Sexism is not only on earth, it is in the sky too (Warning: Nasty sexist images in post)

Is there a competition between airlines to become more sexist than others? Russian airlines ads featuring women’s cabin crew members are too sexist. Civil aviation secretary Gabriel Mocho says, “I don’t want to give this airline the free publicity that its rather grubby little ad was designed to attract, but this kind of thing matters. Cabin crew are there to save your life, not to offer sex. Portraying them as flying centrefolds undermines their ability to ensure a safe and comfortable journey for passengers – and can make their working lives unbearable. It can breed a dangerous contempt that undervalues them as individuals and also as the people who have to get you out in an emergency or deal with abusive passengers in air rage incidents…The portrayal of cabin crew-members as sex objects undermines their key safety role and diminishes the level of respect passengers are likely to have for their professionalism and competence. This applies regardless of the gender of the individuals involved. For this reason, the federation believes the decision to promote such images to have been irresponsible and reckless. This kind of initiative does not foster a positive aviation safety and security culture – instead it damages safety.”

Russian Airlines

Ryanair

Ryanair, the Irish budget airline was challenged over the ads by an online campaign led by a female flight attendant and signed by more than 11,000 people. Ryanair’s “Red Hot Fares” ad campaign was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority. The ASA received 17 complaints that the ad campaign was sexist, objectified cabin crew and was “offensive and unsuitable” to appear in a national newspaper.

Mexicana Airlines

Spirit Airlines

Feministing wrote:

Spirit Air opts to feature sexist ads and debase their flight attendants. The image provided is one of their many heinous marketing ads they’ve been criticized for in the past – M.I.L.F. conveniently means “Many Islands Low Fares,” as well as an ad that says, “We’re proud of our DDs” (which stands for “deep discounts”). Their latest plan? To force their flight attendants to wear aprons with alcohol promotions on them.
Luckily, the Flight Attendants-CWA union is taking some action on both offenses. President Pat Friend, has been sending letters to CEO Ben Baldanza:

‘I feel as though I have entered a time warp and am reliving the battles for respect and justice for women that we fought 40 years ago. Several promotional fare ads…are demeaning not to just the hardworking flight attendants at Spirit Airlines but to all of America’s professional flight attendants.
…
Flight attendants have a statutory obligation to enforce Federal Aviation Administration regulations regarding intoxicated passengers. In-flight aprons that prominently display a logo from an alcoholic beverage company sends the wrong signal to passengers and diminishes the ability of Spirit flight attendants to enforce vital safety and security regulations and procedures onboard.’

Lufthansa

Lufthansa has an ad campaign last week: “letters” sent to male frequent flyers from their “girlfriends” begging to be bought a partner credit card. Critics slammed the campaign for reviving outdated consumer-mad, male-dependant female stereotypes. Lufthansa has issued a press release later reassuring customers that the company “never intended to convey outdated gender roles or excluding customers from the [partner card] scheme.”

Sexism is deep-rooted in patriarchal society. It is hard to stop sexist ads. What we need now is, more female voices saying the phrase, “this is your captain speaking”.

Yuck!

We have seen all those sexist vintage ads. What about 21st century’s new sexist ads!

In the West the companies are forced to ban their ads because of criticism and protests from feminists and women’s rights activists. In the East, no body protests against sexist ads. Sexism is cultural norms.

The Vodka company put up a new billboard promising New Yorkers ‘escort quality at a hooker price’. The poster was removed later.

It is a poster of the movie ‘the players’. Woman down. Man up. Woman naked, man dressed up. Woman slut, man gentleman. Woman begs, man gives. But for how long?

They are telling us that a woman can’t open a bottle of wine or a jar of olives. Men help to open the bottle and the jar. Do we really need those huge muscles to open those simple things? Hatred against women has no limits.

Believe me, it has no limits.

Vagina should smell like Vagina, not like Jasmine or Jackfruit

The world is getting more and more synthetic.
People are becoming more and more artificial. They smile at others but they do not really smile. They ask acquaintances how they are doing, whether everything is fine, but they would not mind if those acquaintances were not doing well. More and more, words are becoming artificial, coming more from lips, less and less from hearts. The case can be made that the desire for artificial flavor is growing all over the world. We are encouraged not to like the flavor of tea anymore. Advertisements publicize the flavor of chrysanthemum, pineapple, orange, cherry, and similar tastes. All kinds of artificial fruit flavors get mixed with water, which is now called tea. Some say they love fish, but they can’t tolerate the smell of fish, so they add lots of smelly things to destroy the original smell of fish before eating any.The other day I met a man who smelled like mango. Why did he smell like mango, I asked? He smiled and said it was his deodorant. My reaction was that I preferred his own body odor. Men like to have sex with women, but there are many men who do not like the smell of healthy vaginas. What do they want? Well, they want vaginas that smell like jasmine or jackfruit. They want their favorite fruits and flowers inside vagina, and they want vaginal fluid that seemingly turns into some kind of fruit juice! But should women feel embarrassed when their male partners complain about vaginal odor? Women should know that if a strange smell comes from the vagina, it is mostly because of semen or condoms. Both old semen and spermicide have offensive odors. So do bacterial vaginosis, candida vulvovaginitis, trichomoniasis, all not as strange as they sound.

Vaginal fluid is made up of normal vaginal secretions, sloughed off cells from the vaginal wall, and cervical mucous. The vagina is a self-cleaning organ. Like the mouth, the vagina is full of bacteria. It is necessary for a vagina to have a balance of different species of bacteria. Women should avoid disrupting the delicate vaginal balance. Why should women perform vaginal douching in order to make ignorant men happy! Vaginal douching is nothing but applying some annoying, irritating chemicals to destroy vaginal pH and its originality. Douching can push the bacteria from the vagina into the uterus and develop an uterine infection.

Meanwhile, the penis smells fishy, does it not? Sometimes it smells like dead rats. It is because of poor hygiene. Men do not always wash their penis. I haven’t heard many women complain about foul-smelling penises. I have heard none who believe that the penis should smell like rose or papaya. Smart women advise men to wash their penises. Smart women do not worry if their vaginas smell like vaginas.

People should try to be real and original. But many people are becoming more and more fake, artificial and robot-like. The smell of robots is everywhere. Why encourage a more synthetic human condition!

I was seven years old

‘….The day Toi-toi left, Ma had to work alone in the kitchen lighting the oven, peeling the vegetables, cleaning and cutting the fish and meat before starting lunch. When it came to lighting the oven, Ma could not find the box of matches. This was a job always done by either Phulbahari or Toi-toi. Only they knew where the matches were kept.
“Go and get a match from Amanuddaula,” Ma said to me. She knew uncle Aman would have a box of matches since she had seen him smoking cigarettes. Uncle Aman had been given the same room at the back of the house which used to be full of fire-wood, where uncle Sharaf had taken me one lonely afternoon, saying he would show me something interesting.


I opened the door and went into the room. Uncle was lying in his bed. He looked like my father. Curly hair, a sharp nose, large eyes, thick dark eyebrows, a fair complexion. If Papa could be pressed under the bricks and flattened somewhat, and his height reduced, he would look no different from uncle Aman.
The room, I could see, looked completely different. There was no fire-wood, no rats. A picture in a frame hung on the tin wall. It was one of uncle Aman himself. His hair in the picture looked wavy, on his feet were pump shoes. To the right of this picture was a calendar with a woman’s face on it. A comb and a mirror were tucked in the tin. On a clotheshorse lay his clothes, unfolded.
“uncle,” I said, looking at the calendar, “Ma is asking for matches.”
“What is your Ma going to do with matches?” he enquired, getting out of bed and rubbing the hair on his bare chest.
“She’ll light the oven. Then she’ll cook.”
“But I haven’t got any matches!” uncle Aman told me.
At these words, I turned around and took a step to walk out of the room. Uncle dragged me inside. “Wait, wait, take your matches. I have got some,” he said, grinning.
Suddenly, as if by magic, a matchbox appeared in his hand. I stretched mine to take it, but uncle Aman moved his own hand away. I tried again, he moved it once more. One minute I could see the matchbox, and the next minute it was gone. It felt a bit like watching a glow-worm. A flash of light one moment, darkness the next. In order to lay my hand on the box of matches, I moved nearer to uncle Aman. He pulled me even closer. Then, instead of giving it to me, he started tickling me under my arms and my stomach, laying me flat on his bed. I shrank like a snail. He picked up my tense, curled-up body and threw it in the air, as if he was playing cricket. He was the bat, I was the ball. Then he caught me as I fell, his hand sliding down my body, stopping at my panties. Then it began pulling my panties down. I tried to roll off the bed. My feet were on the floor, my back still on the bed, my panties near my knees, my knees neither on the floor nor on the bed. Around my neck hung the medallion to protect me from danger.
Uncle lifted his lungi. I saw a big snake raise its head between his legs, poised for attack. I went numb with fear, but to my greater horror, the snake did attack, in that little place between my thighs — once, twice, thrice. I remained totally petrified. Staring into my wide eyes, uncle said, “Would you like a candy? Tomorrow, I will buy you candy . Look, here’s the matchbox, take it. And listen, sweetheart, don’t tell anyone that you have seen my cock and I have seen your little sweet pussy. It’s bad to talk about such things. You must tell no one.”
I left his room, the box of matches in my hand. It ached between my thighs, I felt to pee, but saw my panties were already wet. I had no idea what this game was called, this business of stripping me naked. Nor could I guess why uncle Sharaf and uncle Aman wanted to climb over me. Uncle Aman had told me not to tell anyone else. I started to think he was right. It was not something one talked about. At the age of seven, suddenly a new awareness rose in my mind. It told me that whatever had happened was shameful, it would not be right to talk about it, it had to be kept a secret.

Even today, sometimes I wonder why I did not tell anyone about those two incidents. Was it because I did not want people to think badly of my uncles? Had anyone put me in charge of protecting their good name? Was it because they were older than me and, for that reason alone, worthy of my respect, because I had read in a book that one had to respect everyone who was older? Or was it because I had believed them to be good people, and did not want that belief shattered? As if what had happened was just not true, it was a lie from start to finish, no more than a nightmare; or, may be, those men only looked like my uncles, but were really two different men in their guise, enemies from some distant past! Who struck me dumb, and told me to hide my pain and suffer in silence? Was I afraid that, if I did talk about it, no one would believe me, they would dismiss my allegations, say that I was possessed by some evil spirit, or that I was either a liar or totally mad, a trouble-maker? No one would then hold me close and kiss me, but slap me and hit me hard instead? Or could it be that no one seemed to be my own, no one was close enough to whom I could go and cry my heart out, tell them everything without holding anything back, show them my wounds? Even Ma was not that close, although she was my whole world. I lived under her protection, she was like a tree, I sat in its shade when I was tired; she was like a deep, clear pond, I drank its water when I was thirsty. She had given me life, she nurtured it. If I could not turn even to her at a moment like this, who else could help me?

After that incident, I felt myself split into two. One half went out with all the other children, played games and ran around. The other half sat alone and depressed, by the pond, or the rail roads, or the steps by our door. Alone, even in the middle of a crowd. Thousands of miles began to place themselves between this lonely girl and all the others. Even when she stretched her arm, she could not touch anyone across all those miles, not even her mother. If she tried, all her hands could ever grasp was emptiness….’

[From the translation of my memoir ‘Amar Meyebela'(My Girlhood)]

Rape in War

“War provides men with the perfect psychological backdrop to give vent to their contempt for women. The maleness of the military—the brute power of weaponry exclusive to their hands, the spiritual bonding of men at arms, the manly discipline of orders given and orders obeyed, the simple logic of the hierarchical command—confirms for men what they long suspect—that women are peripheral to the world that counts.” –Susan Brownmiller

“There can be no security, without women’s security. Rape is not a lesser evil in the hierarchy of wartime horrors, it is not a crime that the world can dismiss as collateral damage, or as cultural, or inevitable.” -Margot Wallstrom

Throughout history, rape has been the least condemned and most silenced war crime. Sexual violence increases during times of war, it is often dismissed as being an inevitable part of conflict.

Gloria Steinem answered to some questions about rape in war. I just could not resist to republish the interview.

Q: What are some of the reasons rape is so prevalent in war?

A: First, it’s important to note that rape and war didn’t always go together. For instance, European colonists wrote astonished letters home about how “even these savages”—by which they meant the residents of this continent they were invading—didn’t rape, not even their women prisoners. But those were wars of self-defense. If you’re going to get groups of men to risk their humanity, health, and lives in wars of offense, the traditional way is not to pay them a lot, but to addict them to the “cult of masculinity.” You have to convince them they’re not “real men” unless they kill and conquer. And, at its most basic, “masculine” means not being “feminine.” On a continuum, it means controlling women, conquering women, raping women, even with objects: bottles and broom handles in “peacetime” here, and gun barrels and knives in Bosnia or Congo. There’s a reason why it’s a truism that rape is not sex, it’s violence.

Nanking 1937

It’s also true that men may rape in groups out of social pressure to prove their “masculinity”—in peacetime, too—but gang mentality is a way of life in war. Military officers sometimes order men to rape as proof of loyalty and shared culpability. Some men express regret and say they wouldn’t have raped without group pressure. Also the group hatred war requires means humiliating enemies by raping “their” women, implanting sperm, taking over their means of reproduction, wiping out the enemy race or ethnicity. Cultures that put all “honor” in the purity of “their” women—and keep women weak—are actually setting them up as targets.

Even in peacetime, the “cult of masculinity” is so powerful that men commit crimes in which they have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose: “senseless” killings like those in schools and post offices, serial murders, domestic violence, stalking, killing their wives and children and then killing themselves. They’re not hate crimes because they don’t hate the people they kill—but those people symbolize their lack of control, and so are killing the “masculinity” on which their whole sense of self depends. In interviews, such men often describe themselves as victims because they believe they should have been allowed to have control. I think we should call such crimes “supremacy crimes.”


Vietnam 1968

Q: What do you say to people who assert that sexualized violence is a “natural” part of conflict?

A: I try to think of something from the past that was also thought to be “natural,” and wasn’t. For instance, violence was once a “natural” part of childrearing, as in, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” It was also “natural” in marriage, as in, “Wives and bells must be struck regularly.” It was “natural” in religion, as in flagellating and starving the flesh to free the spirit.


Bangladesh 1971
Or I quote Olof Palme, the great former prime minister of Sweden, who said that gender roles are the deepest cause of violence on earth, and it’s up to governments to humanize them. Gender roles may give us our first idea that it’s okay for one group to eat and the other to cook, one to talk and the other to listen, one to order and the other to obey, one to be subject and one as object. The most shared characteristic of original societies in which violence was only for self-defense, not armies—and of the most egalitarian societies now—is that gender roles are fluid and not polarized.

So you might say it’s the reverse. Conflict is not the only or even the primary normalizer of the extremes of “masculine” and “feminine.” Those roles at home are the normalizers of conflict.


Bosnia 1993

Q: Why use the term “sexualized” violence?

A: Because there’s nothing sexual about violence. Sex is about pleasure. Violence is about pain. Nature tells us what’s good for us by making it pleasurable, and what’s bad for us by making it painful. To get those things mixed up usually requires a childhood in which people we loved and depended on inflicted pain, and we came to believe we couldn’t get one without the other.

It also works the other way around. People, especially men addicted to “masculinity,” may think that inflicting pain is the only way they can get sexual pleasure. For instance, I didn’t learn there was a mammoth concentration camp only for women—it was called Ravensbrück—until the end of the 1970s when my friend Konnilyn Feig included it in her book called, Hitler’s Death Camps. Nazi doctors there performed a higher proportion of so-called medical experiments there — they simulated battle wounds and amputations, practiced surgeries and forms of sterilization; endless horrors — and their subjects were mainly young, beautiful women. The other women in the camp called them “rabbits” because they were used as lab animals. They tried to protect them. This was the slow sexualized violence known as sadism.


Rwanda 1994

Q: Sexualized violence is frequently underreported. Why do you think this is?

A: Yes, I do. To say otherwise would be to excuse them as human nature. We know there have been societies in which such crimes were rare or absent; they are not human nature. And even if they were, the most significant characteristic of humans—the one that allows our species to survive—is that we’re adaptable. Violence in the home normalizes violence in the street and in foreign policy. Because we genderize the study of childrearing as “feminine” and the study of conflict and foreign policy as “masculine,” we rarely see that the first causes the second. Of course, the goal is to stop war altogether. If we raised even one generation of children without violence and shaming, we have no idea what might be possible. But at least we can limit war to those who want to fight it.


Afghanistan 1995

Q: Do we need both men and women involved to stop these atrocities?

A: Yes, we do. There is more responsibility where there’s more power. Though women have a responsibility to speak up for ourselves — to reverse the Golden Rule and treat ourselves as well as we treat others — men have more power and so are responsible not only for their own behavior, but for creating an atmosphere in which men are penalized for violence toward women and rewarded for treating women as equals. It’s parallel to the fact that I, as a white person, have more responsibility for white racism than do the people of color who suffer from it.

Men also can show each other the rewards of full humanity. It’s been said that the woman a man most fears is the woman within himself. Men are punished by being cut off from human qualities denied to them as “feminine.” I think one element in men’s punishing and killing of women is an effort to do away with what they fear within themselves.


Congo 1998

Q: Do you think it’s ever possible to bring these atrocities to an end or at least significantly curb them?

A:Yes, I do. To say otherwise would be to excuse them as human nature. We know there have been societies in which such crimes were rare or absent; they are not human nature. And even if they were, the most significant characteristic of humans — the one that allows our species to survive — is that we’re adaptable. Violence in the home normalizes violence in the street and in foreign policy. Because we genderize the study of childrearing as “feminine” and the study of conflict and foreign policy as “masculine,” we rarely see that the first causes the second. Of course, the goal is to stop war altogether. If we raised even one generation of children without violence and shaming, we have no idea what might be possible. But at least we can limit war to those who want to fight it.

Q: What do you say to people who believe that this happens far from home, in societies beyond repair? In other words, that there’s nothing we can do.

A: I say, Open your eyes, watch the news, talk to the women in your families and neighborhoods, listen to our women soldiers who were raped by their own comrades. The difference is only one of degree. No society is beyond reproach or beyond repair.

This project is not trying to create a competition of tears. It’s wrong whether men or women are suffering. It’s just that the suffering has to be visible and not called inevitable or blamed on the victim before we can stop it.

Don’t say ‘Vagina’. Vagina is a bad word, Vagina is a nasty thing! Say ‘non-penis’.

Women Reps in Michigan barred from speaking, one for “vagina” mention.

Two women serving in the state House have been barred from participating in floor debates for one day. The sanction is a punishment for things they said during a debate on anti-abortion legislation.

State Representatives Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum are both Democrats. Brown made a reference to her vagina in a floor statement.

“I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina,” she said, “but ‘no’ means ‘no.’”

Byrum shouted at the presiding officer after she was not recognized to speak.

Ari Adler is the spokesman for the House Republican leadership.

“It is the responsibility of every member who serves in the House of Representatives to maintain decorum on the House floor and when they do not do that, there can be actions because of that. And the action today is to not recognize either representative to speak on the House floor,” he said.

Brown was speaking during a debate on anti-abortion bills, and has no apologies for what she said.

“I used an anatomically correct word. I said ‘vagina,'” she said. “Can I not say ‘elbow?’ I don’t see what the difference is.”

This is the first time in memory that lawmakers have been formally barred from participating in floor debates.

And then

Two Democratic lawmakers say they have been barred from speaking during House debates.

The House Republican leadership confirms that state Representative Lisa Brown will not be recognized during debates as a sanction for mentioning her vagina during a debate on anti-abortion legislation.

State Representative Barb Byrum also says she has been barred from speaking in the future because of an outburst after she was not called on during the abortion debate.

It is so unbelievable!
Is it America? Or is it Saudi Arabia? It is a nasty war on women’s health. It is a war on women by nasty men.

Be brave. Fight it out.

Sometimes I feel that men who are against abortion, against choice, against women’s reproductive health, are exactly like those men who used to beat women up on the streets because they demanded voting rights for women.


‘Several times constables and plain-clothes men who were in the crowds passed their arms round me from the back and clutched hold of my breasts in as public a manner as possible, and men in the crowd followed their example. I was also pummeled in the chest […] my skirt was lifted up as high as possible and the constable attempted to lift me off the ground by raising his knee. This he could not do, so he threw me into the crowd and incited the men to treat me as they wished. 18 NOVEMBER 1910.’

Time has passed So much has changed. But the hatred against women has remained the same.

If men could breastfeed and women could not, it would be alright not to breastfeed or to breastfeed in public or in uniform

If men could breastfeed and women could not, it would be alright not to breastfeed.

Nobody would hate non-breastfeeding men. Nobody would say, ‘they are bad fathers, they choose not to breastfeed.’

Nobody would say, ‘they do not breastfeed, because they worry more for the shape of their breasts than the health of their babies. They do not want saggy breasts, that’s all.’

Everybody would say, ‘they are very sincere and responsible persons. They are working hard so that they can help their children to get higher education. Men are determined to build a better future for children. They do not have much time for breastfeeding. Formula is just as perfect as breast milk.’

No man would feel guilty for not breastfeeding.

If men could breastfeed and women couldn’t, it would be alright to breastfeed in public and in uniform.

There would be no debate on this issue, no one would ask, ‘breast-feeding in public and in uniform: is it courageous or shameless?’

Everybody would say, ‘breastfeeding is so manly! Men look so handsome and muscular, so proud and confident while they breastfeed!’

There would be no small breastfeeding zone here and there, men’s breastfeeding would be celebrated in all public places. Men would breastfeed whenever they like, wherever they like, in whatever uniform they like.

Everybody would say, ‘men are so sincere and responsible. They are so perfect fathers!’

The male dominated world was against women’s education


Kalighat Painting, “Woman Striking Man With Broom,” Calcutta, India, 1875


Kalighat Painting, Role changed. Man is nursing his wife. Calcutta, India. 1875

These are famous Kalighat paintings.

Once upon a time women did not have the right to get an education. Male-dominated world prevented women from becoming educated.

Women in Bengal got the right to education in the nineteenth century. Most men were scared, stressed and unhappy. Newspapers and magazines started publishing satirical cartoons against women’s education. Almost everybody feared that after getting an education women would not accept men as their masters. Social norms will be ridiculously upside down. Instead of a husband beating his wife, a wife will start beating her husband. Wives will go to schools, colleges, and offices, husbands will stay at home and take care of their wives. The social roles of men and women will be reversed forever.

.

Violence against women by male intimate partners

”Each culture has its sayings and songs about the importance of home, and the comfort and security to be found there. Yet for many women, home is a place of pain and humiliation.”

‘Violence against women is both a consequence and a cause of gender inequality.’

NCADV says, ‘Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior perpetrated by an intimate partner against another. It is an epidemic affecting individuals in every community, regardless of age, economic status, race, religion, nationality or educational background. Violence against women is often accompanied by emotionally abusive and controlling behavior, and thus is part of a systematic pattern of dominance and control. Domestic violence results in physical injury, psychological trauma, and sometimes death. The consequences of domestic violence can cross generations and truly last a lifetime.’

WHO says ‘Violence against women has a far deeper impact than the immediate harm caused. It has devastating consequences for the women who experience it, and a traumatic effect on those who witness it, particularly children. It shames states that fail to prevent it and societies that tolerate it. Violence against women is a violation of basic human rights that must be eliminated through political will, and by legal and civil action in all sectors of society.’

1 in 4 women experience domestic violence over their lifetimes.

Different research organizations’ reports: ‘In the USA, domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women—more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. Nearly 1 in 5 teenage girls who have been in a relationship said a boyfriend threatened violence if presented with a breakup.Every 9 seconds in the USA a woman is assaulted or beaten. Everyday in the USA, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends.

In the USA, 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. 85% of domestic violence victims are women. Historically, females have been most often victimized by someone they knew. Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police.’

‘In the USA, Almost one-third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner. 70-80% of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner was killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder. Less than one-fifth of victims reporting an injury from intimate partner violence sought medical treatment following the injury. Intimate partner violence results in more than 18.5 million mental health care visits each year.

The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health services.Victims of intimate partner violence lost almost 8 million days of paid work because of the violence perpetrated against them by current or former husbands, boyfriends and dates. This loss is the equivalent of more than 32,000 full-time jobs and almost 5.6 million days of household productivity as a result of violence. There are 16,800 homicides and $2.2 million (medically treated) injuries due to intimate partner violence annually, which costs $37 billion. Domestic violence is one of the most chronically underreported crimes. Only approximately one-quarter of all physical assaults, one-fifth of all rapes, and one-half of all stalkings perpetuated against females by intimate partners are reported to the police.’

‘Partner violence accounts for a high proportion of homicides of women internationally: between 40% – 70% of female murder victims (depending on the country) were killed by their partners/former partners.Domestic violence is internationally acknowledged to be one of the health inequalities affecting women particularly, and forms a significant obstacle to their receiving effective health care. Violence against women has serious consequences for their physical and mental health, and women who have experienced abuse from her partner may suffer from or chronic health problems of various kinds. Abused women are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety,psychosomatic systems, eating problems and sexual dysfunction. Violence may also affect their reproductive health. Violence has indirect effects on the society. It represents a drain on the economically productive workforce and generates a climate of fear and insecurity.’

Now the question is how can violence against women by male intimate partners be stopped?
There are two solutions.1.simple. 2.non-simple.
Non-simple
1.Educate men, empower women.
2.Seek support from family, friends, doctors and community legal centers. Seek protection from the police and the legal system.
3. Women should have access to housing, jobs, and economic supports for their families.These benefits and supports will remove barriers that keep many women trapped in abusive relationships.
3.Leave the abusive relationship NOW. etc.

Simple
Men decide to stop violence against women and they stop violence against women.

I prefer the simple one.

Shame on women!

Even educated women still practice various customs, cultures and traditions that are anti-women.

Mangalsutra
A woman wears Mangalsutra, a black beads necklace, for her husband’s health and well-being. Would a man wear a Mangalsutra for his wife’s health and well-being? Hell no!

Sindoor

Married women wear vermilion or Sindoor on the forehead and along the hair parting line. The Sindoor symbolizes the deep respect, devotion and dedication of a Hindu woman to her husband. Would a married man wear Sindoor on his forehead for the same purpose? Hell no!

Sankha Pola Loha

Married women wear bangles: Sankha, Pola and Loha for husband’s health. Did a man ever wear Sankha, Pola, or Loha for his wife’s health? Hell no!

Bhai Phota

‘Bhai Phota’ is performed by women. They fast and put an auspicious mark with sandal wood paste on their brothers’ foreheads, feed them sweets, give them gifts and pray for their health, happiness and prosperity. Is there a system that a man also fast and put an auspicious mark on his sister’s forehead and pray for her health, happiness and prosperity? Hell no!


Karwa Chauth

People still believe that abstaining from meals, or fasting, can prolong the life of a loved one. Women fast for 24 hours to ensure that their husbands live long lives. Do men do the same for their wives? Hell no!

Touching husband’s feet

A woman bows her head, touches her husband’s feet, takes the dust from the feet and put them on her head on her wedding day to show her submission to her husband. Would a man ever do this? Hell no!

Jamai Sasthi or Son-in-law Day

Jamai Sasthi ritual is celebrated for health and well-being of son-in-law. The son-in-law is invited to a grand celebration in the house of his in-laws. He is served delicious food. Is it possible to have a similar celebration for health and well-being of daughter-in-law? Hell no!

There are hundreds of anti-women rituals that Hindu women perform without questioning. It is alarming that women still perform these rituals in the 21st century. Throughout history sane people have made many misogynistic cultures go extinct. But in some countries, patriarchal traditions are celebrated more ceremoniously than ever. You may say only illiterate women do it, women’s education will solve all the problems. But the truth is, educated women perform anti-women patriarchal rituals more perfectly than illiterate women, because educated women have better learning capacity. They learn every small details of patriarchy that illiterate women can not learn.

Who will fight misogynistic tradition if modern women remain busy practicing it? A few reformist men in the 19th century fought for abolishing Suttee (widow burning), for women’s education, and for widows’ remarriage. In the 21st century, a new set of enlightened revolutionary men is probably needed to save women from the darkness.