East and South Asian women were once equally unfree and oppressed.
East Asians were less unfree and less oppressed than South Asians because they were not ruled by foreigners belonging to a wholly alien religion. Indeed, one East Asian woman was an Empress. By comparison, no South Asian woman was a sovereign. If men in one place are less free than men in another place then the women there too will be less free and oppressed.
Both societies were organised around tightly policing women’s sexuality.
Nonsense! South Asian Society was organized around extracting rents from the agricultural population. Nobody gave a toss about 'sexuality'. Seriously. It just aint that important when your belly is half empty. Policing costs money.
No doubt, rich men, who had lots of wives and concubines, hired eunuchs and armed guards to ensure that the women didn't escape or have sex with somebody less gross and disgusting. But there were very few rich men.
On the other hand, harming women by binding their feet or putting them in purdah did represent a wasteful type of 'status competition' which began to disappear in South Asia and China at about the same time and for the same, essentially Nationalistic, reason.
But every patrilineal society also faced a trade-off between honour (achieved by restricting women’s freedoms) and income (earned by exploiting female labour).
Every society whatsoever- whether patrilineal or matrilocal or off its head on drugs or totally gay, as the case may be- faces a trade-off between leisured gentility and making money by getting a fucking job.
Nairs were matrilocal. They began to thrive when they got rid of that incentive incompatible arrangement which had outlived its economic function. The same was true of all sorts of coparcenary 'joint family' arrangements. Because of 'close cousin', or 'Uncle- Niece', marriage these could be described as matrilocal to the same extent as they were patrilineal.
South Asia had a stronger preference for female seclusion, and East Asia a stronger preference for female exploitation.
Nonsense! Female seclusion was a function of public safety. But men too don't want to roam around a place where women get raped because, if not raped, then, in those places, men get robbed.
There may be a specific religious scruple in regard to women being inferior and thus unfit to mingle with men- but no Hindu or Jain or Sikh Guru or Acharya has affirmed any such thing in living memory. India started getting rid of purdah at the same time that China got rid of foot binding. But, purdah correlates with less rape under conditions of poor policing. Foot-binding was completely useless.
On Dr. Evan's blog, I find the following testimony given by a Gujarati Muslim woman
I am worried that if I go to Satellite [a Hindu-dominated area], I have to cross at least 10 Dalit neighbourhoods. If somewhere they catch me, the first thing they will do to me is rape, then they will kill me or burn me. So rape is the foremost fear – Farida.
Clearly, the problem is poor quality policing. Dalit neighborhoods want the local rapists locked up. Why? If they can't catch a Muslim, they will grab your daughter. Also, they will rob you if they get the chance.
This implies South Asia ‘needed’ more income to be ‘compensated’ for the loss of honour than East Asia.
This looks like an 'economic' argument. It isn't. It is nonsense. There is a preference for public safety- i.e cops beating and locking up rapists and robbers and hooligans of all descriptions. Where this public good is not available, attractive women stay home. Guys like me- who are shit at fighting- are careful not to wear expensive watches when out and about. We pull down the shutters on our shops or places of business and scarper sharpish if the hooligan element appears likely to let rip.
Why is South Asia worse at 'public safety' than East Asia? The answer is the British style Justice system which crooked lawyers can manipulate to keep the bad guys out of jail. Our intellectuals bleat about 'human rights' and 'gender inequality'. The East Asians would beat and kill the bad guys.
In patriarchal societies, industrialisation and structural transformation are necessary preconditions for the emancipation of women.
Nonsense! Japan was forced by the Americans to give women the vote in 1946- about the same time as France. But Ceylonese women had the vote from 1930. Ceylon was the first country to have an elected female head of Government. India was not far behind.
Kerala had been described by English visitors- e.g. the old Etonian who wrote 'Empire of the Nairs' which inspired Shelley- as a paradise of gender equality- or, indeed, female superiority! But there was no 'industrialisation' or 'structural transformation'.
By seizing economic opportunities outside the family,
i.e. daddy sending you to work in a sweat-shop. Why not a brothel?
women can gain economic autonomy, broaden their horizons, and collectively resist discrimination.
How come this did not happen in the Japan of the Twenties and Thirties? There can be no doubt that women in the factories were making a big economic contribution. But where was the 'emancipation'? How come a South Indian girl- like Shyamala Harris or Indra Nooyi- believed she could rise to the top through education- even rise to the top in America!- whereas a Japanese girl of the same age would have felt obliged to give up her career on marriage?
But industrialisation is not sufficient.
It is neither necessary nor sufficient. It is irrelevant. If women are safe they can work and run businesses. But this is also true of men. I recall a dear friend of mine who decided to return to Bihar to set up an agribusiness. A few years went by and then I bumped into him at the Ambala sweet shop. It turned out, he had given up on Bihar after being kidnapped for the third time. I asked if he had been raped by his captors. For some reason this made him angry. I explained that, as a Social Scientist, I always ask men of his description- viz. posh cunts wot studied at Oxford- about their recent experiences of forcible sodomy. You can't tell me all those posh Oxonian types aint simply gagging for it. By contrast my LSE degree has protected my anal cherry something fierce.
In societies with strong preferences for female seclusion, women may forfeit new economic opportunities so as to preserve family honour.
Coz they don't mind the rape and mutilation at all. Their only concern is with 'family honor'. Mind you, I'm just the same. The only reason you don't see me dishum dishuming Hell's Angels is because my family honor consists of being as cowardly as shit.
Hence inequalities persist alongside growth.
Females do have a higher opportunity cost of work and sensible employers- including the Central Government as well as smart Business Houses- 'front load' certain gender specific benefits so as to attract and retain them. This more than pays for itself.
Bangladesh is a very pious Muslim country. It has higher female participation and, for that reason, is overtaking India as it overtook Pakistan. It is far from perfect, but it is sensible and disintermediates gobshites.
Saudi Arabia had a more favorable gender distribution of wealth despite having strict 'purdah' laws. But this was because it was a very safe country. Women could rise up in wealth through their own thrift and foresight. Now it is likely to make great strides- thanks to a ruthless suppression of hooligans and crazy nutters.
Feminist activism may be a good thing. But it may also be a bad thing if it focuses on doing stupid shit instead of tackling genuine problems.
Consider the 'Nirbhaya' atrocity in Delhi. Women poured into the streets clamoring for stupid shit. Yet, Kiran Bedi- an ex-cop who had a TV show on which one of the culprits had appeared- explained in two minutes what needed to be done to make the NRC safe for women after dark. Every Delhite listening knew that Bedi had the solution to the problem. But, what she advocated would have made the streets safe for men as well as women. Don't forget, before Nirbhaya was attacked, the same guys had robbed a middle-aged working class man. They didn't sodomize him probably because he looked like an LSE alumni, not an Oxonian at all. Still, the fact is, making Delhi safe for women makes Delhi safe for men. Since most of Delhi's women weren't interested in going out after dark, they refused to vote for Kiran Bedi when she ran for the Chief Minister's post. Did this benefit Delhi's women? No. Politicians learned the lesson that voters don't care about 'feminist issues'. Gender is an abstract category which keeps a few 'painted and tainted' (to quote the ex-President's son) professional 'andolanjeevi' feminists in business. They get to take out marches or stage sit-down strikes or whatever from time to time so as to get their grants from NGOs renewed. They can gas on and on about 'sensitivity training' and 'challenging gender stereotypes' while girls who want to rise up through education and hard work get raped and bludgeoned to death.
Why have some communities- e.g. Iyers as represented by Shyamala Harris and Indra Nooyi- in India seen increasing equality of outcomes for women whereas others have not? The answer is 'Tardean mimetics' under conditions of fairly good public safety. We imitated those who were doing better than us once it was safe to do so. But who was that 'we'? Men? Fuck off! They were and are as stupid as shit. Fortunately, they tended to die off younger than women- perhaps because of the 'grandmother' effect. Widows- like Confucian female heads of household- are a skeptical lot. They look to those who have succeeded in their neighborhood. Sonny boy may say 'Mummy, I don't want to study engineering. I want to be a poet'. Mummy smiles sweetly and tans his backside. She shouts at the daughters to get no less than 99 percent marks in the Exam or she'll marry them off to elderly alcoholics. Poorer communities- e.g. Brahmins- substituted educational credentials for monetary dowry. The idea was Mummy would help the kids get a head start at School. But then Mummies started earning money and Daddies suddenly discovered it was delightful to bathe and cook and clean for the kids. Under the old rules, men were forbidden any such pleasures. Furthermore, unlike in the West- where there is 'assortative mating'- there is no prejudice in the arranged marriage system against a wife earning more than hubby. She won't elope with some more successful man for the same reason she won't abandon her own baby for one which is more cuddly. This is an 'oikieosis' which is gender blind. True, at a certain stage there is gender dimorphism and specialization of roles. But there is no reason it should stretch for much longer than 9 months. An oikos is an oikos is an oikos. Two women or two men or Me and an intelligent cat can head up a household. But how well an oikos does does depend on whether the broader economy is sufficiently supplied with essential public goods to do with personal safety and the means to gain financial security.
Alice Evans writes clearly and cogently for ordinary people on her blog. No doubt, her academic work is subtle and nuanced. Yet, I think it fundamentally wrong headed, not because of any shortcoming in Evans herself, but because utterly useless 'availability cascades' have taken over this branch of Academia.
Consider the following summary of her post-
Why is South Asia still in the patrilineal trap?
Because:
1) There has been much less industrialisation than in East Asia. Since India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh still remain 63-65% rural, traditional agrarian institutions are more persistent in South Asia. Villagers continue to rely on kinship and caste networks for survival, and women remain subject to patriarchal constraints.
Why was there less industrialisation? Trade Union militancy and stupid Labor laws. What industrialists wanted was lots and lots of 15 year old girls straight from the village to come and live in massive dormitories. True they'd leave to get married within four or five years but, during an upswing, married women would come back to earn some cash. Docile female workers crammed into dormitories is the secret to moving up the value chain. But this also leads to demographic transition and a better educated workforce which in turn creates a virtuous circle.
Sadly, beating Trade Unionists and killing Leftists was not to South Asian tastes. That's why not just women, everybody ended up worse off.
2) Female seclusion remains the social ideal, reducing the supply of female labour.
The fact that you want your womenfolk to live luxuriously at home doesn't stop you wanting to employ 30,000 rural girls in your big factory so as to make mega-bucks.
Women in South Asia have been less responsive to labour demand despite falling fertility and rising female education.
Because of higher opportunity cost. But if employers could get their hands on very large numbers of young girls for their factory dormitories, they could make the thing worthwhile. The problem is that you now have to keep away not just the Trade Unionists but also the Inspector Raj as well as crazy feminist NGO activists.
Still, Bangladesh is showing the way forward.
Elsewhere in the world, these changes are normally associated with female labour force participation.
But other parts of the world have less crazy labor laws because they have a smaller class of gesture political blathershites. Edwin Lim of the World Bank pointed out that India could not emulate China, infrastructure wise, because Indians could get richer and more famous by fucking up Development on behalf of virtue signaling International NGOs and Charitable Foundations.
At the same time, industrialisation in South Asia has been less labour-intensive (i.e., industry has absorbed less labour) than in East Asia. The labour shortages which caused employers in the ‘Asian tiger’ countries to resort to hiring women, have never materialised in South Asia. Men are first in line for jobs, and employers need not hire women.
Employers don't want men- unless they are thoroughly beaten down and biddable. They want young girls from the villages. But they can't get them in the massive quantities needed to generate economies of scope and scale because of stupid Labor laws and crazy activists filing PILs all over the place. So the thing is done by stealth and on the seamy side of the margin.
Structural transformation in South Asia has been perverse.
Because of our stupid gesture political leftist nutters as well as our cretinous judges and bureaucrats
Approximately 80% of urban workers in India are engaged in informal self-employment or in micro enterprises.
Thanks to stupid feminists who insist that rapists should not be sent to jail because they are little children- rather than muscular thugs.
To mitigate precarity, urban workers rely on their caste-networks, thereby perpetuating rural patriarchy in the cities.
Evans writes as stupidly as any desi jhollawallah. Fuck does 'rural patriarchy in the cities' mean? Anything they please. They just want to show they iz fighting male oppression innit? Kindly give us lots of nice NGO dollars. Also, tenure somewhere far away from Ind's coral strand. Thrown in a Magsaysay Award as the cherry on top and I'll tweet something real nasty about Modi and the Ram Mandir. That will show the forces of Neo-Liberal Patriarchy! Capitalism is quaking in its boots!
No comments:
Post a Comment