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>people flee these countries for a reason ... massive cultural and social advantages Woah, there's some serious ethnocentrism in your comment. I know 100s of p

• eshvk 13y ago
  Let me offer an anecdote too. I am of Indian origin. I lived in the country for 7 years; I speak multiple Indian languages quite well too. I was there recently. There are several distinctions between the two countries. 1. Things get more real there. You don't get good grades, your life is going to suck with high probability. In America, you can wank off trying to navel gaze whilst doing your degree in some bullshit and then eventually can be comfortable living your life working in a coffee shop. In India, the people who work at coffeeshops have shitty lives. 2. I agree on your perception of Indians vs. Americans on interpersonal relations. Indians have no concept of personal space. I was traveling alone in the Himalayas. I got tired of the questions that started off with casual strangers asking me "Do you have no friends?" to army men asking me suspiciously why I was traveling alone. (To add on to the shit is more real there; if I had a name of the wrong religion, that would have been a dangerous issue.) In America, people create these shells of beautiful people. Everyone is happy, white shining teeth and shining gadgets. Depression and mental issues covered up. Take a pill; go to the therapist is the solution to everything here. 3. People in the U.S. have a sense of community. A simple fucking thing like littering is a big deal. In India, forget about the fact that the government mandated litter bins exist all over the place, no one wants to take the effort to put a piece of plastic in the damn bin. Again, with high probability. Finally, to get to the subject of the OP. I met a lot of American girls (and guys) whilst traveling there. I was shocked that fucking Delhi, the capital of one of the largest countries in the world, was where most of them reported being harassed. From the innocuous "Are your freckles a sign of skin cancer" to "Hey, you are white, would you like to get raped.". This behavior is revulsive. Yes, it should be brought up to light.
  • kamaal 13y ago
    >>You don't get good grades, your life is going to suck with high probability. Very true for some one poor, not some one who has a means to set up a business. Which I'm pretty darn sure is true with the US society too. Or anywhere in the whole world for that matter. Regarding 2) That has both its positives and negatives. In India if you run into trouble there is a massive extended family to fall back on. In US, you have to deal with it yourself. Regarding 3) Lack of hygiene or presence is not a cultural thing. West was equally dirty during and before industrial revolution.
• tptacek 13y ago
  Am I expected to be O.K. with misogyny in the service of "traditional values", or are traditional values beside the point here? A lot of "traditional" values turn out to be wrong.
  • chunky1994 13y ago
    I think O.P was conflating two issues there, one about patriarchy in India being very traditional, two about misogyny (apparently) being rampant. I for one don't expect anyone to be okay with misogyny, whether it be cultural or not, and I presume all the other Indians here feel the same way.
    • MichaelSalib 13y ago
      But aren't patriarchy and misogyny fundamentally related? I mean, are there any societies with strong patriarchal norms but very little misogyny?
      • chunky1994 13y ago
        It heavily depends on your definitions of both those terms. However, strictly speaking, patriarchy in itself while still constraining of women (an egalitarian society would be much better), also required heavily duty-bound behavior from men. Something which is not conducive to open or effective misogyny. I do not know of any societies with strong patriarchal norms and very little misogyny, if they do indeed exist.
        • richardjordan 13y ago
          Yeah I'm calling BS on that. Patriarchy in cultures is without fail about the control of women. All niceties around protecting them boil down to treating them as property, as chattel. You fundamentally don't have an equal situation when one gender is rendered property of another. ergo misogyny
    • rm999 13y ago
      Yes you are entirely correct, I mixed up those concepts when I was writing my comment. I meant to highlight the cultural patriarchy and distance myself from the misogyny ("I won't defend this"). I do think much of the misogyny in India stems from their patriarchal values, but misogyny is a social issue rather than a cultural concept. I doubt many Indian women are cool with misogyny...
• tootie 13y ago
  It's not ethnocentrism, it's real. Even from wealthy countries in East Asia where the strict Confucian relationships put huge burdens on women. Obviously, a lot if not most people are inured to those cultures and don't like the Euro/American level of cultural freedom. The ones who moved are the ones who couldn't deal with the oppression.
  • brazzy 13y ago
    > Obviously, a lot if not most people are inured to those cultures and don't like the Euro/American level of cultural freedom. Nope, still ethnocentrism.
    • tootie 13y ago
      Ethnocentrism would imply racism, whereas our pluralism is one of the ways our culture is more free. Korea and Japan are wealthy, first-world liberal democracies, but they abhor immigration and remain 99% ethnically homogenous. The weakness of their cultures is (ironically) ethnocentrism. And even though Western Europe is much better, no place really matches America on this one.
• dylangs1030 13y ago
  >"While we may criticize Indians for being misogynistic, many Indians criticize Americans for lacking a solid foundation of traditional values. Like anything else that's subjective, we perceive culture in a relative manner." Except misogyny is a legitimate criticism of a society, a lack of "traditional values" is not. A lot of social issues, like legitimate discrimination of minority groups in America, are legitimate. On the other hand, there's a second class of social issues, the subjective ones. For example, the view that America is too "Puritan" in political forums. A theme like that is subjective - that would be a "traditional value." I think 'rayiner's point can best be summed up as an answer to your last sentence. Yes, America, like India, isn't perfect. Both have unique "social issues" - but America is still, objectively, a better place to live. Yeah, it can be argued that people in India might not glare at you the same way people in the NYC subway do, and that India has nicer scenery. These are irrelevant to a discussion of which place is actually better to live in.
• moultano 13y ago
  Have you talked to the women? My wife is Indian as are many of our friends. The men all think wistfully about moving back to India. None of the women do. People are skeptical of "American Culture" in large part because even after living here for years, they view it through the lens of how it was portrayed in Indian cinema. Regardless, the women all appreciate that in America they can safely go about their business in public, and in India they can't.
  • chrischen 13y ago
    That's not culture so much as it is the side effect of culture merged with their current development state as a country. That is, if India's quality of living and development were advanced to that of the west, there probably wouldn't be anything objectively inferior culture-wise.
    • moultano 13y ago
      It is definitely culture. The US didn't start treating women reasonably on its own. It required a generation of women to protest in the streets until the culture and the law changed. This hasn't happened in India yet, but is hopefully now beginning. I wouldn't draw too many direct parallels between women in the pre-'60s US, and women in India since the respective traditions are so hugely different, but what has to happen to fix it is the same. What I'm going to describe is a bit of a caricature, but it's true enough that it's the dominant theme of Indian soap operas. Traditionally in north India, women don't even eat with the rest of the family. They are expected to remain in the kitchen cooking and serving food until the meal is finished, when they eat whatever is left, alone. The woman only gains power in the family when she's the oldest person left alive, at which point the veneration for elders supersedes her subjugation. The stereotype is that at this point, she takes out the frustration of her years of abuse by ordering around her daughter-in-law.
      • chrischen 13y ago
        But I still think it is societal development. Liberalism is a natural evolution as the quality of life and the society advances, and so the way woman are treated in India I believe is an effect of its development, not an effect of its culture. Like you said, the US had the same stage. We used to be heavily racist and also oppressed women during an earlier stage of socio-economic development.
• lmartel 13y ago
  I feel like this is a cop-out. Indian culture is objectively worse than American culture, and this article is pretty solid evidence of this. "Traditional values" are no excuse for misogyny and barbarism. Tradition is close to the literal opposite of social progress and I don't understand why it is glorified. I'm pretty proud that I have no "solid foundation of traditional values," and that I've incidentally raped a grand total of 0 people. Edit: I read your clarifying comments on the other sub-threads. What's the difference in this context between a social issue and a cultural one?
  • kenster07 13y ago
    Though I am disgusted by the descriptions in the article, I find your comment equally offensive.
  • j45 13y ago
    All traditions have their spectrum, good and bad. India's a really old civilization and studying a lot of old civilizations, brings to light some unfortunate similarities. I make absolutely no concessions or explanations for barbaric behaviour anywhere, at anytime, but instead of taking a minute to turn a stranger into a person that you can relate to, you too, may be dehumanizing a group that requires effort to learn about. "All traditions were new once", as we heard in Fiddler on the Roof.
  • gcforky 13y ago
    I wanted to write a comment on this topic. But just figured out that every word you wrote is true. I am happy that i follow no religion, no cast, no nonsense.
• rayiner 13y ago
  I don't think there is anything wrong with a certain amount of ethnocentrism. It is taken for granted that culture matters in say a startup, so I see no reason not to extend that thinking to nations. While cultural preference might be subjective, culture impacts things that are objectively measurable. How close you stand in lines might be purely subjective, but the woman in the article did not suffer PTSD for purely subjective reasons.