Tuesday, June 23, 2009

I Kept Thinking After The Anonymous Comment...


In my post titled 'Back In Hyd,' someone anonymously commented "I haven't seen a girl bursting at seams with so many feelings for so many people," and I wonder how many other such things are not expected out of girls. I do not at all blame Mr/Ms anonymous for feeling the way s/he did, so please do not go explaining yourself, I already understand. It's just that we all are conditioned and cultured so well in this whole dichotomy of Girls and Guys that it is only natural of us to behave the way we do, expecting a girl to behave in a particular way and a guy in another. If anyone disobeys, we tend towards judging them, thus making life worth living, I suppose. After all, years of marination in the (popularly called) Indian ethics, culture, and values, can't go waste.

Very frankly, I don't see the point personally in not saying or writing the way you feel, as not saying it won't change a thing for the way you feel. I also do not see a point in stopping yourself from feeling a particular thing, cause anyways you have thought about it. I do not even see a foocking (as the meister puts it) point in then limiting the way a girl/guy is supposed to behave and react to things differently. I am sure all of us have gone through this forward that came a long time back, trying to highlight how biased our education system is. The forward was about this Hindi poem that is taught in the pre-primary or primary schools, it went something like this...

Ram uth, school jaa
Sita uth, pani bhar
Ram padhai kar
Sita roti bana....

I am not too sure about how it really was, but the essence was how we teach kids as young as 4-5 to acquire behaviors which perhaps might not come naturally to them. Just thinking, what would happen, if kids are not taught consciously or sub-consciously to behave as a girl or guy...would they behave more naturally or differently. I know, many who do not de-construct a given fact think all this as bull-shit and are completely aganist this line of thought. But where is really the harm in thinking??


P.S. - I am most certain that I am the most confused person you will ever come across.


26 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you overreact!
Probably my friend anon just meant that a girl of your age.

I tried to read your explanation and i saw a throbbing mass of hurt (not really hurt - Offended - Perhaps) feelings. The words came out in clumps of meaninglessness.control your writing and am sure you will be a better writer for it

Unknown said...

your hindi school system is sexist...we never came across any such poem in bong...anyway as long as we go by our parents' and grandparents' wishes and care for what neighbours etc will think of some action or the other, nothing's gonna change
the way the meister sees it is this - we are the confused generation, we are confused coz we have become exposed to an unprecedented amount n variety of cultures and ideas etc....now we have 2 paths in front of us....either we adopt the good stuff or we do the safe thing n maintain status quo
its up to u how to treat ur girl child

and abt that thinking line....people who tend to think a lot end up just thinking and not doing....thinking is good but it has to be bcked up by working (and not the sort of work for the profit of evil imperialistic capitalist organisations :-))

Unknown said...

oh bugger another supercillious critic

Unknown said...

btw whats with the cartoons? are they supposed to show the diff between men n women or something? if that then u chose the worst possible group of carttons mate...those manga girls regularly kick butt

myriadmind said...

go girl !
nice reactive peice of writing
instinctive and unadulterated just the way ot should be

Runa said...

@Anon - hey don't know how you see hurt feelings...amazes me. I would say perplexed, unless you know me better than me, which might be possible in a wierd world.

@Potato - well said, we indeed need to move away and the pic exactly is for the purpose that inspite of the looking so shimmery and decorated can kick ass better than the boy who looks all cut out for it.

Runa said...

@Anon - On second thoughts, how could you decipher that the other Anon was referring to a girl my age? and I accept, perhaps I was hurt...but what the hell the post was not a direct result of that but a combined result of no wish to work and having nothing else to do.

Anonymous said...

not sure about the age,but thats what i felt s/he said. Once you have written something its out of your control really...so we are free to deduce whatever we can from it. And in that way We might know you more than you do you.

Runa said...

@Anon - interesting perhaps. Also, as we are free to deduce what we want, in the first go I had this stinky feel about gender bias...may be cause the topic too close to my heart

Anonymous said...

We get it!
Thats why we said that you wrote completely emotionally and thus overreacted instead of just reacting....
:)

Runa said...

agree

Black Swan said...

I've to disagree with Anon here. The reason wasted's writing categorizes as emotional is one of the distinguishing features of the style. Controlled writing suits a bunch of people, while others revel in their "clumps" of words, as you classified it.

Controlled doesn't always mean meaningful. It can get boring.

And cacophony, more often than not, gets melody out of the writing. Controlled writing often translates to controlled thoughts, and the essence of writing is lost.

Maybe u could write this in a controlled way and show how "meaningful" it could become and I could critique it.

P.S: What I said is totally defensive because I love the way wasted writes.

Runa said...

@hamsini - thanks sweets...I love the way you come up to my defense. I almost by choice ignored the comment on the writing style...as you said it differs from person to person and I love the emotional writing style of mine and won't change it for anything in the world apart from trying to make less typos and grammatical errors may be ;)

everybodylies said...

@ Wasted - This reminds me of a statement made my the psychologist Dr. Phil - When babies are born they are sexually neutral and then become conditioned by the enviornment they are in to 'behave like girls or boys'. We are who we are because of the environment we are brought up in the initial years and the environment (peers/books/television/etc) we choose to surround ourselves with now.

For example in the case of the fairer sex there are things which they invariably do. These are superficial but I'll still risk mentioning them - The flip of the hair, standing with the foot across to one side, it could be anything. And what's wrong with that? - Because that's nothing. Just something she does and probably picked up seeing someone in the movies or magazines. One may argue that its not the 'real stuff' but all that adds up - the hair flips, the mannerisms, the catch phrases - they add up the personality. So they are real!

I think I have drifted off topic now but to conclude and answer the question posed at the end - There is no harm in thinking.

Think what you want - Do what you want - Just remember what a character from one of my fav tele shows says - "There is no right or wrong. Just the consequences of our actions."

Anonymous said...

@ wasted: Totally agree with the post. Wouldn't change a thing!

Runa said...

@everybodylies - well said is all I can say.

Anonymous said...

Okay. First things first. I can't see how a comment like "I haven't seen a girl bursting at seams with so many feelings for so many people" can possibly be considered sexist in even any shoddy, rotten or overdone format of feminism, leave alone healthy discussions. Is it implied that these characteristics are typically associated with boys and this particular girl here is being 'elevated' socially by this comment? May be if it said 'Only a girl can burst at seams...' or 'It takes a girl....' etc. and many other phrases that seem to establish 'girl'ish virtues. May be if it was not 'customary', 'ethical', or 'cultural' to attribute these feelings to girls, and only exclusively to boys, it would be sexist. I would seriously wish to see where the sexism, subtle, overt, covert, malignant or benign exists in any possible dissection of this statement.

I think the need to bring down the venom of the institutional dichotomy has reached such a level that the honey is oozing out of the hive. Can we not see it all over the post? Or was it the sting?

Seriously...?

Anonymous said...

And people...!? A girl goes feministically supersonic and everybody loves to have a ride...? Talking of customs and cliches, is it seriously not one today to just nod in agreement to be agreeable these days. I don't think it really matters to me even if a girl is talking misoriented feminism. Spade's a spade.

Seriously where does the statement went sexist, or even furthering the 'dichotomy', if that's even an appropriate word here?

Anonymous said...

I seriously think the appropriate statement here, ironically, is:

JUST BECAUSE SHE'S A GIRL...

Anonymous said...

I was surprised at Wasted's initial outburst. It hadnt seemed that the commenter was comparing her to a boy. It might have been an inane line...a nothing, but its interesting to see what wasted did with it. She Assumed on many levels. Which she agreed on one of the later comments is because of her childhood filled with biases. I completely understand. I think next she should do a post saying "I kept thinking when I overreacted"

@Hamsini: Uncontrolled/cacophonous writing sounds lovely. However in this case she let her assumptions run away with her and come out with a very misguided piece. Her argument is very shallow and obvious. She has to go deeper unto herself to argue out of this and not mouth cliches.

Runa said...

@Anon - This just gets better and better. By the way, I totally understand now what you mean when you said "I over-reacted." ;)

Also, I agree what you say about "Only a girl..." or "It takes a girl..." I totally agree, had you or the other Anon had said that, then it would have been obviously sexist. But dude instead "I haven't seen..." is subtly implying sexist bias. The whole fight today is not only eradicating the obvious but suggestions of sexist behavior as well. But its ok, live in your world where suggestive is OK to live with.

Anonymous said...

Dude'tte'... For "I haven't seen..." to be sexist the cliches would have to be a little different. If girls were normally not associated, dogmatically, with a capacity of abundance of feelings, the statement would have been sexist without the foggiest.

For this one to be one it would have to say "I haven't seen a boy bursting at seams with so many feelings for so many people" as being full of feelings is something 'attributed' to girls, 'normally'.

Don't just go on and push it in the depths of subtlety or like. Go back and go through it again.

Anonymous said...

I agree!

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