Tag Archives: feminism

Abortion: Child-killing by mothers on demand

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From DesiringGood.org

” We have allowed legal child-killing on-demand for 41 years because we’ve called it something else.

That’s why Christians, the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” (Matthew 5:13–14) must keep speaking the truth about what abortion is with relentless clarity. “We destroy arguments” (2 Corinthians 10:5) by not yielding the ground of clear truth. Because life is in the power of truth-speaking tongues.

Therefore, we will keep saying:

Abortion kills children and we all know this.

Our legal code demonstrates that we know this because it grants an unborn child the rights of personhood in areas such as tort, criminal, and property law, making legalized abortion a schizophrenic, arbitrary, and tragically defective legal ruling.

Abortion is mercilessly violent. Children with heartbeats, brainwaves, and a nervous system that allows them to feel pain are literally torn to pieces.

“93% of all abortions [in the United States] are performed on healthy mothers, with healthy babies . . . Less than 1% are performed because of rape or incest.” (Abort73)

The number of children killed by abortion every year dwarfs the Holocaust and other homicidal horrors of history.

  • Approximately 3,300 children are killed by abortion every day in the United States. Americans kill 1.2 million unborn children every year.
  • The World Health Organization estimates between 40 and 50 million children are killed around the world by abortion, approximately 125,000 every day.”

What made me rethink my pro-choice position on abortion was seeing its inextricable connection with modern feminism, for what is the force behind the massive number of abortions if it isn’t contemporary feminism, whose extreme face can be seen in this account from December 2012, an account you will never find in the major media:

“Extremely disturbing video footage from Argentina shows a mob of feminists at a recent protest attacking and sexually molesting a group of Rosary-praying Catholic men who were peacefully protecting the cathedral in the city of San Juan from threats of vandalism.

The women, many of them topless, spray-painted the men’s crotches and faces and swastikas on their chests and foreheads, using markers to paint their faces with Hitler-like moustaches. They also performed obscene sexual acts in front of them and pushed their breasts onto their faces, all the while shouting “get your rosaries out of our ovaries.” (Note: Some of the most graphic content has been removed from the video. Uncensored footage is available here. Viewer discretion strongly advised.)

[Lila: This link is difficult to access. Here’s another of the same video.]

According to InfoCatolica, some of the women chanted a song, with the lyrics: “To the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, who wants to get between our sheets, we say that we want to be whores, travesties and lesbians. Legal abortion in every hospital.”

During the attack some men were visibly weeping. None of them retaliated against the abuses heaped on them.”

What the Argentine feminists did in this incident was nothing more than sexual torture. It was no different from what American female guards did to Iraqi male prisoners, captured in this infamous photograph:

The psychology of Abu Ghraib can be found in modern gender feminist ideology, with its pathological aversion toward men and its denial of full humanity to them.

This is no exaggeration.

At “A Voice For Men,” Paul Elam describes how feminists in Vancouver attacked a men’s rights activist for putting up posters stating that men have rights too.

The aversion is only one expression of feminism’s warped attitude toward female sexuality. Another more fundamental one is the murder on demand of children. Modern feminists themselves admit the non-negotiability of abortion to feminism:

((Tracey Morrisey: “There is no such thing as a pro-life feminist,” Gawker)

Antonia Senior, an honest gender feminist, even admits that abortion is murder but yet goes on to argue that it is a lesser evil that must yield before the absolute feminist principle that a woman must have the right to control her reproduction.

Dr Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, described Senior’s article  as a “moral earthquake”:

“Even as she admits that her position on the moral status of the unborn child has been utterly changed, she insists that her absolutist position on abortion rights has not. When it comes down to the right of the fetus to live versus the right of the mother to abort, the abortion right wins.

Abortion, which she acknowledges is the killing of a human life, is defined as “a lesser evil” than the curtailing of abortion rights in the name of liberating women.

“As ever, when an issue we thought was black and white becomes more nuanced, the answer lies in choosing the lesser evil,” she assures. “The nearly 200,000 aborted babies in the UK each year are the lesser evil, no matter how you define life, or death, for that matter. If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too.”

There you have it. To be a true feminist, in the modern sense, you must be willing to kill your baby if it interferes in the life you have chosen for yourself…. and for no other reason. The brutality of the modern female arises from this fundamental brutality to her own off-spring and the contempt she displays simultaneously for her own body and sexual nature.

This contempt is evident in the way the  Ukrainian feminist revolutionary group, Femen, deliberately uses the naked bodies of its members like weapons in public protests:

“While other groups focus on one or two issues, Femen are everywhere. Over the past few years they have protested for gay rights in St Peter’s Square during the Pope’s weekly prayers; against the use of ultra-thin models at Milan fashion week; and during Euro 2012, in Ukraine, they grabbed the championship trophy in protest against the sex industry. In London last summer, they smeared themselves in fake blood and accused the International Olympic Committee of supporting “bloody Islamist regimes”; at Davos, in January, they protested against male domination of the world economy. And in February, they provoked both raised eyebrows and a few sniggers by launching themselves topless at Silvio Berlusconi.

Their campaigning is unified by one central aim: to use their breasts to expose corruption and inequality wherever they see it. “One of the main goals,” says Inna, “is to take the masks off people who wear them, to show who they are, and the level of fucking patriarchy in this world, you know?” She says they also want to reclaim women’s bodies for women. “A woman’s naked body has always been the instrument of the patriarchy,” she says, “they use it in the sex industry, the fashion industry, advertising, always in men’s hands. We realised the key was to give the naked body back to its rightful owner, to women, and give a new interpretation of nudity … I’m proud of the fact that today naked women are not just posing on the cover of Playboy, but can be at an action, angry, and can irritate people.”

The group started in 2006, when founders Anna Hutsol, Oksana Shachko and Alexandra Shevchenko (no relation to Inna), became friends in their home town in Ukraine. It was not long after the orange revolution, in which Ukrainians had demonstrated for democracy, and Alexandra, 24, says they wanted to keep the revolutionary feeling going. They started a women’s group, and began organising against the sex industry. Sex tourism is a major problem in Ukraine, and every woman is victimised as a result, says Alexandra. “You’d walk down the street and foreigners, men, would come up to you, ask how much, touch you.”

Inna joined the group in 2009, after meeting the other women on social media. In those early days they were just developing their views. Feminism was unpopular in Ukraine; saying you were a feminist was “something similar to saying you’re an idiot, you’re crazy,” says Inna. Alexandra says she used to believe the “image created by patriarchy, where feminists are ugly women with moustaches who want to cut off men’s penises”. (They’ve played with this imagery themselves. Until recently, their website featured a picture of a woman holding an enormous scythe in one hand, a bloody scrotum in the other.)”

British Charity “Rape Crisis” Is A UK Govt Front

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From LibertarianAlliance.wordpress.com:

“One of the points I made was that RC [Rape Crisis] can hardly be regarded as an independent voice.

Bearing in mind that it gets the majority of its funding from the Home Office and the Equalities Unit, it should be regarded as a front for the British State – ie, it’s another fake charity.

I didn’t actually accuse RC of corrupt motives, but did draw attention to the scale of funding and the fact that HMG would dearly love to put Julian Assange on the first plane to Stockholm.”

Sean points to the accounts, the most recent set available, which is not very recent by company-or-private-sector-standards and would get them heavily finded for lateness if they were a simple plumber or small retailer…which says in the small print at the back that:-

(1) “Rape Crisis” received in 2008, £6,285 from charitable and fundraising activities, and £103,750 from the Home Office, “Lankelly Chase” (which must be some place or other), “UNISON” and the Government Equalities Office”.

(2) In 2009, it received £11,214 from charitable and fundraising activities, and  £196.685 from the various collectivist sources stated just now above.

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends80/0001119680_ac_20090331_e_c.pdf
I think that makes it a “fake charity, don’t you? It seems to exist to do PR to lobby the government into bring in laws that the government wants brought in.

False rape reports in US army up by 35% in 3 years

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The Washington Times,  May 12, 2013 reports that a Pentagon study has shown false rape reports increasing almost 9 times the rate of increase in abuse reports:

QUOTE:

‘From 2009 to 2012, the number of sexual abuse reports rose from 3,244 to 3,374 — a 4 percent increase.

During the same period, the number of what the Pentagon calls “unfounded allegations” based on completed investigations of those reports rose from 331 to 444 — a 35 percent increase.

In 2012, there were 2,661 completed investigations, meaning that the 444 false complaints accounted for about 17 percent of all closed cases last year. False reports accounted for about 13 percent of closed cases in 2009.

Robert Maginnis, a retired Army officer and analyst at the Family Research Council, is writing a book for Regnery Publishing Inc. about the Pentagon’s push to put women in direct ground combat in the infantry, armor and special operations.

“In the course of conducting interviews with commanders, I heard time and again complaints about female service members making sex-related allegations which proved unfounded,” Mr. Maginnis said. “Not only do some women abuse the truth, but it also robs their commanders from more important, mission-related tasks.

“Female service members told me that some women invite problems which lead men on and then result in advances the woman can’t turn off. Too often, such female culpability leads to allegations of sexual contact, assault and then the women feign innocence.”

Comment:

“As in the hyped Indian rape crisis, the cause for the increase in assaults and false accusations of assault lies in ill-conceived laws put in place to satisfy the gender feminists’ need to have perfect equality with men, regardless of the dictates of nature or nurture.

See “Flawed new rape laws roils military justice system,” MacClatchey, Sept. 21, 2011 which reports on the crisis in military justice caused by a badly thought out law provoked by the rise in intimate contacts between men and women as they become more integrated in the army. In other words,  integration of the sexes has back-fired in ways gender feminists refuse to accept.

QUOTE:

“Six years ago, Congress tried cracking down on rape in the military. Prompted by disturbing reports of sexual assaults in military academies and war zones, lawmakers rewrote the rules. They wanted to protect victims and help prosecutors.

Now it’s clear that the effort backfired.

The politically attractive but poorly understood legal changes have incited courtroom confusion, judicial frustration and constitutional conflict. Extensive interviews and a McClatchy review of thousands of pages of court documents and internal studies find a congressionally caused crisis of military justice that few civilians know anything about.”

Fake “Rape Crisis”: UK rape rate ten times Indian

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One feminist notices something odd in the hype about the Indian rape crisis:

QUOTE:

“Let’s look at the numbers for India, population 1.2 billion (about 48% of whom are women):

In 2011 there were 24,206 reported rapes. Of these 26 per cent resulted in convictions.

The UK has a population of about 56.2 million.”

Lila: This  article was written in January 2013.  I don’t know where the author got her numbers.

The UK population in 2011 was 63.3 million. The population in 2012 was 63.7 million.

The Indian population in 2011 was approx. 1.21 billion.    In 2012 it was 1.22 billion.

That means that the UK has a population that is roughly 20 times smaller than India’s.

The article continues:

QUOTE:

“Fifty-one per cent are female.

In 2011 there were 14,624 rapes reported. Of which 24 per cent resulted in a “conviction or caution”.

Lila: If these rape statistics are in any way accurate, then the rape numbers in the UK are nearly half those in India, even though the Indian population is 20 times greater.

That means that the per capita rape rate in India is TEN TIMES smaller than that in the UK, a settled and developed country, with high levels of prosperity and education, one of the major powers.

Moreover, the UK rape rate is this high, even though Britain is a heavily policed country, with perhaps the most extensive surveillance networks in the world that routinely and illegally snoop on British citizens.

Britain also has a large and complex criminal justice system with multiple agencies to protect women and an academic culture that often shills for the feminist agenda.

But nonetheless the British rape rate is ten times that of India.  Where is the outrage?

Remember that the Indian rape rate is ten times smaller, despite extensive and severe poverty in India, few social networks outside kinship networks, and a very low per capita rate of policing.

Remember that India also has a very large population of illiterate young males, many without jobs and routinely experiences huge influxes of migrant workers into  severely overcrowded cities, already suffering from near-collapse in infrastructure and utilities.

Remember that India suffers from critical energy and water shortages, from soaring food and gas prices, from inflation and endemic corruption.

It has some of the world’s most congested and dangerous roads and some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists and separatists.

It is the target of unrelenting espionage and interference from the major powers.

India suffers in addition all the extraordinary stresses of very rapid economic development coupled with the crushing impact of  an alienating foreign culture on its traditional social fabric.

Finally, remember that behind the Indian rape rate are financial incentives created by feminist laws that reward women with windfall sums for bringing rape charges.

The Indian law privileges women as rape-victims while denying even the possibility that women might molest and rape, thus erasing the male as victim of sexual violence.

India has a jurisprudence weighted in favor of the woman coupled with a  feminist leadership that nonetheless demands even greater privileges and exemptions.

It has a media culture that is sensitive to every outrage to women and silent on outrages against men.

And yet, incredibly, the rape rate in India is ten times smaller than that in Britain.

So, where, I repeat, is the outrage?

Where is the United Nations study on the parlous condition of women in the United Kingdom, which rapes at ten times the rate of India?

Where is the UN study on the US, which rapes at higher rates than India?

Where is the UN study on South Africa, which rapes at higher rates than India?

Fake Indian “rape crisis” driven by Western elite media

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Update: My blog post on the bogus nature of UN rape studies:
http://mindbodypolitic.org/2014/02/02/the-highest-rape-rates-by-country/

ORIGINAL POST
An Indian “rape crisis” has been evoked in the major media in the wake of the infamous Delhi gang-rape of 2012.

The “rape culture” narrative about India has come to signal the regressive, medieval nature of traditional Indian masculinity.

Palash Ghosh argues that Indian men, who, after 9/11, were conflated with the category “terrorist,” are now being conflated with the category, “rapist.”

Delhi gang-rape trial: A new and negative image for Indian men? Palash Ghosh, Ibntimes.com, Feb 5, 2013

I would suggest that this conflation is intentional and it is typical of the demonization campaigns carried out by the Western state media against countries targeted for intervention, whether that takes the form of bombing or of proxy wars or of NGO psyops.

 

I would suggest that there is no “rape crisis” in India in need of such international intervention.

There is, however, an over-hyped, UN-backed,  elite-manufactured issue that functions as a site for state intervention.

The ” rape crisis” is actually the creation of  the left-liberal ideology that fronts for the corporate interests of Western elites.

This can be readily deciphered from the media stories about the Delhi gang rape.

The major media (Western elite) coverage of the Delhi rape posited it as typical of the medieval village culture characterizing Delhi, in which no Westernized/modern woman can ever be safe.

In contrast, the truly cosmopolitan cities of the West protect women, ran the elite narrative.

Statistics, of course, do not bear this story out.

Poulami Roychowdhury has argued as much in her lengthy academic analysis of the story:

“The Delhi Gang Rape: The Making of International Causes.”

QUOTE:

“CNN likened the assailants to men in other “traditional societies” who “see improvements in the status of women as a challenge to their own” and who use rape as a weapon of power against such advances.”

Roychowdhury shows how the international media created a false narrative of a Westernized, modern woman attacked by traditional, patriarchal, village men.

The truth is both the victim and her assailants were remarkably similar in moving from lower-class agricultural backgrounds into an urban setting.

The international media narrative also ignored the Indian man who attempted to save the victim.

He was also stripped and assaulted.

But the media erased him entirely from public consciousness.

QUOTE

“It goes almost without saying that Pandey’s case illustrates the ongoing resilience and appeal of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “white men saving brown women from brown men.”
Spivak’s theory illuminates why Pandey’s male friend, Awindra Pandey, disappeared from the pages of international media while Pandey and her assailants took pride of place in the discussion. Commentators seemed to forget that Awindra was even on the busand was also physically assaulted, stripped naked, and dumped on the side of the road. He disappeared, Firstly, because his body stood outside the economy of international care: white men are not in the business of saving brown men from other brown men. He also had to disappear because brown men are not typically viewed as allies of brown women.”

Chowdhury also demonstrates how the  emancipated female subject in the third-world  exists in a  narrative that ties her emancipation to her full participation in the neo-liberal economy.

She is described as going to malls and movies on her own, wearing Western clothes and accoutrements.

Meanwhile  the atavism of her male attackers is tied to their lack of integration into that economy.

Neither construction is accurate.

The “rape crisis” was a creation of  radical feminism embedded in the neo-liberal market-place, not an off-shoot of traditional Indian culture.

ITEM A The rape crisis is driven by financial incentives created by misguided, if not malicious, laws put in place by feminist ideologues.

See, “India to pay women big money to cry rape,” False Rape Society, January 8, 2010

It describes the law which has driven the “crisis of rape” now bearing fruition.

” It [India] has decreed that every woman who testifies that a male raped her will be handed the equivalent of 4,374.96 US dollars, a not-insignificant sum anywhere, but a huge payday in India.”

[Lila: in terms of Indian salaries, this would be the equivalent of $200,000 in the West, if we use the exchange rate prevalent at the time. Of course, this translation doesn’t account for the differing purchasing powers of the currencies, but $4, 374.96 is nonetheless a very large sum in India.]

ITEM B

The “rape  crisis” is driven by cultural Marxism

The goal of cultural Marxism is to create morally and biologically neutral “genders” that are fungible and detached from the traditional family structure.

Indeed, it is to construct “gender” so that it is inimical to family life.

In that regard, it’s notable that the man behind many of the protests following the Delhi gang-rape case was a left-wing radical.

 

He was a communist radical from the hot-bed of left-wing ideology, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The protests following the rapes were also organized mainly by left-wing radicals.

Many of the protests turned violent, injuring nearly 150 people.

QUOTE:

“The protests, largely by students, saw hooligan elements mingled in the crowd uproot wooden poles erected for the Jan 26 Republic Day event and set them afire at five places. They upturned vehicles, smashed window panes of buses and other vehicles and also hurled stones and water bottles on policemen in response to tear gas and baton attacks to prevent protesters from marching towards Raisina Hills, where prohibitory orders were put in place.”

Pictures of the protests were circulated world-wide, bringing even the UN into the picture.

The UN made official pronouncements about a “rape culture” in India.

 

This led to the usual politically-motivated commentary from the liberal-left spectrum of the Western media.

However, a few conservative/men’s rights blogs didn’t buy the story and correctly diagnosed the “rape crisis” as a concoction of left-feminist ideological activism.

Similar accusations of an American “rape-culture” have been accurately deconstructed by Dr. Christina Hoff Summers

“Researching the “rape-culture” of America,” Christina Hoff Summers, False-rape.net.

Only a year after the Delhi gang-rape case, the JNU communist who was behind the Indian “rape-crisis” agitation was himself accused of rape. He became the subject of the usual  trial-by-media-innuendo-and-womyn’s-assertion.

He killed himself, a victim of the left-anarchist monster he created.

The extremist ideology behind the “rape crisis” is evident in the new unequal laws in India.

In the case of rape:

See “Only men can be booked for rape,“ Nagendra Sharma, Hindustan Times, March 5, 2013

“Bowing to pressure from women activists, the government has decided to restore the term rape in criminal law that states only men can be booked for committing the offence against women. It has also decided to lower the age of consent for sex from 18 to 16 years.”

This is not gender-neutrality but gender-privileging.  It means that a female assault of a male, or a male assault of a male, or a male or female assault of a male child, are lesser crimes, to be treated under the separate section in the Indian legal code that pertains to unnatural sexual acts.

But that section does not make the rape of a male a crime against a person. Instead, it treats it as a crime against nature, like voluntary homosexuality.

That means female rapists/molesters of men or children can be guilty of unnatural acts, but not of rape, a most significant perversion of equal justice under the law.

In the case of domestic violence:

A woman can get a restraining order against her husband or boyfriend if he threatens suicide.

Under Indian law, threats of suicide by a man, however, are treated as domestic violence against the woman.

The reverse does not obtain.

If India were really a woman-hating patriarchy, as the feminists proclaim, would such laws pass?

At one men’s rights site, an activist writes:

[Note added: Paul Elam, the founder of the site, “A Voice for Men,” seems to have anger management problems that have led him to make incendiary statements I do not in any way endorse. I also do not support the harassment of feminist activists.]

“We’ve already seen men in that country [India] forced to the back of buses like African-Americans in 1950s America.  We’ve seen them beaten up by members of the public and female police officers alike for accidentally boarding the “female only” carriage of a train.  And now we’re seeing the government actively denying them equal protection under the law in sexual assaults.“

Conclusion: What is going on in India is not a rape crisis but a crisis of misandry.

1. “Indian Communist feminist Khurshid Anwar commits suicide after rape allegations,“ Anil Kumar, A Voice for Men, Dec. 30, 2013.

2.” Woman should be booked for filing fake rape case, says HC,” Urvi Mahajani, DNA India, August 1, 2013

3. “Be vigilant about false rape cases: HC to trial judges,” Harish Nair, Hindustan Times, May 24, 2013

4. “18% rape cases false, study,” Times of India, Dec. 27, 2008

5.  Delhi gang-rape case: Police find discrepancies in victim’s statement,” FirstPost, Jan 28, 2014

6.  Activists: Indian media sensationalized Delhi gang-rape case, Venus Upadhyaya, Epoch Times, October 11, 2013

7. Attributing rapes to unique Indian culture reeks of bias, Gajanan Khergamker, Eurasia Review, March 28, 2013

8. Indian government – men don’t matter, David Cuspis, A Voice for Men, March 29, 2013

9. One in four men in Asia ‘admits to committing rape’? It doesn’t add up, Stuart Brown, The Guardian, Sept 18, 2013.

10. A sad day for male rape victims in India,  Toy Soldiers, March 6, 2013

Female abuse of males: enshrined in Indian law

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In light of the hyped-up rape crisis in India, I wanted to repost an old post of mine from 2008 that shows how feminist-inspired laws have only been making gender-relations  worse:

In India, the Old Curry for the Goose is the New Curry for the Gander, April 30, 2008:

“The marriage of Naveen, an engineer in Florida, hit rock bottom in mere five months.

“I just asked her why she was in touch with her boyfriend. She tried to harm herself with a knife. We returned to India and I suggested she stay with her parents for some time. As soon as I was back in the US, she filed a 498-A case against my family and me. My parents were jailed for three days,” said Naveen, a case against whom is on in India and an Interpol Red Corner Notice pending abroad.

Anupama Singh, the secretary of Rakshak that has raked up such cases, said the voluntary organisation has received over 700 such complaints, half of them from the US alone.

“We don’t say all these are genuine cases, but many are. The government is not really concerned. It’s futile to talk about the plight of men and their families by the women they marry.

“In contrast, the cases of women being tortured by their husbands abroad have been overplayed with the government claiming that 30,000 brides — 15,000 from Punjab’s Doab region alone — had been abandoned abroad,” she said.

But in 2005, the government said in Parliament that only 100 such complaints had been received. The ministry of overseas Indian affairs (MOIA) recently revised the figure to 152. The trend, therefore, is more of vanishing brides and abandoned grooms abroad, Singh added.”

Comment

That’s from the Times of India last year, describing the ongoing barrage of domestic abuse of non-resident Indian males (especially high-status, high-earning males)  by their delicately-nurtured, oh-so-domestic, docile, doe-eyed, dosa-making desi brides).

No surprise. Whenever the state starts “doing-good” with its right hand, its left hand has the thumb pressed into the pan of the scales. Dowry laws were cooked up to protect victimized wives.  But after gender feminists got done with the recipe, a new set of victims had been trussed up for carving on the marital altar – husbands.”

Another MBP post from 2008 on the gender-nazis in India:

“Feminastiness: Eastern Men As Oppressive As Westerners,” April 14, 2008

I quote a men’s rights blog from India that satirizes the condition of Indian males (especially doctors and other highly educated men with middle-class or upper-middle class wives).

The blog suggests the following satirical remedies for “oppressed women”:

QUOTE:

2) As soon as a woman marries, she should get 50% rights to her husband’s property.

3) Large scale single parenting by woman (with maintenance provided by husband) is the norm. Research shows that children who are not allowed to see their fathers after divorce for years grow up to be very healthy. In India, Gender Sensitive judges alone should decide if the women should allow the father to see the child after divorce or not. Or if he should ever see them.

4) Any violence committed by woman against others (including murder) should be considered self-defense.

5) The disparity between life expectancy rates in men and women needs to be raised to the levels in developed countries. In India, women live 2.4 years more than men on an average. This difference has to be improved to the levels in the US and Europe where women live more than 6 years than men on an average.”

The writer is especially pungent about the abusive dowry death law, which punishes the man and his family by default:

QUOTE::

7) For any woman who commits suicide within 7 years of marriage, a dowry harassment (or other harassment) case against the husband should be filed by default. He should be imprisoned for at least a year for not taking care of his wife.

If a woman complains of domestic violence, the man should be imprisoned immediately and bail only granted by a court. All their joint bank accounts need to be frozen at once.”

Lila: The author shows how the new gender-roles make the women far more powerful than the husband, both financially and emotionally.

QUOTE:

9) A man must do half of all household work, even if his wife is not working. But he must always work full-time. If he does not, even if he does all house work, he should be labeled lazy, improvident, pathetic, and derelict, certainly in private, and preferably in public where it will cause maximum humiliation and pain either to him or to his relatives. If a woman does not work either outside the house or in, she is nonetheless entitled to all consideration and respect and anything less than deferential treatment of all her needs, demands, whims, and psychiatric moods should be considered a violation of her human rights.”

Lila: Having full control of the husband’s finances and of her time, she thus has the power to entirely control his life, his family and all other relationships.

QUOTE:

10) After marriage, a man must not stay with his parents or allow his parents to stay for a prolonged period with him (”prolonged” to be decided by the woman and subject to revision at any time on request by her, her friends, or her relatives however distant and uneducated). He must allow her in-laws to stay in his house for at least the same length of time his parents stay in his house. If he violates any of these fundamental human rights of a woman, he can be imprisoned for neglect and abuse of his in-laws.

Lila: In some cases, the in-laws stay with her continuously at the husband’s expense, while the husband’s family are kept at a distance. The isolation of the male perpetuates a  system of hidden but intense abuse that would be considered rank criminality if it were to take place between business associates.

QUOTE:

13) The richer and the more educated the men are, the more pressure should be placed on them. They should provide the wife with a lifestyle equivalent to their status….. and they must also spend quality time with family (See 9, 10, 11 above). If this is still impossible, see 12.

14) By definition, Bangalore techies (since they work with software) are required to be softer than others. Since they are also paid more than most, they should deposit 20% of their monthly salary, at least,  in their wives’ names.”

Lila: Finally, the author points out that women who really do suffer abuse in India (usually poorer women) use domestic violence laws far less than the upper class urban sector, where women are increasingly the predators, not the victims.

QUOTE:

19) Since, rural women do not suffer from domestic violence (see 18), domestic violence laws must be used mostly – and most stringently –  in urban India.

“More here in the archives of one of many new blogs on the feminist abuse of dowry and domestic abuse laws in India.

Draupadi Disrobed: India Strip-Searched By US…..

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Draupadi disrobed in the Mahabharat

Credit for image of Draupadi vastraharan to Naari.com

“When the US tows away a Russian diplomat’ car in Washington for a parking violation, six US diplomatic cars disappear in Moscow. The Russian car then magically appears with apology.

That is the type of diplomacy we need.”

This was a comment I saw posted at the Indian news site, Firstpost.com, below an article on the unequal “relationship” between the US and  India, as evidenced in the Devyani Khobragade case.

India is claiming “victory” …….even though a senior female diplomat still faces indictment and a possible 10 year sentence and was strip-searched and cavity-inspected, for an allegation over what amounts to a routine visa issue.

Meanwhile, not even a criminal case was registered against Wayne May (the State Dept Security chief in New Delhi who is behind the whole affair.

May was guilty of subversion of the Indian judiciary, actual trafficking, and tax and visa fraud.

Further clarification of  a canard being circulated that Khobragade was lying.

Devyani Khobragade says she was strip-searched, DNA swabbed, and cavity-searched, multiple times.

The US Marshals deny that she was cavity-searched but admit she underwent a standard procedure strip-search.

So who is telling the truth? Devyani or the Marshals?

BOTH. There is just a confusion of terms.

Under US law today (ratified by Supreme Court in a 2012 case), arrests are accompanied by strip-searches.

1 The standard procedure of a strip-search

This is what the US Marshals admitted happened.

It involves the removal of all clothes and examination of all bodily cavities, including mouth, nose, ears, eyes, genitals and rectum.

It involves “baring of the labia.” That can be done multiple times.

It includes DNA swabbing and recording (for security purposes).

As we now know, the US has a vast espionage and surveillance network and nearly all sensitive nodes of telecom and electronic communication are monitored centrally.

Thus, images of such a search WOULD HAVE BEEN RECORDED AND SHARED WITH SPY AGENCIES. THAT IS GUARANTEED.

These images can then be transferred to private corporations, working with the United States Government (and Israel.

Israel has complete access via backdoors in the electronic equipment as well as more directly).

Corporation working with the spy agencies and with the USG include Facebook, Microsoft,  Google, Digg, Verizon, Brighthouse and many many more.

There is immense  potential here for black-mail against a political figure like Khobragade, from a political family tied to the Dalit vote-bank (voting power of the lower caste/untouchable community), a prize for both Congress and the BJP.

Indeed, we don’t know that black-mail has not ALREADY occurred behind closed doors.

Extortion of the Khobragade family would mean extortion of the Ministry of External Affairs (foreign office of New Delhi), in which Uttam Khobragade, Devyani’s father, has power.

The MEA and the US Embassy in New Delhi were at logger-heads for some time before this episode

“Jail Strip Searches: The light at the end of the tunnel was not a train,” Gary W. De Land, Directors of Jail Operations, Utah’s Sheriff’s Association gives a detailed history of the litigation over strip-searches as well as the often confused terminology, from the perspective of someone in favor of more wide-spread use of strip-searches.  His description of the standard strip-search, including visual inspection of cavities (which he terms relatively useless since the cavities cannot actually be seen)

“The early strip search cases created a bit of confusion over what a strip search is. Part of that confusion was use of the term “body cavity search” or “visual body cavity search.”

The terms seem to imply searches actually probe or look inside of the rectum or vagina which was not the case.

The body-cavity searches were those where the male was required to lift his genitals for visual inspection to see if contraband was being hidden and bending or squatting to allow visual inspection of the anus (an external inspection). For females, prisoners were required to bend and spread their buttocks and/or squat to permit an visual inspection of the external genitalia and anus.

The Supreme Court commented on the different and confusing meanings that have been applied in various cases to “strip searches.”

The term is imprecise. It may refer simply to the instruction to remove clothing while an officer observes from a distance of, say, five feet or more; it may mean a visual inspection from a closer, more uncomfortable distance; it may include directing detainees to shake their heads or to run their hands through their hair to dislodge what might be hidden there; or it may involve instructions to raise arms, to display foot insteps, to expose the back of the ears, to move or spread the buttocks or genital areas, or to cough in a squatting position.

The impact of the Florence ruling is that the term “strip search” now covers each of the different levels of intrusion listed above. Since the so-called visual body-cavity searches are permitted without reasonable suspicion, then certainly the less intrusive strip searches are also authorized. It is now appropriate for jail officials to simply refer to levels levels of unclothed searches as strip searches.”

B. The procedure called a “cavity search”

Devyani mistakenly used this term, when she should have used the term “cavity inspection.”

That is understandable since in India, BOTH procedures would be considered custodial rape.

Cavity search (probe)  involves digital probing of the cavities (insertion of fingers or fists into rectums or vaginas).

This is literally sodomizing of an innocent person, on mere charges or suspicion.

“Probing” did NOT happen, which is why the US Marshals are denying the story.

Devyani used the wrong term, but she is not lying, just using the wrong terminology.

The standard inspection of the cavities would in fact be brutal and demeaning enough on its own.

The US apparently misjudged how people would react and then tried to muddy the affair by flooding the media with allegations and statements from the US prosecutor and the alleged victim.

In effect, this is a way to try the case in the media and cover up their own outrageous position.

The hoax video that was released on the net, showing the gang-rape of  Devyani, was apparently intended to muddy the story.

Perhaps that was so as to make it appear that the reaction was a misplaced reaction to exaggerated reports.

My first book “Language of Empire” dealt with such “hoaxes” and the problems they create.

Notice, as well, that almost immediately after the Facebook statements of the May surfaced, how another “gang-rape” allegation has surfaced from Delhi, this time by a Danish woman.

Yet, the police did not find any injuries consistent with a gang-rape and she refused to undergo a medical examination in Delhi.

She is using medical evidence from Denmark to press her case.

This is an extraordinary case from the point of view of setting precedents, because it means that the Delhi police might from now on be sued based on evidence cooked up abroad and concocted for political purposes.

Now, we see the political motivation behind the drum-beat about a “rape crisis” in Delhi

even while the rate of rape in the UK, for example, is ten time that in India, and although India is not to be found in the top ten countries for high rape rates, while the US, the UK, New Zealand, Sweden, and Belgium all are.

Read about the 25 signs of the Nazification of the US police-state.

Martha Nussbaum defends burqa against French neocons (Updated)

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Update (Sept 10)

Another thought occurs to me.  What level of brainwashing does it take to lecture the Islamic world for its “medieval” and “degrading” attitude toward women,  when the most popular book in the west today  is”Fifty Shades of Grey”). No individualists have said a word negative about this book, which describes how wonderful it is to be tied up and have steel balls pushed up your vagina by a controlling man who feeds you, dresses you, and employs you, while whipping you on your genitals and beating you until you cry.

Or, to take another case, what level of self-delusion does it take  to lecture extremely poor people in Asia, recovering from multiple centuries of enslavement and starvation, under a succession of empires, about physical dirt, while refusing to acknowledge a different kind of filth, which is perhaps more deadly. I am talking about the saturation of popular culture with perversions as disordered as cannibalism, sadism, coprophagia and necrophilia?

(Search the “Go Ask Alice” website at Columbia University, where these things are treated almost neutrally).

ORIGINAL POST

Martha Nussbaum brilliantly demolishes a series of justifications for banning the burqa, a costume not too different from the garb of nuns during the period of history that gave France some of its great cultural treasures.

I confess that I used to support a ban on burqas, from the point of view of security and civility, with the idea that it would enable natives to see Muslim immigrants as more human and akin to them.

But Nussbaum’s comprehensive essay has made me rethink that position.

Having grown up in a town in India where 30% of the population is Muslim and where most of the Muslims on the street wear Burqa all the time, in temperatures over 45 degrees celsius, I can tell you that the women I saw wearing them seemed quite happy with their choice.

Covering up the limbs and face preserves the skin from coarsening and burning, so it actually makes sense in very hot countries, especially for women.

No Florida “alligator” skin and rooster necks.  No discoloration spots and skin cancer.

It also makes sense to cover up in very crowded countries, where women are forced to rub up against strange men because of the crowds.

Covering up protects women against molestation. It carves out a sphere of dignity for a woman and protects her from violations of her personal space and modesty.

It prevents a women becoming a piece of meat on the market, which is often what happens in the West.

I felt noticeably more comfortable in the Muslim countries in which I’ve traveled alone, than anywhere in the West or in India.

The West can be terrifying for a single foreign women.  That has been my experience.  There is verbal intimidation, sexual assault, and vulgarity directed toward vulnerable women, especially divorced women, who are seen as fair targets for workplace slander and harassment.

In India, since the liberalization of the economy, the situation has also become difficult for women on the street. I know many foreign women, very good travelers, understanding of Indian culture,  who tell me they have been repeatedly pestered and molested since the l990s. American women have told me they’ve been assaulted in such porn-friendly cities as Buenos Aires.

[I should clarify: This may have less to do with porn as it has to do with the fact that they’re foreigners and blondes, at that. Blondes, I’ve observed, tend to have a harder time in Latin countries.  The woman who told me this said she’d been quite safe traveling alone in Thailand.]

Muslim countries I’ve visited were easily the most “women-friendly” for a single woman,

Nussbaum’s arguments about these matters, and many others, make a convincing case why the burqa ban is fundamentally anti-liberal and discriminatory.

First is the argument from security: it holds that security requires people to show their face when appearing in public places. A second, closely related, argument, which I shall treat together with it, says that the kind of transparency and reciprocity proper to relations between citizens is impeded by covering part of the face.

What is wrong with both of these arguments is that they are applied inconsistently. It gets very cold where I live in Chicago. Along the streets we walk, hats pulled down over ears and brows, scarves wound tightly around noses and mouths. No problem of either transparency or security is thought to exist, nor are we forbidden to enter public buildings so insulated.

Moreover, many beloved and trusted professionals cover their faces all year round: surgeons, dentists, skiers and skaters. The latter typically wear a full – face covering with slits only for the eyes, similar to a niqab. Some are even more covered than the typical burqa wearer. In general, then, what inspires fear and mistrust in Europe, and, to some extent, in the United States, is not covering per se, but Muslim covering.

So, what to do about the threat that all bulky and non-revealing clothing creates? Airline security does a lot, with metal detectors, body imaging, pat-downs, and so on (one very nice system is at work in India, where all passengers get a full manual pat-down, but in a curtained booth by a member of the same sex who is clearly trained to be courteous and respectful). Sport stadiums search all bags (though more to check for beer than for explosives, thus protecting the interests of in-stadium vendors). Retailers or other organizations who feel that bulky clothing is a threat (whether of shoplifting or terrorism or both) could institute a non-discriminatory rule banning; They could even have a body scanner at the door, but they don’t, presumably preferring customer friendliness to the extra margin of safety…….

…A third argument, very prominent today, is that the burqa is a symbol of male domination that symbolizes the objectification of women: it encourages people to think of and treat a woman as a mere object. A Catalonian legislator recently called the burqa a “degrading prison.” President Sarkozy said the same thing.

[Lila: Please note that certain libertarian outfits that would never speak out against the objectification of women in the dangerous practices of the global porn trade nonetheless come out with the same memes that neoconservatives used to justify the invasion of Iraq – the liberation of women – a meme thoroughly discredited and debunked by third-world and post-colonial critics and even by some more thoughtful liberal feminists like Nussbaum.

It hardly needs to be said that the people who make this argument typically don’t know much about Islam and would have a hard time saying what symbolizes what in that religion. But the more glaring flaw in the argument is that society is suffused with symbols of male supremacy that treat women as objects.

Sex magazines, pornography, nude photos, tight jeans, transparent or revealing clothing – all of these products, arguably, treat women as objects, as do so many aspects of our media culture. Women are encouraged to market themselves for male objectification in this way, and it has long been observed that this is a way of robbing women of both agency and individuality, reducing them to objects or commodities.

And what about the “degrading prison” of plastic surgery? Every time I undress in the locker room of my gym, I see women bearing the scars of liposuction, tummy tucks, breast implants. Isn’t much of this done in order to conform to a male norm of female beauty that casts women as sex objects?

……Respect is for the person, and is fully compatible with intensely disliking many things that many people do. So in a society dedicated to equal liberty people remain perfectly free to think and to say that the burqa is an objectionable garment because of the way in which it symbolizes the objectification of women…….

Myself, I think that a burqa is not a symbol of hatred, and thus not something that it would be reasonable to find deeply hateful. It is more like the boys and their tzizit, something I may feel out of tune with, but which it is probably nosy to denounce unless a friend has asked my opinion. Still, if someone else wants to say that it is deeply objectionable, and that she does not respect it, that does not in any way disagree with the principles I am defending here.

What respect for persons requires is that people have equal space to exercise their conscientious commitments, not that others like or even respect what they do in that space. Furthermore, equal respect for persons is compatible with limiting religious freedom in the case of a “compelling state interest………Which brings me to my next point.

Argument 4: Coercion

A fourth argument holds that women wear the burqa only because they are coerced. This is a rather implausible argument to make across the board, and it is typically made by people who have no idea what the circumstances of this or that individual woman are.

We should reply that of course all forms of violence and physical coercion in the home are illegal already, and laws against domestic violence and abuse should be enforced much more zealously than they are. Do the arguers really believe that domestic violence is a peculiarly Muslim problem? If they do, they are dead wrong.

According to the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics, intimate partner violence made up 20% of all nonfatal violent crime experienced by women in 2001. The National Violence Against Women Survey reports that 52% of surveyed women said they were physically assaulted as a child by an adult caretaker and/or as an adult by any type of perpetrator.

There is no evidence that Muslim families have a disproportionate amount of such violence. Indeed, given the strong association between domestic violence and the abuse of alcohol, it seems at least plausible that observant Muslim families will turn out to have less of it…….

College fraternities are very strongly associated with violence against women, and some universities have made all or some fraternities move off campus as a result. But private institutions are entitled to make such regulations about what can occur on their premises; public universities are entitled to limit the types of activities that will get public money, particularly when they involve illegality (underage drinking). But a total governmental ban on the male drinking club (or on other places where men get drunk, such as soccer matches) would certainly be a bizarre restriction of associational liberty.

One thing that we have long known to be strongly associated with coercion and violence against women is alcohol. The Amendment to the United States Constitution banning alcohol was motivated by exactly this concern. It was on dubious footing in terms of liberty: why should law-abiding people suffer for the crimes of abusers? But what was more obvious was that Prohibition was a total disaster politically and practically. It increased crime and it did not stop violence against women……..

So, where should government and law step in? Certainly it should step in where physical and/or sexual abuse is going on, which is very often. Where religious mandates are concerned, intervention would be justified, similarly, where the behaviour either constitutes a gross risk to bodily health and safety (as with Jehovah’s Witness children being forbidden to have a life-saving blood transfusion), or impairs some major functioning.

Thus, I think that female genital mutilation practiced on minors should be illegal if it is a form that impairs sexual pleasure or other bodily functions. Male circumcision seems to me all right, however, because there is no evidence that it interferes with adult sexual functioning; indeed it is now known to reduce susceptibility to HIV/AIDS.

[Lila: Here, I think Nussbaum is mistaken. There is plenty of evidence that removal of the foreskin does affect male pleasure.  And there may be many other side-effects that haven’t been fully studied yet.]

….The burqa (for minors) is not in the same class as genital mutilation, since it is not irreversible and does not engender health or impair other bodily functions – not nearly so much as high-heeled shoes. If it is imposed by physical or sexual violence, that violence ought to be legally punished.

[Lila: Brilliant. There are far more crippling and unhygienic forms of clothing popular in the West, from thongs (which are gross and unhygienic!) to nylon stockings (itchy, and they constrict the blood vessels), crotchless panties (unhygienic and infectious), flimsy bras (lead to sagging breasts), baggy pants (can trip you up); tight skirts (prevent normal movements), low-cut blouses (ruin delicate breast and neck skin), deodorant (stops perspiration and lets toxicity build up in the body), shampoo (makes your hair thin and go grey prematurely).]

…. If people think that women only wear the burqa because of coercive pressure, let them create ample opportunities for them, and then see what they actually do.………

Argument 5: Health Risk

Finally, one frequently hears the argument that the burqa is per se unhealthy, because it is hot and uncomfortable. I have heard this argument often in Europe, particularly in Spain. This is perhaps the silliest of the arguments.

Clothing that covers the body can be comfortable or uncomfortable, depending on the fabric. In India I typically wear a full salwaar kameez of cotton, because it is superbly comfortable, and full covering keeps dust off one’s limbs and at least diminishes the risk of skin cancer. It is surely far from clear that the amount of skin displayed in typical Spanish female dress would meet with a dermatologist’s approval.

But more pointedly, would the arguer really seek to ban all uncomfortable and possibly unhealthy female clothing? Wouldn’t we have to begin with high heels, delicious as they are? But no, high heels are associated with majority norms (and are a major Spanish export), so they draw no ire.t harmful chemicals, and that other gross health risks are avoided. But on the whole women in particular area allowed and even encouraged to wear clothing that could plausibly be argued to create health risks, whether through tendon shortening or through exposure to the sun….

….The burqa is not even in the category of the corset. As many readers pointed out, it is sensible dress in a hot climate where skin easily becomes worn by sun and dust. What does seem to pose a risk to health is wearing synthetic fabrics in a hot climate, but nobody is talking about that.

The Burqa and the Limits of Laicite

All five arguments are discriminatory. We don’t even need to reach the delicate issue of religiously grounded accommodation to see that they are utterly unacceptable in a society committed to equal liberty. Equal respect for conscience requires us to reject them.

Let us now consider more closely the special case of France. Unlike other European nations, France is consistent – up to a point. Given its history of anticlericalism and the strong commitment to laicite, religion is not to set its mark upon the public realm, and the public realm is permitted to disfavour religion by contrast to non-religion. This commitment leads to restrictions on a wide range of religious manifestations, all in the name of a total separation of church and state. But if one looks closely, the restrictions are unequal and discriminatory. The school dress code forbids the Muslim headscarf and the Jewish yarmulke, along with “large” Christian crosses.

But this is a totally unequal burden, because the first two items of clothing are religiously obligatory for observant members of those religions, and the third is not: Christians are under no religious obligation to wear any cross, much less a “large” one. So there is discrimination inherent in the French system…….

Let’s now consider the language of the law banning the burqa. It prohibits “wearing attire designed to hide the face” (porter une tenue detinee a dissimuler son visage) – and then there is a long list of exceptions:

“The prohibition described in Article 1 does not apply if the attire is prescribed or authorized by legislative or regulatory dispensation, if it is justified for reasons of health or professional motives, or if it is adopted in the context of athletic practices, festivals, or artistic or traditional performances.”…….

Does the application of the ban to all religions mean that the ban, unlike the school dress code, is truly neutral? Well of course, although the word burqa does not occur in the legislation, we understand perfectly well that this is what it is all about. And the fact that they are so generous with other cultural and professional exemptions shows that they are not terribly worried about the practice as such – only when it is a religious manifestation. But still, isn’t that a consistent and, up to a point, neutral application of the polity of laicite?

The difficulty we have here is that no other religion has a custom of precisely that sort. So what the law has done is to single out something that is of central importance to one religion and to apply a very heavy burden to it, without similarly burdening the central and cherished practices of other religions. Indeed, it seems clear that one would not be fined for making the sign of the cross over oneself in a public place, for singing a religious hymn as one walked down the street, or for wearing any type of religious apparel other than the burqa: cassocks, nuns’ habits, Hasidic dress, the saffron garb of the Hindu priest – all of these remain unburdened. So it is neutral in one sense, but not at all neutral in another.

At this point, defenders of the ban will typically allude to one of the other arguments, saying that the burqa, unlike these other forms of clothing, is a security risk, an impediment to normal relations among citizens, and so on. But the fact that the government does not credit these rationales is clear from the fact that they permit so many exceptions to the ban. Even a public masquerade, at which hundreds of people cover their faces, received explicit defence in the statute.

So it’s clear that the government does not think that security provides a compelling interest in favour of the restriction: it’s trumped routinely by very weak and even frivolous interests.

So I conclude that the French ban is not truly neutral, any more than the school dress code. Besides the obvious objection that French secularism does not allow sufficiently ample freedom for religious observance, we may add the objection of bias.

***

Philosophical principles shape constitutional traditions and the shape of political cultures. I have tried to articulate some important principles behind traditions of religious liberty and equality in both the United States and Europe.

Today, a climate of fear and suspicion, directed primarily against Muslims, threatens to derail these admirable commitments. But if we articulate them clearly and see the reasons for them, this may help us oppose these ominous developments.

Excerpted from The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age by Martha C. Nussbaum, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 2012 by Martha C. Nussbaum. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics in the Philosophy Department, Law School and Divinity School at the University of Chicago. You can listen to her in conversation with Andrew West on Radio National’s Religion and Ethics Report.”

Desi Divas: Dr. Vijayanthimala Bali

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Celebrated Tamil and Hindi film actress, classical dancer/singer/choreographer, and research scholar,  wife of Dr. Bali of Chennai, twice elected to the Lok Sabha (Lower house of Indian parliament) and appointed to the Rajya Sabha (upper house), Dr. Vyjayanthimala  Bali(VIE-juh-yun-thee-mah-lah Bah-lee). [born, August 13, 1936]

Since the Western media doesn’t educate so much as propagandize in favor of western state interests, and  in service of those interests misrepresents the cultures that get in its way as inferior or degraded, I decided that I would add a category to my blog – desi beauties  – to celebrate beautiful brilliant women who exemplify the best Indian tradition.