3 ms·

Lots of down votes because of uncomfortable truth? I've seen this happen a few times and the only thing you need to do is honestly apply feminist values to all

by dep_b 10y ago

Lots of down votes because of uncomfortable truth? I've seen this happen a few times and the only thing you need to do is honestly apply feminist values to all people without discriminating to start condemning it. It's like asking for respect for getting addicted to pills by pharmaceutical industries because that's a part of American culture. Maybe some criticism would be in place despite the "it's our culture" thing? But do not harass every Indian person you can find about it! I've had many fine coworkers from India working in the US or from India in the past and I can't imagine harassing them about this.

roflc0ptic 10y ago
I would say it has downvotes because it's at best tangentially related and has some weird framing: it frames person A who gets feelings for person B as a victim when person B decides not to marry them. Arranged marriage seems pretty horrible, but in talking to an indian coworker recently, they commented that having to find your partner seemed pretty horrible to them. I really don't see any compelling parallels to pharmaceutical addiction. As someone who is neither religious nor inclined towards marriage, Baptist vs. Anabaptist seems like a more reasonable comparison.
- chickenking 10y ago
  I think a lot of non-Indians have this impression that arranged marriage means forced marriage or child marriage. I was talking to a South Korean guy and he thought we (Indians) get married at a young age or something equally bad. When I told him how it happens in India, he remarked "thats how it happens in his country as well". Nowadays, we have matrimonial sites similar to your eHarmony. Guys/girls or their parents will create profiles and contact each other. If all their criteria match, guy will meet the girl, talk for some time and may say yes or no. Both the girl and the guy can say no. Nobody is forcing us. I know the next question will be how can you choose a life partner in 30 minutes. To me, marriage involves a lot of understanding and compromise from both the parties. I was talking to a 65+ year old American recently. He was talking about something called a "spark" when a guy/girl meet. If you have that spark, you go ahead in the relationship. I don't know if this "spark" is real, I saw a lot of girls in person after liking their profiles, but didn't like them (or they didn't like me) in person. I think at some point, our culture decided that interest of the society is bigger than personal freedom. They may have decided its better to find a partner this way rather than spending several years like in other cultures (I worked with an American who dated the same girl for 5 years and got divorced in 6 months). If you are going to say that such a lack of personal freedom is regressive, I don't feel that way. In America, you have the draft which to me means you loose the right to your body.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    > In America, you have the draft which to me means you loose the right to your body. The draft hasn't been used in America since 1973 - our military service is all volunteer. What we do have, though, is called "Selective Service" - basically when you turn 18 years of age (and on thru 25 years of age), you have to register for "Selective Service" which is there to provide a list of "able and ready" (but maybe not willing) members of society which can be called up in a re-instated draft if and when it becomes necessary. It has yet to be used.
- dep_b 10y ago
  > Arranged marriage seems pretty horrible, but in talking to an indian coworker recently, they commented that having to find your partner seemed pretty horrible to them It's the part where people are forced where they don't want to that I don't like. There's plenty of people married to someone introduced by their parents. You should be able to take another path when you want to.
  - smsowmya 10y ago
    arranged marriages are usually family introductions and rarely forced. the way they limit choice is by constraining potential partners to your own caste or community, to the supreme thrill of family conservatives who regard that as "respectable". if you're american, you're talking about a society that places a lot of importance on self - not the case in other societies. in a lot of indian families, family comes first, not the individual.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
dm3730 10y ago
"Lots of down votes because of uncomfortable truth?" No, downvotes because "the current state of arranged marriages in India" has absolutely nothing to do with the article. You're doing exactly what the author said was done to her. "they made comments about not liking to work with me or with the growing number of Indian tech workers in the company. I also faced hostile remarks about Indian women being subservient and arranged marriages being forced on Indians for generations." I have seen a scenario where a black colleague in a on-campus lunch discussion suddenly faced hostile remarks about black people being predisposed to crime. This is the exact same type of problem. Whether or not the topic is true is completely unrelated to how the topic is used to isolate and move the person from the category of a normal team member into "other" who can then be bullied or sidelined.
- dep_b 10y ago
  Right, I don't like to single out people to put them forward as "spokespeople for their group". As an immigrant myself it's kind of weird that people see me as some kind of representative of my culture/country. I don't see myself as not very typical for my country at all.
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13192726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13192726 and marked it off-topic.

by dep_b 10y ago

roflc0ptic 10y ago

I would say it has downvotes because it's at best tangentially related and has some weird framing: it frames person A who gets feelings for person B as a victim when person B decides not to marry them. Arranged marriage seems pretty horrible, but in talking to an indian coworker recently, they commented that having to find your partner seemed pretty horrible to them. I really don't see any compelling parallels to pharmaceutical addiction. As someone who is neither religious nor inclined towards marriage, Baptist vs. Anabaptist seems like a more reasonable comparison.

chickenking 10y ago
I think a lot of non-Indians have this impression that arranged marriage means forced marriage or child marriage. I was talking to a South Korean guy and he thought we (Indians) get married at a young age or something equally bad. When I told him how it happens in India, he remarked "thats how it happens in his country as well". Nowadays, we have matrimonial sites similar to your eHarmony. Guys/girls or their parents will create profiles and contact each other. If all their criteria match, guy will meet the girl, talk for some time and may say yes or no. Both the girl and the guy can say no. Nobody is forcing us. I know the next question will be how can you choose a life partner in 30 minutes. To me, marriage involves a lot of understanding and compromise from both the parties. I was talking to a 65+ year old American recently. He was talking about something called a "spark" when a guy/girl meet. If you have that spark, you go ahead in the relationship. I don't know if this "spark" is real, I saw a lot of girls in person after liking their profiles, but didn't like them (or they didn't like me) in person. I think at some point, our culture decided that interest of the society is bigger than personal freedom. They may have decided its better to find a partner this way rather than spending several years like in other cultures (I worked with an American who dated the same girl for 5 years and got divorced in 6 months). If you are going to say that such a lack of personal freedom is regressive, I don't feel that way. In America, you have the draft which to me means you loose the right to your body.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  > In America, you have the draft which to me means you loose the right to your body. The draft hasn't been used in America since 1973 - our military service is all volunteer. What we do have, though, is called "Selective Service" - basically when you turn 18 years of age (and on thru 25 years of age), you have to register for "Selective Service" which is there to provide a list of "able and ready" (but maybe not willing) members of society which can be called up in a re-instated draft if and when it becomes necessary. It has yet to be used.
dep_b 10y ago
> Arranged marriage seems pretty horrible, but in talking to an indian coworker recently, they commented that having to find your partner seemed pretty horrible to them It's the part where people are forced where they don't want to that I don't like. There's plenty of people married to someone introduced by their parents. You should be able to take another path when you want to.
- smsowmya 10y ago
  arranged marriages are usually family introductions and rarely forced. the way they limit choice is by constraining potential partners to your own caste or community, to the supreme thrill of family conservatives who regard that as "respectable". if you're american, you're talking about a society that places a lot of importance on self - not the case in other societies. in a lot of indian families, family comes first, not the individual.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

dm3730 10y ago

"Lots of down votes because of uncomfortable truth?" No, downvotes because "the current state of arranged marriages in India" has absolutely nothing to do with the article. You're doing exactly what the author said was done to her. "they made comments about not liking to work with me or with the growing number of Indian tech workers in the company. I also faced hostile remarks about Indian women being subservient and arranged marriages being forced on Indians for generations." I have seen a scenario where a black colleague in a on-campus lunch discussion suddenly faced hostile remarks about black people being predisposed to crime. This is the exact same type of problem. Whether or not the topic is true is completely unrelated to how the topic is used to isolate and move the person from the category of a normal team member into "other" who can then be bullied or sidelined.

dep_b 10y ago
Right, I don't like to single out people to put them forward as "spokespeople for their group". As an immigrant myself it's kind of weird that people see me as some kind of representative of my culture/country. I don't see myself as not very typical for my country at all.

dang 10y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13192726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13192726 and marked it off-topic.