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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. Peopl

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.
    - moultano 13y ago
      I don't think it's a useful model to suppose that there's some underlying "true culture" that doesn't change over time and that will be gradually revealed as their economy improves. Culture changes, and economic development is a catalyst for change. Whatever way people behave today, that is the culture today, and if they behave differently tomorrow, that will be the culture tomorrow. Right now, Indian culture subjugates women. In the future, it hopefully won't. Liberalism might be an "inevitable" consequence of advancement from one stage to the next, but real people have to fight for it to make it inevitable. When they fight for it, they will be changing the culture, not revealing it in a more true form.
- saraid216 13y ago
  How do you distinguish between culture and its side effects?
  - chrischen 13y ago
    I didn't mean side effect of culture. I meant the effect of the product of culture and their current state of development.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Money can't buy you class. See: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.
richardjordan 13y ago
THIS. Couldn't have put it better. The men romanticize about life back home. The women don't. They dot want their daughters going back to a place where they're treated as second class citizens. They often know that even their own families would lock them back into a situation where the lost many f the freedoms they learn to appreciate living in America. I had a good friend tell me one if the key reasons many women stay in abusive marriages back in India is because if they divorce their husbands they genuinely feel they will simply be opened up as fair game for rape by any man who feels like it. I'm highly offended by the folks in this thread who've even saying things like - yes it's bad for women in India but the us has it's problems. That's not the same as living either a second class status or in constant fear. One if my favorite movie lines, familiar to many on this site, comes to mind: "how does it feel to live in fear? That's what it is to be a slave". Are ALL Indian men likely to act this way. No of course not. So let's avoid the straw man of "not everyone behaves this way". This is the cumulative effect of enough people and the culture they live in. Men in the west are definitely comfortable respecting the cultural values of other countries without a though or care for what those values mean for half the population and that they're often enforced through brutal violence against women or the threat of that violence used to intimidate.
lenkite 13y ago
+1 to this. Captures it eminently.

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.
  - moultano 13y ago
    I don't think it's a useful model to suppose that there's some underlying "true culture" that doesn't change over time and that will be gradually revealed as their economy improves. Culture changes, and economic development is a catalyst for change. Whatever way people behave today, that is the culture today, and if they behave differently tomorrow, that will be the culture tomorrow. Right now, Indian culture subjugates women. In the future, it hopefully won't. Liberalism might be an "inevitable" consequence of advancement from one stage to the next, but real people have to fight for it to make it inevitable. When they fight for it, they will be changing the culture, not revealing it in a more true form.
saraid216 13y ago
How do you distinguish between culture and its side effects?
- chrischen 13y ago
  I didn't mean side effect of culture. I meant the effect of the product of culture and their current state of development.
rayiner 13y ago
Money can't buy you class. See: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.

richardjordan 13y ago

THIS. Couldn't have put it better. The men romanticize about life back home. The women don't. They dot want their daughters going back to a place where they're treated as second class citizens. They often know that even their own families would lock them back into a situation where the lost many f the freedoms they learn to appreciate living in America. I had a good friend tell me one if the key reasons many women stay in abusive marriages back in India is because if they divorce their husbands they genuinely feel they will simply be opened up as fair game for rape by any man who feels like it. I'm highly offended by the folks in this thread who've even saying things like - yes it's bad for women in India but the us has it's problems. That's not the same as living either a second class status or in constant fear. One if my favorite movie lines, familiar to many on this site, comes to mind: "how does it feel to live in fear? That's what it is to be a slave". Are ALL Indian men likely to act this way. No of course not. So let's avoid the straw man of "not everyone behaves this way". This is the cumulative effect of enough people and the culture they live in. Men in the west are definitely comfortable respecting the cultural values of other countries without a though or care for what those values mean for half the population and that they're often enforced through brutal violence against women or the threat of that violence used to intimidate.

lenkite 13y ago

+1 to this. Captures it eminently.