Deepa Narayan on what ails Indian Women

India is unique in that women gained political equality before they gained the right to fist themselves unmolested on deserted streets late at night. It is a scandal that a beautiful woman who sits down to masturbate on the highway in some shady spot may well attract unwanted attention from passing rapists. By contrast, if an elderly Tambram patriarch, I speak as one myself, starts anally pleasuring himself with the Qutb Minar- thus insulting the religious  sentiments of India's Muslim minority- rather than suffering any sort of sexual assault, or 'slut shaming' by the soi-disant 'moral police',  the fellow is likely to be dismissed with raised eyebrows and shrugged shoulders because, what to do?, Subramaniyam Swamy is like that only. 

 Why is India such a grotesquely unfair and dangerous place for women?

Social Scientist, Deepa Narayan, says it is because 'Indian women have been taught to distrust one another. This is preventing real change'.

Who taught them this? Indian women- most notably their mothers. To bring about real change, Indian women have to stop teaching other Indian women to distrust each other. The only way to ensure this gets done is by removing baby daughters from mothers at birth and ensuring they are brought up wholly by men.

Why might Indian mothers and other female caregivers or educators or comrades teach their daughters or female charges, pupils or associates, to distrust each other? 

There are two possible approaches to answering this problem. One is purely genetic or otherwise biological in nature. The other approach would be to look at Social structures and incentive mechanisms. Deepa, being a Social Scientist takes the latter approach. This does not, however, mean that Indian women aren't genetically shit because it may be that women and women alone create adverse Social structures and incentive mechanisms for other Indian women. Since Deepa can't or won't demonstrate that women are acting at the behest of men when they cause each other to lose trust in their own gender, it follows that Indian women are shite for some genetic or wholly biological reason.

Consider the huge female led protests following the horrific rape and murder of 'Nirbhaya' in Delhi a few years ago. Kiran Bedi appeared on TV a day or two later. The former senior police officer explained succinctly how using existing police resources more effectively could have a dramatic effect on the safety of women in the National Capital Region. However, this would tackle only one half of the problem.  A lot of sexual violence is domestic. An 'anganwadi'- i.e. local, women led- approach is needed. The diverse initiatives of nodal Ministries and NGO's need to dovetail with respect to last mile delivery. In other words, some boring Governance had to be done. The BJP, foolishly believing that Delhi's women genuinely cared about rape, made Kiran Bedi its candidate for the Chief Minister post in 2015. She knew how to get the L.G to implement a better Policing regime while using her mandate to provide Social Services so as to tackle the Societal problem at its roots. 

Delhi's women would have none of it. Why?

In this excerpt from a book of hers, Deepa explains-

Women should be other women’s natural allies. The fact that they are not is not accidental. It is the genius of cultural design – to ensure that each woman stays alone and isolated. If women came together to stand up for each other against unfairness or misuse of power, whether in the home, offices or on the streets, it would break the cultural, social, political and economic arrangements that prop up the power and privileges of men, and the non-existence of women as full human beings.

Let us consider the salient motifs in the 'cultural design' of this argument put forward by a cultured woman who has a book to sell-

1)  Women are shit. They drag each other down.
2) 'Genius of cultural design' also does this but I too am a genius because I can spot the fell hand of 'cultural design' where everybody else sees only socio-economic and legal factors. My genius leads me to conclude 'Women are shit. They drag each other down'.

Thus, even when a woman is a genius and can spot the 'genius of cultural design', all she can do is say 'Women are shit. They drag each other down'.
3) If women did x they wouldn't be shit. Women won't do x coz they are shit- not 'full human beings' at all.

When I asked women and men about women’s relationships with women, especially after seeing them in happy groups in shopping centres, malls, cinema halls and coffee shops, I expected to hear stories of sisterhood, empathy, compassion and love. Instead, what emerged was a stream of negativity, example after example of broken trust.

Why, Deepa? 

It is because you are a woman with a genius for spotting the 'genius of cultural design'. 

If I asked the same women about how they support each other, their eyes would narrow a little, their lips would curl a little in disdain, but then the spirit of fair play might assert itself and they'd explain the practical ways they support each other- e.g. covering for a work colleague so she can attend an interview, or go sit the UPSC exams. Helping strangers find accommodation on the basis of a request from an acquaintance. Making sure vulnerable people have a travelling companion- the women could give hundreds of examples. I'd ask 'do sons/brother/husbands resent if you send them to accompany a woman to her destination?' They'd immediately understand that this happens in my own family and social circle. I'm not a posh dude. Here their answers might diverge. People from cities which are safe for women may not understand the need for any such thing, but after a short stay in Delhi, everybody changes their attitude.

Let me give the example of a Gujerati girl from Ahmedabad who comes to Imperial College- located near me- to study. She might think- 'this Uncle is a bit creepy for turning up uninvited on campus and at my hostel and engaging custodial staff and any passing Black or Desi type in conversation.' However, her Punjabi origin friends, even if from safe neighbourhoods in Delhi, will tell her that this Uncle isn't being creepy. Even a posh part of London is not all that safe. Take the wrong turning onto a sink Estate and Uncle will get stabbed and niece will get raped.  Moreover, the 'educated' White young man is not always a saint. There is a thing called date rape. A sceptical attitude- denoting intelligence- is the ornament of a young woman. The best way of defending your virginity- I speak from experience- is by talking and socialising with the opposite gender during your College years. Not that it is a pearl of great value in itself. Rather, it represents 'regret minimization'. Get rid of it at once, if it ceases to fulfil this purpose. But never do so on unequal or unconscionable terms because you are letting down other people in your identity class.

Thus, I did not surrender my virginity till I was sure the g.f genuinely respected me and could complete my homework assignments to an acceptable standard.

The other thing is I'd satisfied myself she was discreet. Next day, the other girls in the hostel were not tittering about my micro-dick or ejacultatio praecox.

I recall, after the birth of our son, a Telugu girl asking my wife if she'd had a big 'O' when the fellow was conceived- apparently there's a theory that this impacts on the gender of the foetus. With brutal swiftness, she said 'No'.  I looked a fool asking how she knew which particular occasion had led to our being blessed. But, the other men present were equally embarrassed.

Anyway, I have always believed everybody must take responsibility for their own orgasm. I certainly do- though it cuts into my working day.

Returning to the question at hand- viz. why Deepa thinks Indian women are the most unsafe in the world- let us consider why a group of women- let us say migrant labourers taking their lunch break in the shade of a tree by a construction site- would permit a man, or group of men, to drag off one of their number so as to rape her. Deepa has an explanation. It is that the Mothers of those same women routinely allowed them to be dragged away to be raped and very pedantically counselled to always do the same.
There are two problems with this explanation. The first is that it describes a cause which does not actually have any such empirical effect. Women don't let bad things happen to other women. However, it is true, that in India the job of catching and beating the fuck out of the malefactor is delegated by women to men. Why?

One reason is that this is the evolutionarily stable strategy. Wombs, not jizz, are scarce. If half the men are killed defending a given number of females, the birthrate is more likely to rise than to fall.

Incidentally, rape isn't a great way to spread your genes. Consider the outcome of the rape of Berlin- why did it have zero impact on German DNA? The answer is that repeated gangrape kills and anyway abortion is a thing. Catholic or Protestant, there was no pi-jaw about 'right to choose' at that period in time which Solzenitsyn has described in a long poem.

Indeed, the one Soviet experiment in the 'Collectivization of Women' ended for this reason. The proclamation was made that all unmarried women of whatever class origin must fulfil their proletarian duty- proletarian means that labour involved in giving birth- by having sex with members of the class whose dictatorship had been established by the Bolshevik revolution.

What happened next was that any girl past puberty claimed to be married. Only some little kids were caught and raped to death. Sadly this Marcusian outcome was not popular with the Russian babushka. I don't know how many of the great heroes of this marvellous experiment were beaten to death at the hands of their own grannies but, whatever the number, it was too few.

Religion and Family and Employment and Friendship- all these essentially repressive and exploitative and unscientific Social formations or processes- tend to be unanimous in the manner in which they target and beat to death, unless Justice intervenes, motherfucking fuckers wot wanna fuck  our kids.

As a Social Scientist, Deepa Ji, might be appalled at any such outcome- but, what to do? Desis are like that only. India pherry hot.

Communities with visible cultural or religious markers find there is a reputational gain in standing up for women. An English lady I used to know in the Eighties was told to always appeal to a Sikh or a Punjabi granny if any man started getting familiar. If a mob forms, head for the nearest Gurudwara or other communal place of worship.

Delhi has developed a lot since then. During peak travel hours it is perfectly safe for women. It can be made safe during the night so commerce can flourish. Delhi would make a profit by implementing such policies. Delhi's women are safer on average than girls in London, because they don't get very drunk and pass out on the streets only to wake up coated in cum.
If Deepa interviewed a cross-section of slags down at my local boozer she would find, the more she probed, the more a pattern of empathy, mutual empowerment and support, would be shown to be at work during the course of a hen night during which lasses glass each other, get thrown out of clubs, and wander off in several directions to pass out only to wake up next morning covered in cum.

The more I probed, the more the pattern showed up. Women talked about women as if they are deeply flawed characters beyond correction.

I wonder why? Was it because they were talking about the sort of woman they thought you were, Deepa, but- with typical Indian obliquity- did so in a manner you would only later realize was highly offensive to you personally? Except, of course, you are such a genius, you thought it was some 'cultural design' which was at fault.

I did not find a single strong case of an adult woman standing up for another adult woman within her circle of family and friends who was in trouble. This was true even of women who work on issues of empowerment of poor and abused women. Women speak about empowerment but they do not embody empowerment in their own lives.

Wow! Women working to 'empower poor and abused women' are judged to be utter shit who aren't actually doing any such thing! Once again, Deepa, might this not be a reflection of what they thought of you?

Trust is the firm belief that someone or something is reliable, predictable and will not harm you.

Nonsense! My feather duster is reliable, predictable (it won't suddenly fail to function as normal) and has no power to harm me. I don't trust it all. Why? Trust is a mental operation which uses up scarce resources. It only has salience in a correlated equilibrium or incomplete contract of a certain type- ones where the counterparty's reputational capital is linked to maintaining Trust even if, at the margin, it is more costly than beneficial.

When you trust, you feel safe; the world is safe.

Rubbish! The world does not become safe because I trust in the 'kindness of strangers' and give away my assets and wander forth into the world to live as a parasite. I am likely to very quickly suffer such privation that I have to take on very low paid menial work akin to slave labour simply so as to have enough food to eat and a warm dry place in which to sleep.

Without trust, the world could not function.

Without incomplete contracts the world would not function efficiently- but those contracts must be incentive compatible, otherwise they will quickly lose their efficacy.

We would drown in rules.

Long run, Rules don't matter, because they are costly to implement and if the regulated activity has been rendered incentive incompatible then it will disappear as something justiciable or easily monitored.

Trust makes exchange and trade possible

No. It suffices that each transaction has relatively little value with respect to the payoff matrix of the repeated game.

– it makes collective action possible.

No. Members of a Cartel may hate and mistrust each other. Yet a Cartel may be very effective. Game theory explains why empirical evidence from History and Economics and Sociology and so forth completely contradicts what Deepa is saying.

Women who are trained in childhood not to trust others are therefore at a great disadvantage.

African women in Uganda in the Sixties were trained in childhood to trust each other. Ugandan Asian women, however, had a typical Indian upbringing. I recall a well known Asian academic speaking of how she herself had hidden a particular book in the library so her rival for the scholarship could not get hold of it. Such an action would have been unthinkable for an African woman. Roll forward by thirty years- guess which group of women, even focusing only on those with equal educational endowment, social status, and length of domicile in London, is now doing better? It is the Asian woman- more especially those who engaged most intensively in in-group competition.

By contrast women who are trained in childhood to trust each other tend to get pimped out in youth and are stuck scrubbing floors for the never fulfilled promise of wages in their premature old age.

It is like living permanently stalled at a red traffic light.

So true! The 'mean girl' cheerleader doesn't morph into the Fox News presenter. Not at all. Look at the successful women in Business, Academia, or the Media. They all go home to Eco-Lesbian communes where they take turns educating the goats and braiding their hair and fetching them water from the river.

Living in a world with women you do not trust is frightening; it cheats you of a sense of belonging and makes any collective action or resistance to unfairness, exploitation or disrespect almost impossible.

Rubbish! People who hate and mistrust each other are better placed to conduct collective aggressive actions. Why? Punishing a common enemy also sends a signal to your rivals of your destructive potential. Competitive risk taking and a hypertrophy of destructive capacity leads to a superior individual outcome, even if the other side coordinates an asymmetric backlash- at any rate, that's the story of Third Wave Feminism in the Seventies.

What is Deepa actually saying? Is it not- 'Mummy, you are an utter shit. You destroyed my life. May you burn in Hell you worthless ho-bag!'
After all, it is Mums who train kids in childhood. It is they who are the active agents of 'cultural design'. To liberate women, we must name and shame Mums. We must build time machines so as to fulfill the great Surrealist dream of 'beating your Mum while still she is young.'

Women start to hate themselves and other women; it comes with the territory of belonging to a group that is so marginal that it is not supposed to exist.

Women are not supposed to exist. Wow! Deepa sure is one swell 'Social Scientist'. She appears unaware that only women can have babies. If women don't exist, nobody does.

For the larger culture this is perfect because it limits any possibility of fundamental change on a large scale. It preserves the status quo despite advances through legislation.

Right! Coz Legislation is not connected to 'larger Culture' at all. What a wonderful 'Social Scientist' Indian womanhood has produced, to be sure! But we mustn't blame Deepa. She was brought up to mistrust women. Thus, if they said 'stop talking utter bollocks you stupid twat', she would think they were expressing jealously of her great erudition and ratiocinative capacity.

Jyoti, 36, is stylish, with a shaved head, and is raising two young daughters. Jyoti says, “Trust means faith in someone for your own peace of mind. The biggest reason I trust easily is because it brings me peace to imagine that the world is good, that I am in no immediate or long- term threat from anyone. Having doubts destroys my peace so I choose to be at peace by trusting.” She listens well to other women and displays what researchers call both cognitive and emotional empathy.
Further conversation reveals, however, that in reality, Jyoti does not trust anyone including her own mother. She says, “My ability to trust is ambiguous and paradoxical. On the one hand, I trust strangers easily. But I keep distance even in my closest relationships, keeping my innermost thoughts absolutely to myself. I am socially and emotionally self-sufficient.” In other words, she does not need or trust anybody. But she is proud that she is trustworthy to others which to her means an “absence of judgement followed by the ability to listen and understand others”.

Jyoti is perfectly sensible. Game theory says 'tit for tat'- give the stranger the benefit of the doubt till they try to fuck you over. Then retaliate asymmetrically.

'Innermost thoughts' should be kept to oneself. We need to develop a filter and respect boundaries and to act in a manner that permits others to do the same.

My own innermost thoughts tend to revolve around speculations as to what my next fart will be like. I could provide a running commentary on this while dining with my parents. No doubt, Mum would revert to toilet training mode and constantly ask me if I need to do number 1 or number 2.

In fact, most women we interviewed categorise only themselves as trustworthy, the exception to the rule, but they categorise all other women as untrustworthy.

Good! They are rational. If they have a lot of power and a reputation for ruthlessness, they can act as though they were more trusting. But this is because it is 'common knowledge' that their 'tat' will put your 'tit' in the wringer.

Consider Mohammad Yunus's micro-finance initiative in Bangladesh- how is it that the women it employs can trust other women to pay back loans. There has been a lot of research into the success of Grameen. One empirical finding that sticks out is that Grameen mobilises women to impose a collective morality. Thus, a bottom up 'moral economy' is created such that poor, rural, women internalise the same moral imperatives to be found in successful entrepreneurial castes. Grameen is by no means a panacea for Poverty. However, it does show that women biologically identical to those in India can indeed implement a 'cultural design' which results in justified high trust relationships between women.

Women in India, generally speaking, have less vertical hierarchy, and power to enforce sanctions, than their male counterparts. Thus they are more cautious- a good thing. However, they also 'hedge' more- thus their actions are more likely to be Hannan consistent- i.e. regret minimizing. Thus, they have a better notion of global opportunity cost and make better 'economic' decisions. The daughter, the wife, the mother- in politics and in business- often outdoes the deceased male from whom they inherit power.
Jayalalitha is an example of a woman who trusted another woman- Sasikala- we all know how that panned out. Well, I say we 'know' but proof is lacking. Mamta & Mayawati would make no such mistake.

These women see themselves as good but judge other women as “not so good”. Devika, 25, with a degree in economics, says, “Such a suspicious girl I am. I don’t trust anyone. I believe women are a little loose with secrets. I keep my secrets with me. I don’t trust telling them, it is like putting a loudspeaker on the rooftop.” Many women said, “Why trust anyone?”

Excellent! Hire Devika and promote her provided she shows equal skepticism towards Economics and Accountancy and Actuarial Science and fashionable Management theory as practiced nowadays.

I interviewed several mother and grown-up-daughter pairs in the USA and in India. None of the mothers or daughters was willing to talk in front of the other even though they love each other. And they all said that they did not trust women, not even within the family.

I don't believe American women would refuse to speak openly in front of their Mums. In India, the situation is different because we had no sexual revolution in the Sixties.

Like many women, Saloni, 25, who is an HR officer, said, “As far as women in the family are concerned, I don’t feel comfortable being open with them. They have never gained that trust for me to talk with them without suspecting their intentions.

Quite true. India has a different 'stable marriage problem' to America for historical reasons.

Some women hesitate but others openly say that women are jealous and constantly compete with each other. “In front of you they appreciate you but when you are not in front of them they say negative things about you. Women are hypocrites, men are not like that, girls deceive you easily, they will say things sweetly, but in their hearts they are bad. Women backbite more than men,” says Indira, 60, from a well-off family. Muskan, 15, a science student, has reached the same conclusion. “There is a lot of backbiting among women, so I tell my mother just not to meet other women.”

The problem here is that female 'gossip' networks have high noise to signal precisely because of high strategic information content. I suspect they are 'efficient' in a 'regret minimizing' sense and thus a valuable counterweight to 'profit maximisation' type discourse in the board-room. The smart executive needs to be linked into both type of networks.

The most institutionalised form of competition and meanness is evident in the saas–bahu soap dramas, a response to a structured system in which women derive their power from competing and fighting for control over the same powerful man, the son/husband. The well-being of the mother-in-law in the long run depends on her son’s loyalty to her, and the well-being of the new wife depends on her control over the same man, her husband.

This problem only arises where wealth is not held individually or where the moral economy involves inter-generational 'incomplete contract' type debt. Economic forces are eroding this.

Even though marriage is essential to continue the lineage, for the mother-in-law the daughter-in- law – the new, young, sexual being – embodies the notion of romantic love, making the jodi, the couple, the most dominant threat to her son’s loyalty to her.

The real threat to the lineage is if the son quits work and shacks up with someone who is better in bed. Romantic love is perfectly compatible with financial profligacy and serial infidelity.

Educated, older, salaried daughters-in-law are even more of a threat than 18-year-olds who are easier to control. No wonder that in many households position, rank and power are clarified even today on day one, sometimes crudely, across social classes.

Presumably, Deepa is speaking of joint-families. This is purely economic. Something similar happens with 'boomerang' kids returning to their parent's home in America or Europe, sometimes with their families in tow.

Sunita, 35, from the lower-income group, says, “When I got married and came to their house, she gave me boras [jute sacks] to sleep on. Such a bitch, she used to tell my husband to beat me up, I am happy she died.”

Okay. I give up. Indian women are shit. Not my Mom. She was a saint. Don't you dare say anything against her or I will beat you with my hockey stick!

Lekha, 27, from the educated middle-income group, says, “On the first day my mother-in-law told me she didn’t like me and had never liked me and my parents were cheap, my father useless.” Her husband stood by silently. Anu, 50, from the upper-income group, says, “If there’s one person I detest it’s my mom-in-law. I would shoot her point-blank if I had a chance, but I won’t since we have a common link, my husband...She is cruel.” Sometimes the struggle for power is more indirect, through silences and pretending the other does not exist. Sonia, 31, complains, “No matter how much I do for her, she only asks after her son, she never asks how I am doing.” For her mother-in-law she does not exist.
In addition to backbiting, women speak about gossip, another “weapon of the weak”, which also has a social and evolutionary function. It spreads information and it reinforces norms, but it also isolates women from each other.

But women are shit, Deepa- as you have repeatedly shown. Women should be isolated from each other.

Sireesha, 25, has developed a strategy to cope with her need for close girlfriends and the possibility that secrets will become weapons used against her if a friendship ends. She diversifies her secret portfolio among her friends to manage risk. “Women cannot keep things inside, it’s a big no. So, I consider one friend, one secret at a time only. Example, none of my friends knows all my secrets. I share my secrets based on their intellectual capacity.” If the friendship ends, the damage is limited.

So, women are 'regret minimizers'. Good for them. That's a valuable cognitive skill.

When women judge each other as untrustworthy, mean-spirited, jealous, gossipy and unsupportive, it makes sense that they do not want to associate with each other, let alone organise themselves into groups, networks or their own political parties.

This is Deepa's fallacy. Regret minimization says join such organisations by all means, just don't let them make you their bitch. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, there was exponential growth in Women's groups in the U.S. This meant that all sorts of careerists and nutjobs and careerist nutjobs  crawled out of the woodwork. Women, very sensibly, refused to be intimidated by these careerist nutjobs by adopting even more paranoid positions. Thus the nutjob who says eating a chocolate is equivalent to sanctioning universal rape and gynocide should be immediately denounced as an agent of the C.I.A and bullied relentlessly till she tries to top herself.

This is a good thing. Men should be more proactive in emotionally battering their would be Fuehrers till the fuckers cry Uncle (that kiddy fiddler) and blow their brains out.

Men have more extensive and influential networks than women.

Which is why many more men than women end up sleeping on the streets even in rich countries.

The absence of women’s groups, alliances and networks in the middle and upper classes is not accidental.

Coz, as you have already shown, women are utter shite. Every woman should be isolated, for her own mental health, from every other woman. Baby daughters must be separated from their Mums at birth because Mums are women and women are utter shite. Baby sons, however, can be safely left with their Mums. Women are only utterly shite to those of their own gender.

It too is guaranteed not to happen, an outcome of a system that keeps women divided from each other.

Very true! The system whereby Mums are not separated from their daughter results in women being trained not to trust each other coz women are utter shite.

Divide and conquer is a proven strategy that always works.

Which is why British are still ruling India isn't it?

Despite the famed women’s self-help groups in rural India, almost none of the women living in cities with whom I spoke belong to a women’s group. In fact, just about all of them are anti-women-in-groups.

Yes, because they were talking to you, Deepa. You look like the type who might have a couple of Feminist NGOs of your own which require cannon fodder so as to secure more funding.

Most women laugh at the very idea of a women’s group. Suwbha, 31, an outspoken woman who teaches at Miranda House, a premier women’s college in Delhi, says, “No...ha ha, this is funny, I never had such an idea in my life. If I join any group, it will be the ideology of the group that will take over me as a person, which I never want to happen. I don’t want to be part of groups, they kill individuality and I am determined to live on my own.”

Well said, Suwbha!

When asked if they belong to any groups, many women said they do not indulge in gossip, assuming that when women come together gossip is all they do. In addition to judgemental negative attitudes, most women just do not see the point of women getting together. Aditi, 44, says, “No, I never felt the need and never had the time.” Similarly, Ridhi, 25, says, “I don’t mind but I have no specific desire to join one. I have never even thought of one.” Powerless people often do not see the point of getting together with other powerless people.

Powerless people do get together with other powerless people to seize collective entitlements from which they personally benefit. The women Deepa spoke to thought her a worthless shithead. They knew that any group she might press them to join would be utter shite. This is because Deepa is utter shite. Not because she is an Indian woman, but because she is a 'Social Scientist' who says again and again that Indian women are utter shite coz their Mums were so unbelievably horrible.