-violence. Self control for attaining the supreme knowledge is the motto of Jainism. If so what does Neeraj Jain have to do with Hindu Gods and Goddesses? How does he become the custodian of Hinduism?

Let us look at the legal side of our country. India does not legally accept polyandry or bigamy. It considers adultry as a legal offence. In that case, one should say that all the religious epics should be banned as they are filled with examples of bigamy, polyandry and adultry. Will Neeraj Jain ask for banning Mahabharata and Ramayana? These texts and other related texts have detailed descriptions on explicit sexual acts, seducing and extra-marital affairs. Won't they set bad examples for our children? But the majority of the Indian citizens have developed a cosmopolitan world view that could accommodate literature as literature and moral as moral.

The fundamentalist minority within the Hindu Religion that vouches for Hindutva, however does not understand this. They generate an issue and take political mileage out of it. They do not mind even sleeping with the enemy for gaining the ulterior motives. That's why Neeraj Jain suddenly finds an ally in Rev.Emmanuel Kant of Baroda. This Christian leader came to the Faculty of Fine Arts and expressed the 'Church's' displeasure on displaying a Cross with a Commode under it. But he did not seem to have created much fuss over it as he new that his words would ultimately give leverage to Neeraj Jain's act of vandalism. Nor did it become clear that the various denominations of Christanity in India took any interest in this issue.

The Cross and the Commode symbolize the torture of Christ on cross. The artist here functions between irreverance, joke and sympathy. He takes off from the Duchampian subversion of a commodity and connects it to the religious symbolism of Christianity. Could Christ have ejected bodily fluids while on the cross? A genuine question of anyone who would like to go a bit deeper than skin? In childhood, most of us have wondered whether those Gods sit in the sky would piss and shit on us? It has an innocence. When those world beauties are paraded in various suits, in their plastic best looks, one would tend to ask, do they piss, sweat and shit? It is a cultural irreverance. The Church that promoted Mel Gibson's 'Passion of Christ' with lot of blood and sweat on screen, should be able to digest a young artist's genuine effort to look at the truth of Christ.

Neeraj Jain must be knowing the meaning of Gurukul, where students learn things from the Guru and live as a part of the environment. All educational institutions are the modern time Gurukuls. The Hindu texts say that when a war, famine or any other calamities happen the Ashrams, Gurukuls and Women should be protected. Neeraj Jain does not understand anything about that. He violated the sanctity of an educational institution in the name of Hinduism! This incident should be a pointer for the legal and governing bodies of India that they should be pro-active in making laws that prevent religious interests and hooligans entering in such socially sanctified spaces.

This protector of Hinduism has resorted to the new style of media management. He brought his own media men to 'mediatize' his act of vandalism (his brave act !). He must be sad that it was not televised 'live'. These days Indian television channels send their crew everywhere, even the nook and corners of remote villages, so that a family feud, a dalit being beaten up, a man being pushed into fire, a pastor being roughed up, an adultrous couple in compromising act, sadhus accepting bribe, fake sexologists curing young men and women, well known Swamis talking about commission for converting black money into white etc, could be televised 'live'. This Neeraj Jain did never think of those pack of thieves within the Hindu religion, who in the name of Hindutva raping the very modesty of this country, as seen in the television channels. He should be cleaning up his own stable, which would perhaps take a life time, before he sets foot on the field of art and culture, which, even if he tries his best his brain would refuse to understand.

I would like to tell all those aspiring protectors of morality that there is a subculture developing all over the world, which is more powerful than the mainstream culture, through the internet. However, you guys try to stop Chandramohans and Husains from expressing their creative freedom, there would be thousands of Chandramohans and Husains coming up in these areas of subculture and destroy the false castles of morality that you create. If you have any doubt, just go to google and type out 'Indian Women'. You will end up in watching a lot of pornography. World Wide Web will not yeild to hooliganism for they too have a space in the democracy of World Wide Web.
http://www.artconcerns.net/2007MayBaroda/html/baroda_birthright.htm

Indian gene pools make a global splash

19 Jun 2007, 0045 hrs IST, Khomba Singh, TNN

NEW DELHI: From skill pools to gene pools, India seems to have the gamut of answers to outsourcing. Couples from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, 
Uzbekistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Malaysia and the UAE, not to mention the Indian diaspora from the US and Europe, are flocking to the country's sperm banks to fulfill their dreams. What is drawing them is not only India's relatively low cost of medical services but also the added advantage of similar physical features or racial attributes.

While many hopefuls come here because of the lack of sperm banks in their own countries, those living in the West turn to India as it is difficult to find South Asian samples in sperm banks there.

Aurangabad-based Sperm Processor, for instance, routinely receives enquiries from these countries. Says the company's MD Dr Pramod Bajaj, "We have sent about 50 samples to a US-based clinic and another 200 samples to Dubai IVF centres two years ago, for use by non-Muslims."

Dr Bajaj adds that in India, the bank supplies about 600 samples every month, but cannot say how many of them are used by foreign patients, as they work through hospitals and clinics only and do not deal with patients directly. Adds Dr Iqbal Mehdi, head of cryobanking services at Delhi-based Cryogene, "We supply around 1,800 samples annually to hospitals and patients. Of these, about 10% of the demand would be from foreigners."

Couples turn to sperm donors when the man is azoospermic (impotent), oligospermic (low sperm count) or asthenozospermic (poor motility of sperm). Typically, in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) centres also have sperm preservation banks, but only for their own patients.

These banks — India has about 10 of them — collect semen from healthy, graduate donors, usually aged between 20 and 35, with a clean medical history. They then segregate the sperm cells from the semen and freeze it at -196 degree Celcius in liquid nitrogen. These are then supplied to hospitals, clinics and patients.

Besides meeting the criterion of a similar racial gene pool (South Asian Caucasian), India has the added advantage of cost. While a sperm sample costs between Rs 600 and Rs 1,000, it can take two to three months of medical procedures for the woman to become pregnant using donor sperm, with several rounds of artificial insemination. Living expenses and hospital costs are relatively low in India compared to other places with similar facilities.

And that's not all. Indian semen banks are also helping clinics and hospitals in other Asian countries set up their own banks. Cryogene has jointly set up a semen bank in Sri Lanka and is in the process of setting up one in Bangladesh.

Adds Dr Bajaj, "We have set up a semen bank in Israel and Sri Lanka, and another bank is at a preliminary stage in Indonesia. We will transfer technology, help them procure equipment and train staff. The banks will be run by local teams but we will monitor the process regularly." Genetic process outsourcing, did anyone say?
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2132835.cms

Indian gene decoded
 
N Suresh
Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Indian gene decoded
http://biospectrumindia.ciol.com/content/CoverStory/10805071.asp
The largest ever study to understand the genetic diversity of India's one billion people by a team of top genetic experts has thrown up some interesting data and concludes that India has one of the most genetically diverse populations in the world. BioSpectrum analyzes the highlights of the study, which has been published in the April issue of the prestigious Journal of Genetics, published by the Bangalore-based Indian Academy of Sciences.

The world's second largest country in terms of population, teeming with over 1.1 billion people, next only to China's 1.4 billion, was treated as a genetically homogenous place, and referred simply as the "Indian" population. A rigorous scientific study has indicated that it is not so.

"Our study reveals a high degree of genetic differentiation among Indian ethnic groups and suggests that pooling of endogamous populations without regard to enthno-linguistic factor will result in false inferences in association studies," said Dr Samir K Brahmachari, one of India's leading geneticists who led the study under the aegis of the Indian Genome Variation Consortium. Dr Brahmachari is also the director-general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which runs a chain of 38 publicly funded research institutions in India.

The study, conceptualized by Dr Brahmachari and Dr Lalji Singh, who heads the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, included 32 large populations of sizes above 10 million people and 23 isolated tribal populations. Together, these groups represented the vast ethnic, linguistic and geographical diversity of India. Unveiling the findings of a study titled, "Genetic Landscape of People of India: A Canvas for Disease Gene Exploration", Kapil Sibal, India's minister for science and technology and earth sciences, said that the study led by Dr Brahmachari, was the largest scientific endeavor in the field of biology after green revolution.

 

"The objective was to create a basal data for disease profile and not to map genetic diversity. This is the first time anywhere in the world that a single country has been mapped to this extent", added Dr Brahmachari.

The Indian Genome Variation Consortium, a CSIR network project was started independently in 2003 after it was decided that 45 samples cannot represent the total diversity of India to build the next generation map of human genome initiated by the International HapMap Consortium.

"India represents a global genetic mosaic in its population," said Sibal. "The Indian population forms a continuum of genetic spectrum that not only bridges the Caucasians and Oriental Asians and also includes indigenous populations derived mostly from Austroasiatic and Dravidian speaking population." he added. "This means that now clinical trials to test the efficacy of drugs on all major populations can be conducted in India itself given such a spectrum. The results will be used to take up further scientific studies to generate data on the nature and extent of variations related to a large number of genes and identify genomic regions related to susceptibility to specific diseases and response to drugs.

The study, largest of its kind done on Indian population, included 1871 people from diverse groups, with 1,240 men and 631 women.

It has been found that there were no clear geographical groupings of people in India. However, ethnicity or being tribal or non-tribal and languages seems to be the major defining factors of genetic affinities between the populations in the country. This assumption, earlier concluded by other scientific studies analyzing blood group, serum protein and enzyme loci, has been validated by the genomic study.

India's vast population has evolved historically with different evolutionary histories and with multiple cultures. The earliest humans were estimated to have reached the north-western part of the Indian sub-continent nearly 70,000 years ago and then moved southward towards Sri Lanka in the next 20,000 years. There were further migrations into eastern India from Myanmar some 4,500 to 11,000 years ago.

 

Broadly Indians belong to four major language-speaking groups: Austro-Asiatic (AA), Tibeto-Burman (TB), Indo-European (IE) and Dravidian (DR). Over 80 percent of the practice the distinct Hindu religion and 8 percent of the nation's population comprise ethnic tribals or indigenous people, spread across the country. Almost all the major regions of the world such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jewism, Zoroastrianism are followed by the people. As a result of the intermingling of people belonging to these diverse religious, over centuries, several distinct endogamous groups have been formed. In fact, studies conclude that Indian population now consists of 4693 communities with several thousands of endogamous groups, 325 functioning languages and 25 scripts.

Another factor leading to the genetic diversity is the caste (socio-cultural) system followed by the Hindus, which sub-divides them into four distinct communities which initially evolved on the basis of occupations. Scientists have concluded that linguistic, geographical, socio-cultural distinctions have prevented free gene flow between the populations and led the formation of thousands of endogamous groups in India.

The four major morphological types -Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid and Negrito, are present in the Indian population. The Caucasoid and Mongoloid populations are mainly concentrated in the north and northeastern parts of the country. The Australoids are mostly confined to the central, western and southern India, while the Negritos are restricted only to the Andaman Islands

The Austro-Asiatic speakers are exclusively tribals and are dispersed mostly in the central and eastern parts of the country. Molecular diversity studies have revealed that the Austro-Asiatic speakers are likely to have been the most ancient inhabitants of India.

The current genome study has revealed that at the pan-India level, there were significant genetic variations between the tribal and caste populations. Further, in a geographical region too, tribes and caste people sub-classified on the basis of languages, exhibited genetic diversity.

For instance, the isolated populations in the Himalayan belt in the North India, were genetically closer to the Chinese and Japanese populations than the people in the rest of the country. So far, the global genomic studies had classified Indian populations as part of the Asian group which mainly included the Chinese and Japanese people. The Indian study has demonstrated that two major populations segments-those speaking the Dravidian (DR) and Austro-Asiatic (AA) languages who are mainly the tribals -living in the central and southern regions were entirely different from the Asian populations used in the HapMap populations.

Look for a person for my medicine ...

The first dollar for human genome sequencing came in the 1990s. In fact, this June, it's the 10th year since the completion of the DNA sequence for the last of the 24 human chromosomes. More than two human genomes have been sequenced-Craig Venter and James Watson. A Chinese genome has also been sequenced recently and the Panda genome sequence will be completed by August. Besides, almost 1,000 human genomes will be sequenced in the next year. The pace of the sequence has accelerated but the question is, have we conquered the cures?

One has been talking of personalized medicine, but Dr Brahmachari and his team are taking a different approach-they are talking about finding the right person person for my medicine. Recognizing India's unique strengths, CBT/IGIB launched two major initiatives in 1998. Scientists started analyzing genomes and correlating it with disease-based information available from hospitals. In the process, they also developed novel computing techniques--bioinformatics tools--that would help in the analysis of genomes.

On that strength, Prof. Brahmachari and his team undertook the study of the Indian Genome Variation Consortium, a CSIR network project started independently in 2003 after it was decided that 45 samples cannot represent the total diversity of India to build the next generation map of human genome initiated by the International HapMap Consortium. "The objective was to create a basal data for disease profile and not to map genetic diversity. This is the first time anywhere in the world that a single country has been mapped to this extent," pointed out
Dr Brahmachari.

The Indian Genome Variation Consortium (IGVdb) database provides a genetic map of relatedness of 55 contrasting Indian populations for drug response and risk with respect to cardiovascular disorder, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, infectious disorders, high altitude disorders, asthma, and susceptibility to malaria and tuberculosis. While the information for the infectious disease will come free, that for all drugs in the market will come at a price. It is a monumental study on genetic profile of the country's population and the largest ever by Indian organizations.

The Indian Genome Variation Consortium is a network of six institutes of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Centre for Genomic Applications, Indian Statistical Institute and anthropologists from various institutes, which undertook the study and generated information on over 4,000 genetic markers from over 1,000 biomedically important and pharmacogenetically relevant genes in 15,000 individuals encompassing the diversity of population across the country. Over 100 scientists are presently working on this project.

Six CSIR institutes which are associated with the Indian Genome Variation Consortium are Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB),Dehi, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB), Kolkata, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad,Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC),Lucknow and the Institute of Microbial Technology (IMT), Chandigarh.

This project is claimed to be a major success over the International HapMap Consortium project initiated in 2002 with a fund of $100 million. The global project, he said, covered only 45 Chinese, 45 Japanese, 90 Caucasians and 90 Africans. Fully realizing that 45 samples cannot represent the total diversity of India, the Indian Genome Variation Consortium was set up to conduct the study in the country. The results of the first phase of the study – "Genetic Landscape of the People of India: A Canvas for Disease Gene Exploration" -- was published in the Journal of Genetics in April 20, 2008 as other reputed scientific journals were not having references to review the mammoth task done by the consortium. The Rs 25-crore study was taken up in 2003 and was funded by CSIR, the Department of Science & Technology (DST) and The Chatterjee Group, which set up a highly specialized laboratory for this purpose in IGIB.
 
Genetic affinities

The study found that genetically Indian populations could be classified into various clusters. The first cluster primarily comprised of tribal communities and Dravidians. The second cluster included Tibetan-Burmese populations irrespective of their geographical regions of habitat. This implies that these people living in different parts of India were genetically similarly. Some of the populations living in isolated Himalayan regions also belonged to this category genetically, though many of them were speakers of Indo-European language family.

An interesting revelation is that the native populations of southern India, who spoke four or five distinct languages, formed a separate cluster together based on their genetic compostion. This essentially means that the social barriers erected by the caste system has no genetic base as it was believed to be. Most indigenous people in south India belonged to the same cluster.

"The HapMap does not capture the entire diversity of the Indian subcontinent. Thus, it may be difficult to directly use the HapMap data to design genetic epidemiological studies for the entire population of India," the authors wrote in their
Journal of Genetics paper.

Another interesting revelation is that the populations in the southern parts of the country were genetically more prone to infections like the HIV than their counterparts in the north.

The Aryan invasion theory

Earlier studies had hypothesized that the Dravidian language speakers (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam), now geographically confined to the southern parts of the country, were spread across the country before the arrival of the Indo-European speakers. And the Dravidian speakers, considered to be the original inhabitants of India, were forced to retreat to only the southern parts after their interaction with the " invaders". Dr Brahmachari's study of genetic heterogeneity among the Dravidian speakers validates the above hypothesis. This hypothesis was also supported by the mitochondrial DNA analysis done by other researchers.

The study indicates that the Indo-European speakers too exhibit genetic variations between various groups. However, and surprisingly, these two groups showed high levels of genetic differentiations between them despite centuries of inter-mingling. Essentially, the studies indicate that the north and south Indian populations, who have been culturally very different, were distinct genetically too. Such conclusions are likely to spark another round of intense debate within India as the distinctions are further accentuated by the vastly different economic profiles of the regions.

Practical applications

Citing that the study clearly elucidates the genetic profile of India, Sibal said, "The study finds the absence of a known genetic marker against HIV-1 in India, which has enormous implications in terms of finding what populations are susceptible to what diseases and help us not only predict the diseases as well as the effectiveness of drugs for these diseases." The study indicates a strong association between the genetic and linguistic profiles in India and also significant genetic differences in the association of disease associated genetic markers.

The study has enormous practical implications. The data is expected to help in the construction of specific drug response maps to aid policy level decision making for drug dosage interventions and disease risk management for complex as well as infectious diseases.

Scientists had tested the response of people to various drug molecules available in the Indian market. Preliminary results indicate that people in some parts of the country do not require some of the common vaccinations because they are genetically-equipped to respond to the infections. Public health agencies may be able use this data to make right and relevant purchases of essential vaccines and divert scarce resources to regions which need them the most.

Pharma companies will also be able to tailor their distribution and marketing plans and ensure supply of appropriate medicines only to different regions. The details of the drug response mechanisms will be available to pharma companies.

For instance the study reveals that Indians are susceptible to HIV and diabetes. Hence knowing which populations stand the risk of a particular disease, management of that disease would be easier. "A large number of projects have been undertaken in the data for predictive marker discovery and XIth plan aimed at utilizing this basal pharmacogenomics," Sibal said. He added, "The project will show the world how we go forward managing risk and discovering drugs."

Narayanan Suresh in Bangalore and Shalini Gupta in Delhi

 http://biospectrumindia.ciol.com/content/CoverStory/10805071.asp
 
Striking stars
Put together sport and the movies and you get the best looks in town, says Promita Mukherjee
Festive dressing is an art. A tightrope walk between dressing up/down for the occasion. And as the Puja celebrations take off in real earnest, it's that time of the year to raid the stores to come up with a look that's perfect for you. And well, we may not be able to provide you with crisp sunny days and clear nights, but we can surely add a sprinkling of stars to your Pujas.

Since sports and films are two national obsessions we decided to rope in the current reigning stars to set the mood. They went scouting for designer outfits — and came up with a perfect look.

Fast bowler Ranadeb Bose teamed with Paoli Dam, the new star on the Bengali film firmament, to take a cruise down the Ganges. Meanwhile, table tennis ace Poulomi Ghatak joined forces with Hiron, the rising star of Bengali movies, to pirouette in designerwear to celebrate the season.

So let the revelry begin…

SAPTAMI

 
Stylists suggest that you keep it light as you slip into the spirit of the Puja. And that's what Poulomi Ghatak and Hiron have opted for as they head for Hotel Hindustan International to ring in the celebrations with their friends. Poulomi has chosen a violet Nachiket Barve salwar kameez with a floral print. Hiron has settled for a traditional Bengali look in a Chandrani Siingh Fllora ensemble — a deep green, raw silk kurta with velvet trimmings and ari-work on the sleeves teamed with a pyjama.

To complete the look, Poulomi's eyes have been accentuated with a wine shadow with gold highlights, kohl and mascara. Her hair is blow-dried and kept loose for a casual look. Hiron's hair has been swept back with a styler and his face is done wirh a natural moisturiser base.

• His outfit: Silk kurta-pyjama by Chandrani Siingh Fllora — Rs 9,000.
• Her outfit: Floral print salwar kameez by Nachiket Barve from Bombaim — Rs 12,950.

ASHTAMI

 
Paoli Dam and Ranadeb Bose are taking a cruise down the Ganges aboard the MV Paramhansa that's organised a special Mahanagar Cruise to celebrate Ashtami. For the occasion, Paoli has chosen a traditional Bengali silk gadwal by Nandita Raja. She's teamed it with a kundan choker, jhumkas to match and gold bangles from Nnoni.

Paoli's eyes have been highlighted with blue and bronze-gold shadow, with an edge of dark blue on the lower outer corners. A heavy kohl lining and a thick coat of mascara, a dusty pink blush and a pale pink lipstick complete the look. Her hair has been tied in a bouffant with a middle parting.

Bose opted for a Sharbari Dutta ensemble — a silk achkan with peacock feather motifs and a matching turquoise tussar dhoti.

• His outfit: Achkan-dhoti by Sharbari Dutta — Price on request.
• Her outfit: Sari by Nandita Raja — Rs 6,000,
Jewellery by Nnoni — price on request.

NAVAMI

 
Poulomi and Hiron are celebrating with a sumptuous dinner at The Mythh at HHI. Hiron has slipped into an Abhishek Dutta ensemble — a matte gold-sequinned achkan with a digital print collar and antique leather panelling. Poulomi too opted for a very hot digital print look and selected a vivid red, green, turquoise sari from Maya — Satya Paul's latest collection of saris. A metallic green clutch and silver earrings set with semi-precious stones go perfectly with the sari. The eyes have been touched up with turquoise eyeshadow with a dusting of gold, while an artfully smudged charcoal shadow is used on the lower outer corners along with kohl and mascara. A peach blush, coral pink lipstick and with hair pulled back in a low bun, Poulomi is set for her night about town.

• His outfit: Achkan by Abhishek Dutta — Price on request.

• Her outfit: Sari by Satya Paul — Rs 6,495;

Silver earrings from Twinkle Poddar — Rs 2,700;
Green clutch from Leather World — Rs 700.

DASHAMI

It's the day to bid goodbye to the goddess. So our pacer-actor duo have settled on white, not just because it's in keeping with the mood of the day but also because they both want to indulge in some serious post- bhashan abir khela. Out shopping at Dev R Nil's store, Paoli has chosen a white cutwork and lace embroidered tunic matched with a churidar and dupatta. Ranadeb has opted for a white-pleated Benarasi cotton kurta and churidar.

Bluish silver eyeshadow, kohl and mascara keep Paoli's eyes flashing. Her hair has been roller-curled and arranged in a high pile. Ranadeb has brushed his hair with a styler and kept it simple as they check out an immersion cruise down the river.

• His outfit: Cotton kurta and churidar from Dev R Nil — price on request.

• Her outfit: Embroidered tunic with churidar and dupatta by Dev R Nil — price on request.

Credits

• Bombaim: 218, AJC Bose Road, Calcutta
• Chandrani Siingh Fllora: 9830809883 (by appointment only)
• Nandita Raja: Kanishka's, 2/1, Hindustan Road, Calcutta
• Sharbari Dutta: 9831038781 (by appointment only)
• Nnoni: 2, Ballygunge Terrace, Calcutta
• Abhishek Dutta: 3A, Siddheswari Road (Near Sarat Bose Road), Calcutta. Ph: (033) 32943847 (by appointment only).
• Satya Paul: Store No. 108, Forum Mall, 1st floor, 10/3 Elgin Road, Calcutta
• Twinkle Poddar: 9830131414 (by appointment only).
• Leather World: 50B, Shakespeare Sarani, Next to Kala Mandir, Calcutta
• Dev R Nil: 14 Onkarmal Jethia Road, Batailtala, Howrah
• Make-up: Aniruddha Chakladar, 8/13, Fern Road, Calcutta
• Hair: Noor Alam — 22403513
• Stylist: Souvik Basu — 9831529824

LOCATION COURTESY

• MV Paramhansa, Vivada Cruises, 14 Southern Avenue, Calcutta
• Hotel Hindustan International, 235/1, AJC Bose Road, Calcutta
• PHOTOGRAPHS BY RASHBEHARI DAS
 
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090920/jsp/graphiti/story_11513943.jsp

For the First Time Women Priests to Perform Pujas during Durga Puja in Bengal

Four women in Bengal have passed the priesthood course conducted by Uttar Pratik Sangashkirita Shuiksha Prachar Shangashtha (North Pratik Agency for Expansion of Sanskrit Education) and qualified to perform pujas and rituals of Hinduism. They have also become members of the Bangiya Purahit Parishad (West Bengal Priests' Association), the largest association of Hindu priests in West Bengal, which nominates priests for Durga Puja rituals.

This means daughters of Goddess Shakti will be performing pujas to Mother – Durga Maa during this Durga Puja. Women always perform all the pre-puja arrangements in all important Hindu festivals and rituals. Now they have moved a step ahead and will conduct pujas also.

 

DNA reports

According to Somnath Shashtri, the chief instructor of Uttar Pratik Sangashkirita Shuiksha Prachar Shangashtha, the women – Shampa Roy, Aparna Chatterjee, Sujata Mukherjee and Mita Mukherjee – have graduated from the programme with distinction. "This is the time that four aspiring women came to us for training in priesthood and all four did very well," Shashtri said.

Shashtri, in fact, is so confident that he feels they will soon become good enough to officiate in marriages. The training programme was open to Brahmin women this year. From next year, doors will be opened to non-Brahmins as well.

According to Pinaki Chakrabarty, an official of the West Bengal Priests' Association, by becoming priests, women have simply made the religious experience more complete.

 

This Blog had earlier written on numerous occasion regarding appointments of women priests in various cities in India. A small orthodox group of priests still oppose women priests but devotees who have had the experience of conducting pujas with the help of women priests are of the opinion that women priests perform pujas neatly and with more devotion and never skip a single step.
http://www.hindu-blog.com/2009/09/for-first-time-women-priests-to-perform.html

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Feminist movement

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Feminist suffrage parade in New York City, May 6, 1912.

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The Suffrage movement (also known as the Women's Movement, Women's Liberation, or simply, Women's Lib) is a series of campaigns on issues such as reproductive rights (sometimes including abortion), domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. The goals of the movement vary from country to country, e.g. opposition to female genital cutting in Sudan, or to the glass ceiling in Western countries.

Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Women's liberation in the United States 2 Long Reach of Feminism 3 Social changes 3.1 Language 3.2 Heterosexual relationships 3.3 Effect on religion 4 See also 5 References

[edit] History

Main article: History of feminism

The history of feminist movements has been divided into three "waves" by feminist scholars.^[1][2] Each is described as dealing with different aspects of the same feminist issues. The first wave refers to the feminism movement of the 18th through early 20th centuries, which dealt mainly with the Suffrage movement. Writers such as Virginia Woolfe are associated with the ideas of the First Wave of feminism. In her book A Room of One's Own (book), Woolfe "describes how men socially and psychically dominate women". The argument of the book is that "women are simultaneously victims of themselves as well as victims of men and are upholders of society by acting as mirrors to men" ^[1] She recognizes the social constructs that restrict women in society and uses literature to contextualize it for other women.

The second wave (1960s-1980s) dealt gender inequality in laws and culture. It built upon the established goals of the First Wave and began to adapt the ideas to American culture. Simone De Beauvoir is very much associated with this wave because of her idea of women as "the other". This idea was touched upon in the writing of Virginia Woolfe and was adapted to apply not only to the gender roles of women in the household or at work, but their sexuality as well. Beauvoir set the tone for later Feminist theory ( ^[1] The Third wave of Feminism (1990s-current), is seen as both a continuation and a response to the perceived failures of the Second-wave.^[3]

In addition to "responding" to the Second Wave, the Third Wave was less of a reaction to current events and more a focus on developing the different achievements of women in America. The Feminist Movement grew during the Third Wave of feminism to incorporate a greater number of women who may not have previously identified with the dynamic and goals that were established at the start of the movement. Although criticized as purely an addition to the Second Wave, the Third Wave very much holds its own additions to the Feminist Movement as a whole. In order to explore the history, events, and structure of the Feminist movement it is imperative to explore different figures, specific protests and demonstrations, as well as the transformation in American culture as a whole. The feminist movement is essentially one that has worked and continues to work against the status quo in American society. According to bell hook, "Feminism is a struggle against sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels, as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion and material desires." ^[4]

America's culture is one that is measured on a patriarchal scale. Countering these standards is part of the Feminist Movement's agenda and, although differing during the progression of waves, it was a movement started to also challenge the political structure. In thinking of a social movement as a collective, organized, sustained, non-institutional challenge to authorities, power holders, or culture beliefs or practices it can be said the Feminist Movement in all aspects a large and long lasting social movement. This is assuming that a social movement must exist with more than one person and by all means the Feminist Movement is one that is multifaceted incorporating the efforts of individuals who may not have affiliated themselves with the movement yet helped the goals of the movement become attainable. There are examples of different groups who were part of the movement that rejected the institution of the American system of capitalism, however, the agenda of the First and Second waves worked with the American political system in order to gain more rights.

The feminist movement reaches far back before the 18th century, feminist movement were planted during the late part of that century. Christine de Pizan, a late medieval writer, was possibly the earliest feminist in the western tradition. She is believed to be the first woman to make a beautiful piece of writing. Feminist thought began to take a more substantial shape during The Enlightenment with such thinkers as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Marquis de Condorcet championing women's education. The first scientific society for women was founded in Middelburg, a city in the south of the Dutch republic, in 1785. Journals for women which focused on issues like science became popular during this period as well.^{[citation needed]}

The period of feminist activity during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States is referred to as the first wave of feminism. It was sometime in the 1920's when feminism died in the US. It focused primarily on gaining the right of women's suffrage. The term, "first-wave," was coined retrospectively after the term second-wave feminism began to be used to describe a newer feminist movement that focused as much on fighting social and cultural inequalities as further political inequalities.^[5]

In Britain, the Suffragettes campaigned for the women's vote, which was eventually granted − to some women in 1918 and to all in 1928 − as much because of the part played by British women during the First World War, as of the efforts of the Suffragists. In the United States leaders of this movement include Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who each campaigned for the abolition of slavery prior to championing women's right to vote. Other important leaders include Lucy Stone, Olympia Brown, and Helen Pitts. American first-wave feminism involved a wide range of women, some belonging to conservative Christian groups (such as Frances Willard and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union), others resembling the diversity and radicalism of much of second-wave feminism (such as Stanton, Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage and the National Woman Suffrage Association, of which Stanton was president). In the United States first-wave feminism is considered to have ended with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1919),granting women the right to vote.^{[citation needed]}

The women who made the first efforts towards women's suffrage were those who came from the more stable and privileged backgrounds. In order to create change one must be in a position to dedicate time and energy into making change. The women previously mentioned worked very hard to attain the personal and collective goals. Their intentions benefited women in America, but not all women. The developments made for women were for those who belonged to the middle and upper class and were part of the White race. This was the dynamic of the beginning of the Feminist Movement in America. It was a specific agenda for a certain group of women.

The second wave of feminist activity began in the early 1960s and lasted through the late 1980s. What helped trigger this second wave was the book written by Betty Friedan. "The key event that marked the reemergence of this movement in the postwar era was the surprise popularity of Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique.Writing as a housewife and mother (though she had had a long story of political activism, as well), Friedan described the problem with no name the dissatisfaction of educated, middle class wives and mothers like herself who looking at their nice homes and families wondered guiltily if that was all there was to life was not new; the vague sense of dissatifaction plaguing housewives was a staple topic for women'smagazines in the 1950s. But Friedan, instead of blaming individual women for failing to adapt to women's proper role, blamed the role itself and the society that created it" (Norton, Mary Beth, A people A Nation pg 865. 2005 Houghton Mifflin Company New York.) During this time feminists campaigned against cultural and political inequalities. The movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their own personal lives as deeply politicized, and reflective of a sexist structure of power.If first-wave feminism focused upon absolute rights such as suffrage, second-wave feminism was largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as the end to discrimination.^[5] The feminist activist and author, Carol Hanisch coined the slogan "The Personal is Political" which became synonymous with the second wave.^[6][7] Second-wave feminists saw women's cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to understand aspects of their personal lives as deeply politicized and as reflecting sexist power structures.

In the early 1990s, a movement arose in responses to the perceived the failures of second wave feminism, it has been termed the "third wave". It is also described as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by second-wave feminism. Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave like Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, Cherrie Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many other feminists of color, called for a new subjectivity in feminist voice. They sought to negotiate prominent space within feminist thought for consideration of race related subjectivities. This focus on the intersection between race and gender remained prominent through the Hill-Thomas hearings, but began to shift with the Freedom Ride 1992. This drive to register voters in poor minority communities was surrounded with rhetoric that focused on rallying young feminists. For many, the rallying of the young is the emphasis that has stuck within third wave feminism.^[5][8] The different waves of feminism are not only reflective of the cultural evolution in American since the 1920s but it is also the way in which the Feminist Movement used different social movement tactics to encourage women in America to become active and motivate individuals to make change for the whole of women in America. Although the Feminist Movement has spanned almost a century there are ways in which to breakdown the timeline and recognize how women have framed the ways they have achieved different goals throughout history. It is "By rendering events or occurrences meaningful, frames function to organize experience and guide action, whether individual or collective" ^[9] The Feminist Movement has been an ongoing presence in American culture and although some women might not have affiliated themselves with the movement their lives have been affected by the influence the movement has had on women's roles in society. Inevitably women have had a part in this movement even if they do not call themselves feminists. It is very important to recognize that feminism has gone through its own transitions with the different waves. Primarily Women's suffrage addressed white middle class women with a claim that they worked on behalf of women's (in general) liberation. The specific group Women targeted at the beginning of the movement has changed as the movement has shifted its framing. The identity of the Feminist Movement cannot be determined by just one statement, however, that is what makes it such a dynamic social movement. The beginning of the Feminist movement was exclusive in that, "given such socialization, [oppressed] women have often felt that our only response to white, bourgeois, hegemonic dominance of feminist movement is to trash, reject, or dismiss feminism" ^[4] Different groups of women did not feel a part of the Feminist Movement because they felt they were being excluded and oppressed by the dominant white women. According to David A. Snow and other sociologists "Value amplification refers to the identification, idealization, and elevation of one or more values presumed basic to prospective constituent but which have not inspired collective action for any number of reasons" (Snow 469). The three waves of Feminism that exist are examples of how values have been identified, shared, and transformed. The Feminist Movement has worked to redefine certain standards of its agenda in order to include a broader spectrum of people. For example the movement later included women of different races and sexual orientations. It was only in the fall of 1971 that NOW (National Organization of Women) "acknowledged, 'the oppression of lesbians as a legitimate concern of feminism'" ^[10] The Feminist movement is one that has not ended and will continue in order to support and encourage women in American society to pursue their goals as individuals deserving of equal opportunity. "The Foundation of future feminist struggle must be solidly based on a recognition of the need to eradicate the underlying cultural basis and causes of sexism and other forms of group oppression" ^[4] An awareness of the oppressions in American society is the first step to making change as part of the Feminist Movement no matter what generation, age, gender, race, age, or sexual orientation.

[edit] Women's liberation in the United States

The phrase "Women's Liberation" was first used in the United States in 1964^[11] and first appeared in print in 1966.^[12] By 1968, although the term Women's Liberation Front appeared in the magazine Ramparts, it was starting to refer to the whole women's movement.^[13] Bra-burning also became associated with the movement.^[14] This term is one that needs to be contextualized within American society. It is assuming that the oppressed are all women in America. The work of the Feminist movement have had liberation as a specific goal for women but the agenda has evolved as culture has transformed and the issues being addressed by the Feminist Movement have increased. Keeping in mind that the "Optimism about the outcome of a collective challenge will thus enhance the probability of participation; pessimism will diminish it" ^[9] allowed women who therefore achieved some sense of liberation to feel accomplished with the time and energy they were dedicating to the movement. Participation lacked in respect to the broader spectrum of women in America, specifically women who were not white and part of the middle to upper class. The transitions made throughout history however helped to expand the efforts of the Feminist Movement to include women of different race, class, and sexual orientation. Different actions have been seen to be highlights of Women's Liberation but it was a goal of the greater movement rather than one specific moment in history. One of the most vocal critics of the women's liberation movement has been the African American feminist and intellectual, Gloria Jean Watkins (who uses the pseudonym "bell hooks"), who argues that this movement glossed over race and class and thus failed to address "the issues that divided women". She highlighted the lack of minority voices in the women's movement in her book Feminist theory from margin to center (1984).^[15] The division between women in America has been result of differences of race, class, and sexual orientation. It has been "Racism [that] keeps women from uniting against sexism." It is important not to view race or gender with an eye of oppression (Bhavnani 80). The origins of Women's Liberation in America can be identified as being part of two branches that essentially started the Feminist Movement and more specifically the actions towards women's liberation. The older of the two branches included the formation of organizations such as Women's Equity Action League, Human Rights of Women, and the National Organization of Women (NOW). These organization were primarily concerned with the legal and economic obstacles facing women. Men and women worked to address issues of working women, gender roles, salary, and opportunities of women in the workforce. The second branch identified as the younger branch included a larger number of smaller groups that focused specifically on different activities. The efforts of the younger branch was influenced by the events and actions of the Civil Rights Movement and the motivation to create change came from groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who targeted college campus communities to get involved ^[14] By increasing awareness about women's issues individuals were motivated to educate themselves whether it was through experience or academics. The difference between the older and younger branches is their organization and structure. The older branch is more likely to work with the structure of society whereas the younger group tend to defy the institutionalized aspect of working with the system ^[14]. The younger branch makes up many different groups which tended to form among friend circles creating challenges like diversifying the groups. These two branches are important to recognize because they allow the history of the Feminist Movement to be contextualized within American culture. The branches help to identify the efforts that have gone on in social circles, college campus, and cities all over the country.

[edit] Long Reach of Feminism

As a movement these women produced the deepest transformation in American society and enlisted the largest number of participants. Underlying the specific conflicts in political economy and culture made gender issues matter like never before to activists on all sides of the issue and to millions of other ordinary citizens. ^[16] Historian Nancy Cott wrote "feminism was an impulse that was impossible to translate into a program without centrifugal results" ^[17] about the first wave of the movement. What made a change in gender order feel necessary to so much of society was the fate of the family wage system; the male breadwinner/female homemaker idea that shaped government policies and employment in businesses. In the years of the movement women accomplished many of the goals they set out to do. They won protection from employment discrimination, inclusion in affirmative action, abortion law reform, greater representation in media, equal access to school athletics, congressional passage of an equal rights movement and so much more. Demographic changes started sweeping industrial society's; birth rates declined, life expectancy increased, and women were entering the paid labor force in massive amounts and new public policies emerged fitted to changing family forms and individual life cycles.^[18] The work of these women also changed the popular understanding of marriage and the very meaning of life; women came to want more out of their marriages and from men, education, and themselves. The efforts and accomplishments of these women and organizations throughout the women's movement inspired many authors of that time to write about their personal experiences with feminism. Jo Freeman and Sara Evans were two such authors. Both women participated in the movement and wrote about their firsthand knowledge of feminism. Freeman, American feminist and writer, wrote several feminist articles on issues such as social movements, political parties, public policy toward women and many other important pieces about women. Evans wrote her experiences in books such as "The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Right Movement and the New Left" and "Born for Liberty". Her works focused more on young women activists recognizing that the "personal is political" as well as showing how these women used discussion sessions to expand understanding of the social roots of personal problems and worked towards developing different practices to address those issues.^[19] Part of what made feminism so successful was the way women in different situations developed their own variants and organized for the goals most important to them. All women, Native American women, working class women, Jewish women, catholic women, sex workers, and women with disabilities, described what gender equality would mean for them and worked together to achieve it.

[edit] Social changes

The feminist movement affected change in Western society, including women's suffrage; the right to initiate divorce proceedings and "no fault" divorce; and the right of women to make individual decisions regarding pregnancy (including access to contraceptives and abortion); and the right to own property.^[20][21]

Feminism has affected many changes in Western society, including women's suffrage, broad employment for women at more equitable wages and access to university education.

The United Nations Human Development Report 2004 estimated that when both paid employment and unpaid household tasks are accounted for, on average women work more than men. In rural areas of selected developing countries women performed an average of 20% more work than men, or an additional 102 minutes per day. In the OECD countries surveyed, on average women performed 5% more work than men, or 20 minutes per day.^[22] At the UN's Pan Pacific Southeast Asia Women's Association 21st International Conference in 2001 it was stated that "in the world as a whole, women comprise 51 percent of the population, do 66 percent of the work, receive 10 percent of the income and own less than one percent of the property".^[23]

The social climate in America has definitely evolved throughout history. The definitions of Feminism, Feminist, and Feminist Theory now are not a monolithic term. There are multiple dimensions to the movement that encompass all different aspects of American culture. In America "most people are socialized to think in terms of opposition rather than compatibility" ^[24]. Social changes have not only included the right to vote, greater equality in the workforce, as well as reproductive rights but also the recognition of injustices and the ways in which both men and women can work to change them. According to bell hooks, in order to create change it is essential to recognize that "exploited and oppressed groups of women are usually encouraged by those in power to feel that their situation is hopeless, that they can do nothing to break the pattern of domination" ^[4]

[edit] Language

Feminists are often proponents of using non-sexist language, using "Ms." to refer to both married and unmarried women, for example, or the ironic use of the term "herstory" instead of "history". Feminists are also often proponents of using gender-inclusive language, such as "humanity" instead of "mankind", or "he or she" in place of "he" where the gender is unknown.^{[citation needed]}

Gender-neutral language is a description of language usages which are aimed at minimizing assumptions regarding the biological sex of human referents. The advocacy of gender-neutral language reflects, at least, two different agendas: one aims to clarify the inclusion of both sexes or genders (gender-inclusive language); the other proposes that gender, as a category, is rarely worth marking in language (gender-neutral language). Gender-neutral language is sometimes described as non-sexist language by advocates and politically-correct language by opponents.^[25]

[edit] Heterosexual relationships

The increased entry of women into the workplace beginning in the twentieth century has affected gender roles and the division of labor within households. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in The Second Shift and The Time Bind presents evidence that in two-career couples, men and women, on average, spend about equal amounts of time working, but women still spend more time on housework.^[26][27] Feminist writer Cathy Young responds to Hochschild's assertions by arguing that in some cases, women may prevent the equal participation of men in housework and parenting.^[28]

Feminist criticisms of men's contributions to child care and domestic labor in the Western middle class are typically centered around the idea that it is unfair for women to be expected to perform more than half of a household's domestic work and child care when both members of the relationship perform an equal share of work outside the home. Several studies provide statistical evidence that the financial income of married men does not affect their rate of attending to household duties.^[29][30]

In Dubious Conceptions, Kristin Luker discusses the effect of feminism on teenage women's choices to bear children, both in and out of wedlock. She says that as childbearing out of wedlock has become more socially acceptable, young women, especially poor young women, while not bearing children at a higher rate than in the 1950s, now see less of a reason to get married before having a child. Her explanation for this is that the economic prospects for poor men are slim, hence poor women have a low chance of finding a husband who will be able to provide reliable financial support.^[31]

Although research suggests that to an extent, both women and men perceive feminism to be in conflict with romance, studies of undergraduates and older adults have shown that feminism has positive impacts on relationship health for women and sexual satisfaction for men, and found no support for negative stereotypes of feminists.^[32]

[edit] Effect on religion

Main article: Feminist theology

Related terms: Christian feminism Dianic Wicca Islamic feminism Jewish feminism New feminism

The feminist movement has affected religion and theology in profound ways. In liberal branches of Protestant Christianity, women are now allowed to be ordained as clergy, and in Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism, women are now allowed to be ordained as rabbis and cantors. Within these aforementioned Christian and Jewish groups, some women are gradually obtaining positions of power that were formerly only held by men, and their perspectives are now sought out in developing new statements of belief. These trends, however, have been resisted within most sects of Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity.^{[citation needed]}

Feminist theology is a movement that reconsiders the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of religions from a feminist perspective. Some of the goals of feminist theology include increasing the role of women among the clergy and religious authorities, reinterpreting male-dominated imagery and language about God, determining women's place in relation to career and motherhood, and studying images of women in the religion's sacred texts.^[33] Christian feminism is a branch of feminist theology which seeks to interpret and understand Christianity in light of the equality of women and men. Because this equality has been historically ignored, Christian feminists believe their contributions are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. While there is no standard set of beliefs among Christian feminists, most agree that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex. Their major issues are the ordination of women, male dominance in Christian marriage, and claims of moral deficiency and inferiority of abilities of women compared to men. They also are concerned with the balance of parenting between mothers and fathers and the overall treatment of women in the church.^[34][35]

Within Christian feminist theology, there are many branches of prominent religious thought. After these Christian feminists fought for suffrage rights, they concentrated their efforts ethics and the meaning of injustice and justice. ^[36] The following quote demonstrates the intention of this switch of concentration as an attempt "to thematize and scrutinize such terms we need a somewhat indirect, oblique, mode of approach to the use of justice" ^[36]

Early feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton concentrated almost solely on "making women equal to men". However, the Christian feminist movement chose to concentrate on the language of religion because they viewed the historic gendering of God as male as a result of the pervasive influence of patriarchy. Rosemary Radford Ruether provided a systematic critique of Christian theology from a feminist and theist point of view. She called for the language of God and religion to become something that represents the ability of God to be either male or female and to be neither male nor female concurrently. ^[37] Ruether claimed that the male personification of God resulted from the tradition of Judeo-Christian leadership that failed to recognize gender inequalities as problematic. She also suggests that it might have been difficult to note, because of the numerous women that filled roles of power. In her view, 'the recovery of female qualities, along with the use of appropriate female language for God, would help correct the improper hierarchical social structure of male over female". ^[38] William P. Alston asks the question, in his article "Speaking Literally of God," of whether it is possible to form subject-predicate sentences to be asserted truly of God conceived as an incorporeal being. His analysis is important to the area of feminist God-talk, because it questions whether inclusiveness is even possible when talking about an incorporeal God. Alston concludes that further work remains to include analysis of timelessness, immutability, and other classical divine attributes to see if they constitute a bar to speaking literally of God. ^[39]

Reuther continued her argument with the idea that male monotheism perpetuates the social stratification of patriarchal rule, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as demonstrated by the portrayal of males as positive-neutral figures and females as negative.^[38] Men are seen as representatives of God and "responsible partners of the covenant with him" ^[36] Yet, women do not traditionally have a direct connection with the Divine; theirs is derived from marriage to men. "Thus the hierarchy of God-male-female does not merely make woman secondary in relation to God, it also gives her a negative identity in relation to the divine. Whereas the male is essentially seen as the image of the male transcendent ego or God, woman is seen as the image of the lower, material nature" ^[36] Christian feminists identify these connections as problematic in creating inclusive religious language because they not only deprive women of a place to involve themselves in religion, but also support the notion that males are the only ones in touch with surrounding reality. ^[36]

The prominence of patriarchy in male monotheism indicated a certain systematic depreciation of femininity in relation to religion. ^[36] There is no God and Goddess power dynamic in traditional Judeo-Christian male monotheism as it existed in older Greek religious traditions. Further, the Judeo-Christian tradition does not represent a true male-female duality. Male monotheism maintains that God is essentially male and that men represent his image. ^[36] Through marriage women are supposedly able to have a positive connection to the Divine, but this relationship implies that women must remain subservient to and subordinate to their male husbands and male God. ^[36] "Yahweh is depicted as the angry and threatening husband who will punish his unfaithful bride with summary divorce. But he is also described as winning her back and making her faithful to him by drawing her out into the desert wildness." ^[36]

Though the some made the argument that males can also be subject to the punishment of an angry God, others saw this language as something that reduces women to roles as wives to be subservient instead of independent and subordinate instead of dominant like their male counterparts. "By patriarchy we mean not only the subordination of females to males, but the whole structure of Father-ruled society: aristocracy over serfs, masters over slaves, king over subjects, racial overlords over colonized people. Religions that reinforce hierarchical stratification use the Divine as the apex of this system of privilege and control" ^[36] Modern Judeo-Christian theists proclaim that their tradition is against oppressions of all kinds. However, many of their teachings cannot simply be interpreted as being against all systems of oppression, while in most of the language a certain degree of patriarchy remains. "The Davidic monarchy… established at the heart of Biblical religion a motif or protest against the status quo of ruling-class privilege and deprivation of the poor. God is seen as a critic of this society, a champion of the social victims" ^[36]. While the Judeo-Christian tradition is seen as a movement of revolution, it has not traditionally been opposed to gender oppression. "Although Yahwism dissents against class hierarchy, it issues no similar protest against gender discrimination" ^[36] One question answered in feminist theology is the following, "Is tradition, here, a roadblock in making (male) monotheism inclusive and free of gender discrimination?" "Is religious text sexist in the Judeo-Christian tradition primarily may be the result of the tunnel-vision of those prophets in power, or in direct connection with God. While male prophets may have been aware of the class oppression they might have been experiencing it might have been difficult for them to also realize the conditions of many women on their side. Fighting for gender equality might have been incredibly uninteresting or unimportant to those male prophets. The class hierarchy male prophets contended themselves with protesting cannot be equalized with a protest against gender oppression, because an anti-class structure reality need not also be an anti-gender subjugation reality. "Those male prophets who were aware of oppression by rich urbanites or dominating empires were not similarly conscious of their own oppression of dependents – women and slaves – in the patriarchal family" ^[38]

Feminists argued that knowing that fighting single systems of oppressions alone cannot possibly end all oppressions is important, because it recognizes the ways in which these systems interpenetrate each other to maintain male patriarchy. ^[40]

Feminists also questioned "Why does there seem to be a lack of anti-patriarchal use of God-language in the Judeo-Christian tradition?" Reuther suggests that it may be due to the infusion of some women into roles of power. It would have been difficult to identify the oppression of women as systematic problem and address it in relation to religious language, because some women did not need liberation and were in fact also oppressors. ^[38] "… In its protest against Canaanite urban society it would have known powerful females, queens, priestesses, and wealthy landowners who functioned as oppressors. It would have been difficult to recognize women as an oppressed gender group when the primary social stratification integrated some women into roles of power" ^[36]

They would next question how can gender discrimination be tackled by religious language, if women themselves were involved in oppressing namely members of their own gender social group. ^[36] One suggestion was to totally deny and revolt against the totality of structures that maintain oppressions of all kinds. ^[36] However, they deemed this as difficult , and recognized that by examining individual relationships within these systems of oppressions may position a person in one or more potentially privileged groups. Feminist theists recognized that no one of these structures is more essential than another and that each work to maintain another is important, because it calls them to create of a multi-faceted front of resistance. ^[36]

Islamic feminism is concerned with the role of women in Islam and aims for the full equality of all Muslims, regardless of gender, in public and private life. Islamic feminists advocate women's rights, gender equality, and social justice grounded in an Islamic framework. Although rooted in Islam, the movement's pioneers have also utilized secular and Western feminist discourses and recognize the role of Islamic feminism as part of an integrated global feminist movement.^[41] Advocates of the movement seek to highlight the deeply rooted teachings of equality in the Quran and encourage a questioning of the patriarchal interpretation of Islamic teaching through the Quran, hadith (sayings of Muhammad), and sharia (law) towards the creation of a more equal and just society.^[42]

Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership for Jewish women. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of Judaism. In its modern form, the movement can be traced to the early 1970s in the United States. According to Judith Plaskow, who has focused on feminism in Reform Judaism, the main issues for early Jewish feminists in these movements were the exclusion from the all-male prayer group or minyan, the exemption from positive time-bound mitzvot, and women's inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce.^[43]

The Dianic Wicca or Wiccan feminism is a female focused, Goddess-centered Wiccan sect; also known as a feminist religion that teaches witchcraft as every woman's right. It is also one sect of the many practiced in Wicca.^[44]

[edit] See also

• Feminist Majority Foundation
• Independent Women's Forum
• National Organization for Women
• NARAL Pro-Choice America
• Feminists For Life
• Planned Parenthood
• Roe V. Wade
• New Thought
• Jewish feminism
• Equity feminism
• Individualist feminism
• Radical Women
• Feminist Art Movement
• Women's Peace Party
• Women's Peace Union

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Humm, Maggie. 1978. The Dictionary of Feminist Theory. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, p. 251
2. ^ Walker, Rebecca, 'Becoming the Third Wave' in Ms. (January/February, 1992) pp. 39-41
3. ^ Krolokke, Charlotte and Anne Scott Sorensen, "From Suffragettes to Grrls" in Gender Communication Theories and Analyses:From Silence to Performance (Sage, 2005)
4. ^ ^{a b c d} (hooks, bell. 2000. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Cambridge: South End Press. p. 26)
5. ^ ^{a b c} Freedman, Estelle B., No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (London: Ballantine Books, 2003)
6. ^ Echols, Alice (1989). Daring to be bad: radical feminism in America, 1967-1975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 416. ISBN 0-8166-1787-2. 
7. ^ Hanisch, Carol (2006-01-01). "[http://scholar.alexanderstreet.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=2259 Hanisch, New Intro to "The Personal is Political" - Second Wave and Beyond]". The Personal Is Political. The "Second Wave" and Beyond. http://scholar.alexanderstreet.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=2259. Retrieved 2008-06-08. 
8. ^ Henry, Astrid (2004). Not my mother's sister: generational conflict and third-wave feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21713-4. 
9. ^ ^{a b} Snow, David A., E. Burke Rochford, Jr., Steven K. Wordon, Robert D. Benford. 1986. Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation. American Sociological Review. p. 464)
10. ^ Gatlin, Rochelle. 1987. American Women Since 1945. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p. 119
11. ^ Sarachild, Kathie. Consciousness-Raising: A Radical Weapon, in Sarachild, K, Hanisch, C, Levine, F, Leon, B, Price, C (eds.) Feminist Revolution. Random House N.Y. 1978 pp. 144-150.
12. ^ Mitchell, Juliet, 'Women: The longest revolution' in New Left Review, 1966, Nov-Dec, pp. 11-37
13. ^ Hinckle, Warren and Marianne Hinckle. Women Power. Ramparts 1968 February 22-31
14. ^ ^{a b c} Freeman, Jo. The politics of women's liberation. David McKay N.Y. 1975
15. ^ Hooks, Bell (2000). Feminist theory: from margin to center. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-614-3. 
16. ^ MacLean, Nancy. 2006. Gender is Powerful: The Long Reach of Feminism. Magazine of History 20: 19-23
17. ^ MacLean, Nancy. 2006. Gender is Powerful: The Long Reach of Feminism. Magazine of History 20: 19-23
18. ^ MacLean, Nancy. 2006. Gender is Powerful: The Long Reach of Feminism. Magazine of History 20: 19-23
19. ^ MacLean, Nancy. 2006. Gender is Powerful: The Long Reach of Feminism. Magazine of History 20: 19-23
20. ^ Messer-Davidow, Ellen, Disciplining feminism: from social activism to academic discourse (Duke University Press, 2002), ISBN 9780822328437
21. ^ Butler, Judith, 'Feminism in Any Other Name', differences vol. 6, numbers 2-3, pp. 44-45
22. ^ "Section 28: Gender, Work Burden, and Time Allocation in United Nations Human Development Report 2004". http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr04_complete.pdf.  (page 233)
23. ^ PPSEAWA International Bulletin - Pan Pacific Southeast Asia Women's Association 21st International Conference
24. ^ hooks, bell. 2000. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Cambridge: South End Press. p. 31)
25. ^ "Gender Neutral Language." University of Saskatchewan Policies, 2001. http://www.usask.ca/policies/2_03.htm. Accessed March 25, 2007.
26. ^ Hochschild, Arlie Russell, The Second Shift (Penguin, 2003), ISBN 9780142002926
27. ^ Hochschild, Arlie Russell, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work (Owl Books U.S, 2003), ISBN 9780805066432
28. ^ The mama lion at the gate - Salon.com
29. ^ Scott J. South and Glenna Spitze, "Housework in Marital and Nonmarital Households," American Sociological Review 59, no. 3 (1994):327-348
30. ^ Sarah Fenstermaker Berk and Anthony Shih, "Contributions to Household Labour: Comparing Wives' and Husbands' Reports,", in Berk, ed., Women and Household Labour
31. ^ Luker, Kristin, Dubious Conceptions: The Politics of the Teenage Pregnancy Crisis. Harvard University Press (1996)
32. ^ [1] Laurie A. Rudman & Julie E. Phelan, "The Interpersonal Power of Feminism: Is Feminism Good for Romantic Relationships?" Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 11-12, December 2007.
33. ^ Bundesen, Linda, The Feminine Spirit: Recapturing the Heart of Scripture (Jossey Bass Wiley, 2007), ISBN 9780787984953
34. ^ Haddad, Mimi, "Egalitarian Pioneers: Betty Friedan or Catherine Booth?" Priscilla Papers, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Autumn 2006)
35. ^ Anderson, Pamela Sue and Beverley Clack, eds., Feminist philosophy of religion: critical readings (London: Routledge, 2004)
36. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} Pellauer, Mary D. (1991). "Toward a Tradition of Feminist Theology". Brooklyn, New York, NY: Carlson Publishing Inc
37. ^ OCHS, CAROL (1977). Behind the Sex of God – "Toward a New Consciousness - Transcending Matriarchy and Patriarchy". Boston, MA: Beacon Press
38. ^ ^{a b c d} OCHS, Ruether, Rosemary Radford (1998). Women and Redemption – A Theological History. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers.
39. ^ Parsons, Susan Frank (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
40. ^ Cone, James H. (1991). A Black Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
41. ^ II International Congress on Islamic Feminism
42. ^ Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture | Islamic feminism: what's in a name?
43. ^ Plaskow, Judith. "Jewish Feminist Thought" in Frank, Daniel H. & Leaman, Oliver. History of Jewish Philosophy, Routledge, first published 1997; this edition 2003.
44. ^ Falcon River (2004) The Dianic Wiccan Tradition. From The Witches Voice. Retrieved 2007-05-23.

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1. THE SEXUAL COUNTERREVOLUTION

   27 Dec 2007 ... —THE NEED FOR A COUNTER REVOLUTION, .... What happened to the sexual revolution? Sex in America seemed to provide clear evidence that it was ...
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2. It is Time for a Sexual 'Counter-Revolution' - Catholic Online

   16 Sep 2009 ... We'll never change the way we view abortion until we change our attitudes about sex. It's time for a sexual counter-revolution. ...
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3. It is Time for a Real Sexual 'Counter-Revolution' - Catholic Online

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4. F. Roger Devlin on Wendy Shalit's GIRLS GONE MILD

   17 Mar 2008 ... The feminine sexual counter-revolution and its limitations .... Girls report having sex with strangers simply in order to "fit in. ...
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5. Network of enlightened Women: The Sexual-Counter Revolution

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6. A counter-revolution is stirring in Czech bedrooms - the European ...

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8. It is Time for a Real Sexual 'Counter-Revolution'

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9. Nashville Arts - Counter-Revolution - page 1

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10. Sexual Revolution and Counter-Revolution

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