Just be a Woman

Paul Samuelson once quipped that “women are just men with less money”. This aphorism is an an apt one-sentence summary of classical feminism.

The first generations of successful women insisted on being judged by the same standards as men. They had nothing but contempt for the notion of special treatment for “the sisters”, and instead insisted on getting ahead by dint of working harder and thinking smarter. Margaret Thatcher made no secret of her contempt for the impish men around her. But I believe that women will never fulfill their potential if they play by men’s rules. It is not enough to smash the glass ceiling. You need to audit the entire building for “gender asbestos” – in other words, root out the inherent sexism built into corporate structures and processes.

It is undeniable that women are wired differently from men, and not just in trivial ways. They are less aggressive and more consensus-seeking, less competitive and more collaborative, less power-obsessed and more group-oriented. Women excel at transformational and interactive management. Peninah Thomson and Jacey Graham, the authors of A Woman’s Place is in the Boardroom, assert that women are “better lateral thinkers than men” and “more idealistic” into the bargain. Feminist texts are suddenly full of references to tribes of monkeys, with their aggressive males and nurturing females.

Women being women is important for both feminism and business. I believe these “womanly” qualities are becoming ever more valuable in business. The recent financial crisis proved that the sort of qualities that men pride themselves on, such as risk-taking and bare-knuckle competition, can lead to disaster. Lehman Brothers would never have happened if it had been Lehman Sisters. Even before the financial disaster struck the best companies had been abandoning “patriarchal” hierarchies in favor of collaboration and networking, skills in which women have an inherent advantage.

Purdah Among Hindu Women

Married in a conservative family, I have always wondered at the numerous rules that a woman has to follow in my husband’s family. Here I must confess, though to my taste, his family is more conservative than the society that I come from, but they are one of the most radical families in their society. Please do not misunderstand me, I am not criticizing anyone. You see, first time I saw my mother-in-law, otherwise an independent woman who brought up three children singlehandedly, to do purdah in from of someone, I felt aghast. My head spun and said, "This is twenty-first century man!” Well I had no right to react that way, even if it was confined in my head. I must have realized that my mother-in-law was bound by custom she was brought up with, something she has been discoursed to do.

Yes, purdah is still followed in Hindu families in northern parts of India. Though it was not originally a Hindu rule, but was adopted by the Hindu middle and upper class during the Mughal and British rule, in order to upgrade their position in the social hierarchy. The purdah (veil) system amongst Hindu women in some parts of Northern India originated during Mughal rule, to protect local women from Mughal invaders and now that India is a free country women should abandon the veil and get educated. So many classes amongst the Hindus adopted an Islamic tradition of purdah and Victorian tradition of chastity of women, to elevate their social position.

The origin of the purdah is not actually relevant. The point is that the purdah system exists only in parts of north India today, not in the west, south or the east. Even if some ‘medieval’ practices such as these did exist in these parts, it is clear that time diluted them … except in north India. Why? Obviously it is north India which bore the brunt of the attacks of various invaders throughout history and it is an indisputable fact that during war and foreign rule, women are often raped and kidnapped. That is why the system did not vanish in parts of north India, in fact it has become ingrained in some communities. Women are kept cloistered and denied an education.

Certainly, in the north-eastern parts of India and say Kerala, which were areas far far away from the invading armies, the status of women continued to improve. So really, it is a historical fact that the invading armies of the Turks, Arabs, the Mughals and the Victorian values the British brought in had something to do with the purdah system in north India.

But the question that is relevant today is why do women today still follow such custom? Evidently this is a very demeaning custom for women where their movement and expression are restricted due to the very use of a veil. From what I saw in my husband’s village and society, it is more of a custom that women want other women to follow. You see I was actually asked to do purdah in front of older men of the household as a sign of respect, whereas I do not have to follow the custom while I’m in front of my father-in-law. My sister-in-law must have a scarf or dupatta over her head when in front of her in-laws. My mother-in-law does purdah from elders from her village. this is so because they have been brought up to do it and have been constructed to do it. I, on the other hand, though not constructed to do it, was asked to do it, and did it out of respect for my mother-in-law. This is a custom perpetrated on women by other women and the cycle continues.

Though the severity of the tradition has reduced greatly, still there are instances where incidents like honor killing, female infanticide,  and sati still catch media attention. Women are subjugated and still they want to climb up. But social change works at a snail’s pace, and therefore, the observers must be patient.

All things said and done, one must not forget that this custom is a foreign custom that had crept into the Indian or rather Hindu society and the concept of Victorian chastity has been imbibed from the British themselves. Though we gained independence six decades ago, we are still chained to the ideologies the firangis brought to the country.

Are We Happy?

Am I happy? What a stupid question. Do you mean happy as in content? Joyful? Hopeful? Relieved? Counting my blessings? Intent on absorbing work? Depending on your definition–and when you ask me, and who you are–I could give a dozen different answers. If you really want to know how I feel about my life, you would have to get to know me and ask me a whole lot of particular questions, which could not necessarily be boiled down to a single answer, and could certainly not be used to compare my happiness with someone else’s–because how can anyone know if what I mean by happiness is what that other person means? Keats was happy when he wrote "Ode to a Nightingale," Eichmann was happy when he met his daily quota of murdered Jews, and I am happy to be living this year in Kolkata. Only a pollster (or an economist) would conflate these things. In fact, only a pollster would think that people tell pollsters the truth.

But why let quibbles stand in the way of a chance to attack feminism? According to The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, an analysis of General Social Survey data by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, women are less happy than they used to be, are less happy than men and become increasingly unhappy as they get older. These results, he claims, are independent of whether women are rich or poor, married or single, work or stay home.  They believe that “Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s reported higher subjective well-being than did men.” Therefore it can be said that though women now have the liberty to choose whichever life they’d like, many are struggling in their pursuit of a happy life.  Maureen Dowd concurs that the problem is that women have too many choices – a paradox, indeed. Dowd and many others are late to the party, actually: Ross Douthat devoted his New York Times column to the subject back in May. His culprit? Increased acceptance of single motherhood. Bring back “social stigma” – for women’s own good.

Using a single statistic as a peg for your pet theory is a game we all can play. But before you leap in with your own, consider this: the actual differences, some present as enormous, are tiny. Mark Liberman sets it out on Language Log, in 1972-74, 31.9 percent of men said they were very happy, 53 percent said they were pretty happy and 15.1 percent said they were not too happy; among women, the corresponding figures were 37 percent, 49.4 percent and 13.6 percent. For 2004, 2006 and 2008, 29.8 percent of men said they were very happy, 56.1 percent were pretty happy and 14 percent were not too happy; for women it was 31.2, 54.9 and 13.9. In other words, women today self-report a bit less manic joy than three decades ago, as do men, and a bit more modified rapture. But women still say they are happier than do men, contrary to journalistic rumor; and, most important, both in the 1970s and the 2000s, more than eight in ten women and men said they were very or fairly happy. The percentage of “not too happy” men has declined by 1.1 percent, and the percentage of such women has increased by a great big 0.3 percent. Three additional women in a thousand: that’s what the fuss over “women’s unhappiness” is all about.

There are plenty of possible reasons why more people in recent years would report slightly less happiness than thirty years ago. Perhaps people are more lonely – all those hours in front of screens. Perhaps it’s the stressed-out economy, or over-the-top consumerism, or increased inequality, or less leisure time. Or maybe the definition of happiness has changed since 1972 – or are simply becoming a bit more honest. After all, somebody is taking all those legal and illegal mood-elevating drugs, and going to all those therapists, and buying all those books about how to cheer up. From the information given, there is no way to tell. Nor is it possible to say, simply by looking at the self-reports of men and women over time, what role feminism plays, if any. After all, women moving into higher education and the workforce is not the only thing that has happened in the past thirty years. If you want to play ridiculous numbers games, it could be that feminist gains have made women 10 percent happier, but something else – the fraying of the safety net, the turbo-charged misogyny of pop culture, reading too many self-help books –has canceled it out. You just can’t say. You can, however, safely dismiss those who pooh-pooh the argument that women’s “second shift” at home is to blame because men are doing more. OK, but last time I looked, more was not half. As Dr. Johnson said in another context, If you’re going to calculate, calculate.

But how happy were women, really, in that golden pre-feminist era? Culture critic Caryl Rivers pointed out in 1973, studies showing that married women had the highest levels of psychiatric problems, including depression and anxiety, prompted sociologist Jessie Bernard to declare marriage a “health hazard for women.” If that’s no longer true, why not give feminism some credit?

As for those still sky-high levels of good cheer, I’m skeptical. People answering yes to a pollster’s question about happiness is like saying, “Fine, thanks” when someone asks, “How are you?” If it actually represents a truthful and considered answer, either people have entirely given up following the news or the Prozac is working.

Is this feminism?

The media went hysterical over Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and Republican nominee for vice president. She may have appeared to the public as an independent, capable professional woman, but to a particular elite she couldn’t possibly be a real feminist or even a serious candidate. And that raises questions about what is – and what is not – feminism.

Feminism grew out of the 1960s to address sexual inequality. Women then earned decorative degrees and went to work once.  A single job and then she went back home to raise three children with her husband. Well, come to think of it, that happens even today! But that is not the argument. This happened then.

The early feminists had a common and compelling argument, which went something like this: Women should receive equal pay for equal work, and not be considered mere appendages of their husbands. Childrearing – if properly practiced as a joint enterprise – did not preclude women from pursuing careers. A woman’s worth was not to be necessarily judged by having either too many or too few children, given the privacy of such decisions and the co-responsibility of male partners.

In such an ideal gender-blind workplace, women were not to be defined by their husband’s or father’s success or failure. The beauty of women’s liberation was that it was not hierarchical but included the unmarried woman who drove a combine on her own farm, the corporate attorney and the homemaker who chose to home-school her children.

Women in the workplace did not look for special favors. And they surely did not wish to deny innately feminine differences. Instead, they asked only that men should not establish arbitrary rules of the game that favored their male gender.

Soon radical changes in American attitudes about birth control, abortion, dating, marriage and health care became, for some, part and parcel of women’s liberation. But in its essence feminism still was about equality of opportunity, and so included women of all political and religious beliefs.

That old definition of feminism is now dead. It has been replaced by a new creed that is far more restrictive — as the controversy over Sarah Palin attests. Out of the recent media frenzy, four general truths emerged about the new feminism:

First, there is a particular class and professional bent to the practitioners of feminism. Sarah Palin has as many kids as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she has as much of a prior political record as the once-heralded Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, who was named to the Democratic ticket by Walter Mondale in 1984 – and arguably has as much as, or more executive experience than, Barack Obama. Somehow all that got lost in the endless sneering stories about her blue-collar conservatism, small Alaskan town, five children, snowmobiling husband and Idaho college degree.

Second, feminism now often equates to a condescending liberalism. Emancipated women who, like Palin, do not believe in abortion or are devout Christians are at best considered unsophisticated dupes. At worse, they are caricatured as conservative interlopers, piggybacking on the hard work of leftwing women whose progressive ideas alone have allowed the Palins of the world the choices that otherwise they would not now enjoy.

Apparently these feminists believe that without the ideas of Gloria Steinem on abortion, a moose-hunting PTA mom would not have made governor. The Democrat’s vice presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said Palin’s election, given her politics, would be “a backward step for women.”

Third, hypocrisy abounds. Many female critics of Palin, in Washington and New York politics and media, found their careers enhanced through the political influence of their powerful fathers, their advantageous marriages to male power players and the inherited advantages of capital. The irony is that a Palin – like a Barbara Jordan, Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher – made her own way without the help of money or influence.

Fourth, most Americans still believe in the old feminism but not this new doctrinaire liberal brand. Consequently, a struggling John McCain suddenly has shot ahead of Obama in the polls. Apparently millions of Americans like Palin’s underdog feminist saga and her can-do pluckiness. Many are offended by haughty liberal media elites sneering at someone that, politics aside, they should be praising – for her substantial achievements, her inspirational personal story and her Obama-like charisma.

The question is ‘what is feminism today? is it this?’