This post is going to offend many people. But this needs to be told about whether someone is willing or sensible enough to see what was wrong with the said "joke" and the severe problem which was the root cause of the so called "joke" and the reactions of some people towards it.
Disclaimer : I don't intend to change anyone, it is upto everyone to decide to believe in what they want to themselves, as long as they do not cross the line and bully someone online and possibly IRL for poiniting out the obvious sexism in a "joke". Don't change if you don't want to, but do not cross the lines.
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The origin of all these is a "joke" shared in a group, which consists of members of all ages, all professions, students, retired people etc. I am quoting the "joke" as I got it :
"Child : Why Gandhi has no hair on his head...?
Mummy : Because he speak only truth...
Child : Now I understand why ladies have long hair..."
To be honest I feel disgusted even by the fact that I have to quote it and read it again to quote it. The only one emotion which comes to my mind when I read this is disgust. So I felt disugsted and pointed out to the person who posted it on whatsapp that this was sexist. The reaction to my pointing out that the "joke" is sexist, and standing my ground with the fact that the "joke" is sexist no matter how many ever people try to demean and vilify me (with comments like "you need to do some self analysis, shut up, be quiet, be silent, stop lecturing, I would like to know what is bothering you") made me write this post. Majority of the people who defended it are women and one boy much younger than me. (Now in India everyone hypes about "respecting" people based on age, so how come the millenial involved took it for granted that he can give orders to a woman much older than him?!! Just asking.) I do not want anyone to keep me on a pedestal and worship. But these people who got so much into verbally attacking a woman forgot that there are lines which cannot be crossed no matter who you are of one another.
Before I talk about the verbal bullying I had to face, let us look at the "joke" itself. I spotted it as sexist. Why? The primary reason is that I am a woman and as a woman I felt really bad about the "joke". Secondly that was a mean "joke" no matter whether is was for a woman, transgender or a man.
1) It is very clear that someone with a very bad view of women had written this "joke". If it is a man then he is a well pampered product of patriarchy and if it is a woman then she is obviously a life long slave of patriarchy. It frames a premise premedited to paint women in bad light. It does two bad things to demean women.
a) It calls all women as liars because they have long hair when a person who spoke truth has no hair! The writer could have used "people with hair" (even that would have been mean). But hell no! They deliberately used the word "ladies" which also stereotype women as having long hair. (Ironically all women who have short hair are questioned by society and treated by society as if something is wrong with them if they cut their hair short. May be society wants to brand all women as liars? And all men as truthful, so men are never allowed to grow their hair? Just wondering!)
2) Not only does this "joke" degrade women as liars and demands that all women should have long hair but also body shames a person for not having hair on his head. The joke speaks about a person who spoke truth and makes it look like speaking truth is harmful for your physical appearance!!
3) This "joke" is written as if a child is saying this. I can't even start to imagine what kind of family environment does this child live in. Obviously if a child has to say such vilifying things about "ladies" or women then this child must have picked it up from somewhere around them. That speaks a lot about the society and the homes they live in and their fathers and other relatives. Does it not?
Obviously the "joke" is not written by a child, but some deeply misogynistic adult who took it for granted that it is ok to have a "laugh" at the cost of vilifying a gender, if the gender happens to be the female one. And the "joke" gets forwarded and "enjoyed" by unsuspecting adults including women and a millenial adult male who cannot identify that it is blatantly sexist and jump in immediately to defend it. (No! They do not spare any effort to accuse, verbally assault and even paint the whistle blower as mentally unstable and the millenial freely says that the whistle blower woman (i.e. I) needs to do some self analysis, because she can spot sexism.)
Before I self analyse or anlyse the bullying I was subject to, I would like to analyse a few other things. Why couldn't these people identify that the "joke" was sexist and was demeaning women including them?!! How can people close their eyes to an obvious fact and pretend that nothing is wrong when everything is wrong and the proof is as plain as daylight? How can people not identify sexism as sexism? So will they be ok with rape "jokes" if someone forwards it to them tomorrow saying that "oh there is smiley emoji in it, so it is ok"? Or it is that they are ok with themselves being deemed as liars because they are women? Or do they feel that this "joke" was not even that bad as some of the other sexist remarks they may have to deal with on a daily basis? Or do they only have a problem only if the "jokes" were extreme? Or do they feel that if they say that a "silly thing" as being called a liar is sexism they will look less cool or less liberal? What is the difference between a "joke" which deems all women deliberately as liars and some hard core conservative ideology which discriminates women for having menstruation? There is no difference. They are all ultimately the same.
There are only a few explanations about why these women and the millenial male defended this blatantly bad portrayal of women. They were born and brought up in extreme patriarchical conditions where they were taught to tolerate every kind of verbal, physical and mental abuse, in all forms, subtle, moderate and violent forms and be a slave to the men in their lives and serve them no matter what happens. So they will not take the act of being called liars seriously and will brush off subtle sexism (until it all accumulates and causes severe damage) and do a disservice to themselves and other women.
It is absolutely unimaginable for me, how someone can be discriminated and be vilified for their gender and still defend the absuer (person or the idea) and pretend like "this does not pertain to me, it is other women who are being called liars". Seriously? Some other women would have thought like you and for them you might be the other woman who is a liar. Is that ok with you? Is it really ok with you if all the women start thinking so and women themselves deem each other as liars and bad people because a misogynist crafted a deliberate "joke" to abuse women and pit them against one another?
If tomorrow someone comes and beats you up and say it is out of love and care you will say that it is love/care? No I don't think so. (Asking since so many protests are going on about a certain movie and its director's crappy ideolgy about women.) So how is being deemed as liars because you are a woman ok with you? The attitude behind both are the same - that anybody can call, say and do anything to a woman.
How can you say and vouch that a "joke" calling all women including you do not apply to you because you don't have long hair or you don't feel vilified? It is not the question of the length of your hair or whether you feel it or not. It is like global warming and climate change, just because you are not feeling the heat while sitting inside the AC does not mean that it is not 40 deg and over heated outside! You are sitting in a building which is situated in the 40 deg overheated area, the moment your power supply switches off you will feel the heat too!!
The question of whether you "feel" like a liar is not the real issue here. What matters is that someone took it for granted that they can portray women in any way they want and demean us. Would you tolerate it if someone portrays you as a bad woman, makes rumours about you and denies your opportunities in life and brands it as a "practical joke"? Will you tolerate if someone comes and calls you a "liar" and a "cheat" in the middle of the street or to your house and says bad things to you? Do you tolerate if someone calls you with really bad cuss words? (Obviously you know what kind of person you are so, the cuss words won't make a difference but that does not make it ok that someone took it again for granted that you can be abused verbally because you are a woman.) So how can you justify a blatantly sexist "joke" which calls you, your mother, your daughter, your sister, your aunt, your grandmother or any woman in your life, a liar because you and they are women? How can you justify a mean "joke" like that?
These are the direct questions which that "joke" invokes.
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Now the discussion aka bullying which followed raises another set of serious questions. The set of questions will start from the question "who gave you permission to cross the line with me?"
*********************************************************************************
Disclaimer : I don't intend to change anyone, it is upto everyone to decide to believe in what they want to themselves, as long as they do not cross the line and bully someone online and possibly IRL for poiniting out the obvious sexism in a "joke". Don't change if you don't want to, but do not cross the lines.
*********************************************************************************
The origin of all these is a "joke" shared in a group, which consists of members of all ages, all professions, students, retired people etc. I am quoting the "joke" as I got it :
"Child : Why Gandhi has no hair on his head...?
Mummy : Because he speak only truth...
Child : Now I understand why ladies have long hair..."
To be honest I feel disgusted even by the fact that I have to quote it and read it again to quote it. The only one emotion which comes to my mind when I read this is disgust. So I felt disugsted and pointed out to the person who posted it on whatsapp that this was sexist. The reaction to my pointing out that the "joke" is sexist, and standing my ground with the fact that the "joke" is sexist no matter how many ever people try to demean and vilify me (with comments like "you need to do some self analysis, shut up, be quiet, be silent, stop lecturing, I would like to know what is bothering you") made me write this post. Majority of the people who defended it are women and one boy much younger than me. (Now in India everyone hypes about "respecting" people based on age, so how come the millenial involved took it for granted that he can give orders to a woman much older than him?!! Just asking.) I do not want anyone to keep me on a pedestal and worship. But these people who got so much into verbally attacking a woman forgot that there are lines which cannot be crossed no matter who you are of one another.
Before I talk about the verbal bullying I had to face, let us look at the "joke" itself. I spotted it as sexist. Why? The primary reason is that I am a woman and as a woman I felt really bad about the "joke". Secondly that was a mean "joke" no matter whether is was for a woman, transgender or a man.
1) It is very clear that someone with a very bad view of women had written this "joke". If it is a man then he is a well pampered product of patriarchy and if it is a woman then she is obviously a life long slave of patriarchy. It frames a premise premedited to paint women in bad light. It does two bad things to demean women.
a) It calls all women as liars because they have long hair when a person who spoke truth has no hair! The writer could have used "people with hair" (even that would have been mean). But hell no! They deliberately used the word "ladies" which also stereotype women as having long hair. (Ironically all women who have short hair are questioned by society and treated by society as if something is wrong with them if they cut their hair short. May be society wants to brand all women as liars? And all men as truthful, so men are never allowed to grow their hair? Just wondering!)
2) Not only does this "joke" degrade women as liars and demands that all women should have long hair but also body shames a person for not having hair on his head. The joke speaks about a person who spoke truth and makes it look like speaking truth is harmful for your physical appearance!!
3) This "joke" is written as if a child is saying this. I can't even start to imagine what kind of family environment does this child live in. Obviously if a child has to say such vilifying things about "ladies" or women then this child must have picked it up from somewhere around them. That speaks a lot about the society and the homes they live in and their fathers and other relatives. Does it not?
Obviously the "joke" is not written by a child, but some deeply misogynistic adult who took it for granted that it is ok to have a "laugh" at the cost of vilifying a gender, if the gender happens to be the female one. And the "joke" gets forwarded and "enjoyed" by unsuspecting adults including women and a millenial adult male who cannot identify that it is blatantly sexist and jump in immediately to defend it. (No! They do not spare any effort to accuse, verbally assault and even paint the whistle blower as mentally unstable and the millenial freely says that the whistle blower woman (i.e. I) needs to do some self analysis, because she can spot sexism.)
Before I self analyse or anlyse the bullying I was subject to, I would like to analyse a few other things. Why couldn't these people identify that the "joke" was sexist and was demeaning women including them?!! How can people close their eyes to an obvious fact and pretend that nothing is wrong when everything is wrong and the proof is as plain as daylight? How can people not identify sexism as sexism? So will they be ok with rape "jokes" if someone forwards it to them tomorrow saying that "oh there is smiley emoji in it, so it is ok"? Or it is that they are ok with themselves being deemed as liars because they are women? Or do they feel that this "joke" was not even that bad as some of the other sexist remarks they may have to deal with on a daily basis? Or do they only have a problem only if the "jokes" were extreme? Or do they feel that if they say that a "silly thing" as being called a liar is sexism they will look less cool or less liberal? What is the difference between a "joke" which deems all women deliberately as liars and some hard core conservative ideology which discriminates women for having menstruation? There is no difference. They are all ultimately the same.
There are only a few explanations about why these women and the millenial male defended this blatantly bad portrayal of women. They were born and brought up in extreme patriarchical conditions where they were taught to tolerate every kind of verbal, physical and mental abuse, in all forms, subtle, moderate and violent forms and be a slave to the men in their lives and serve them no matter what happens. So they will not take the act of being called liars seriously and will brush off subtle sexism (until it all accumulates and causes severe damage) and do a disservice to themselves and other women.
It is absolutely unimaginable for me, how someone can be discriminated and be vilified for their gender and still defend the absuer (person or the idea) and pretend like "this does not pertain to me, it is other women who are being called liars". Seriously? Some other women would have thought like you and for them you might be the other woman who is a liar. Is that ok with you? Is it really ok with you if all the women start thinking so and women themselves deem each other as liars and bad people because a misogynist crafted a deliberate "joke" to abuse women and pit them against one another?
If tomorrow someone comes and beats you up and say it is out of love and care you will say that it is love/care? No I don't think so. (Asking since so many protests are going on about a certain movie and its director's crappy ideolgy about women.) So how is being deemed as liars because you are a woman ok with you? The attitude behind both are the same - that anybody can call, say and do anything to a woman.
How can you say and vouch that a "joke" calling all women including you do not apply to you because you don't have long hair or you don't feel vilified? It is not the question of the length of your hair or whether you feel it or not. It is like global warming and climate change, just because you are not feeling the heat while sitting inside the AC does not mean that it is not 40 deg and over heated outside! You are sitting in a building which is situated in the 40 deg overheated area, the moment your power supply switches off you will feel the heat too!!
The question of whether you "feel" like a liar is not the real issue here. What matters is that someone took it for granted that they can portray women in any way they want and demean us. Would you tolerate it if someone portrays you as a bad woman, makes rumours about you and denies your opportunities in life and brands it as a "practical joke"? Will you tolerate if someone comes and calls you a "liar" and a "cheat" in the middle of the street or to your house and says bad things to you? Do you tolerate if someone calls you with really bad cuss words? (Obviously you know what kind of person you are so, the cuss words won't make a difference but that does not make it ok that someone took it again for granted that you can be abused verbally because you are a woman.) So how can you justify a blatantly sexist "joke" which calls you, your mother, your daughter, your sister, your aunt, your grandmother or any woman in your life, a liar because you and they are women? How can you justify a mean "joke" like that?
These are the direct questions which that "joke" invokes.
*********************************************************************************
Now the discussion aka bullying which followed raises another set of serious questions. The set of questions will start from the question "who gave you permission to cross the line with me?"
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