Eve Ensler: Embrace your inner girl

Eve Ensler, the creator of the "Vagina Monologues", speaks of the power of women in this passionate and inspiring TED talk.

What Disability Teaches

Think about what 'it' has taught you. Break up the task into small manageable parts -- if there's one thing having a limited number of 'spoons' has taught you to do, it's to break work down into small manageable chunks.

There are other things it's taught you as well. In relation to yourself. In relation to your family, your friends, and all those other acquaintances who populate your life.

It's taught you that you cannot ever assume that you will have the energy to do all (or even a small fraction of) the things which you might want to do whether you want to do those things just because you feel like it or whether you want to do those things because it is imperative to do them.

It's taught you to keep your feet very firmly on the ground and have a strategy for everything you do because you know you need to plan how to use your energy which could well be truly limited on any given day.

It's taught you to prioritise and to not waste time or energy on the unimportant, on the unachievable, on the unchangeable, on the unchallengeable because you need to focus on what's important (and "doable") and get it done (or at least try to) before your energy runs out.

It's taught you to pick your battles carefully because you don't have energy to expend on fighting about things if you know that such a fight would be fruitless; you don't want to spend what limited energy you have on anything that would be unproductive.

It's taught you to be more patient with other people simply by forcing you to recognise the very real possibility that others could have disabilities and liabilities and impediments which force them to ration their energy in just the way that you do, and that those disabilities and liabilities and impediments of theirs could be just as invisible to you as yours could be to them.

It's taught you to be realistic about goals, about deadlines, about what you can do, when you can do it, and just how much of it you can do, because you know that if you're not realistic every single hour of every day, you're going to have to pay for having over extended yourself in the next hour, or on the next day -- not ten years down the line when you have a heart attack that you somehow simply didn't expect.

It's taught you to be self-reliant because experience has taught you that people may not want to be around you when you're not 'well', because you know that you live in a society which demands wellness, a society whose gurus advise others to get rid of negativity in their lives with negativity often including the requirements of people who are not healthy or able-bodied.

Then again, you could paraphrase all that it's taught you by saying that it's taught you not to dream, not to take things as they come, not to play it by ear, not to recognise and treat unacceptable behaviour as being unacceptable, not to be idealistic, not to have faith in your relationships with people, not to believe that anyone would stand by you if the need arose.

And you're not entirely certain which interpretation to choose particularly since you know that what you've learnt remains unchanged regardless of what light you choose to see it in.

On Erudition and Indecipherability

From Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience:

If you’re anxious for to shine, in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.
And everyone will say, As you walk your mystic way,
If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be.

I couldn't resist quoting this excerpt posted at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Trust Women

Dr. George Tiller often wore a button that simply read, "Trust Women".

Reading the words "Trust Women" in the context of supporting the right to choice made me think of all the times when women's right to choice is not trusted not just in the context of women being able and allowed to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy but in other contexts as well, and in particular, in the context of autonomy and the right to determine what happens to one's own body.

It made me think of women who are forced to have abortions because of the gender of the foetuses. It made me think of women who are forced to become pregnant when they don't want to. Of the women who are forced to abort children because of their being single. Of the women forced not to terminate pregnancies because they are not single.

It made me think of how the "right to choice" can mean different things in different societies. About the way how, in India, the right could be considered as not being focussed on the right to have an abortion when the woman pregnant chose to but also of her right to refuse to have one if that was what she wanted to do.

And thinking of that, it made me realise that although the cultural framework in which the right should manifest itself may vary greatly, what remains immutable regardless of the cultural framework, as well as associated socio-legal and economic environments, the basic requirement remains the same -- the all women have autonomy to decide what happens to themselves, their lives, and their bodies, without reference to external agencies whether those external agencies be of church, or state, or government, or courts, or family, or society.

3 Idiots, and Why I Disliked It

...or at any rate, failed to love it.

I'm aware that I am one of the very few people who isn't raving about the film "3 Idiots" -- a film about the lives of three average students in a 'top-notch' engineering college. Yes, it did make me laugh. And there definitely were a number of things about it which were commendable.

Nonetheless, there were a number of reasons why I wasn’t comfortable with the film. To begin with, I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the title “3 Idiots” simply given the baggage which the word “Idiot” carries with it. (Disclosure, yes, I do use the word myself but it’s a habit of which I’m attempting to disabuse myself.

The word “Idiot”, as FWD/Forward put it, 'is derived from Latin and Greek roots; it originally referred to persons who did not participate in civic activities or to “ordinary persons”, then to unskilled labourers, and eventually to people who were ignorant or who lacked education. It seems to have made its first appearance in English around 1300, in reference to people who lacked reasoning skills and were poorly, if at all, educated. By the 1800s, being an Idiot had turned into a diagnosis of mental inferiority – the hierarchy being imbeciles, morons and, the lowest of the low, idiots. And, not surprisingly, the term made its way into law: Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “Three generations of idiots is enough,” when defending the forcible sterilization of Carrie Buck in Buck v. Bell in 1927. The California penal code was finally amended to remove the word “Idiot” from the law books only in 2007,' and in India, the term is still used at law.

Given that history, it’s not one of my favourite words.

One of the primary things in the film which I disliked was the speech where a student’s speech in a language he didn’t know so that, unbeknownst to him, instead of talking about the achievements of the head of the educational institution, he wound up talking about rape. After that, the students obviously joked about the incident. And, somehow, I didn’t find it funny – I’m entirely unconvinced that the word “rape” should ever be used to describe anything other than, well, rape itself. Even leaving aside all other arguments, one (hopefully) would not walk up to a survivor of torture saying that an exam was torture. Given the sheer number of women who are raped, I do not believe that “rape” should ever be used in a context unrelated to rape in a public forum. It isn’t a word which exists to be appropriated whether for the purpose of analogy, or metaphor, or anything else; it exists in itself. And it profoundly affects the lives of many people.

However, what really put me off was the fact that although the film was very funny in many places, it didn’t treat a serious subject in a humorous manner, or simply be funny while dealing with light-hearted subjects. What the film did was keep oscillating rather wildly between the two extremes of deeply upsetting subjects and extremely funny scenes. And I’m one of those people who, if watching a comedy, would just like to be able to watch without having the comedy interrupted by tragedy such as a student killing himself effectively because of autocratic megalomaniac who was acting as an educator-administrator in the educational institute where the student was studying.

I acknowledge that the lack of accountability by educators in such circumstances, and the other issues which the film highlighted, are issues which should be addressed. And perhaps a film filled with hilarious scenes is a good medium through which to address the issue. For me though, the oscillation between the hilarious and the sad was emotionally draining. And by the time I finished watching the film, despite its feel-good ending and despite the fact that I’d laughed a lot, I also simply felt sad.

Black Orchid

The effects of militancy in Manipur were portrayed in this play which was directed by Toijam Shila Devi. Set in a fictional village in Manipur, it focussed on the effects of the militancy particularly on women and children. There were several moments in the play when I wanted to get up and leave, not because the play wasn't good but because it seemed the pain the actors conveyed seemed extremely raw at times -- there was sometimes no "artistic portrayal", and it felt as though the actors were far too familiar with the effects of militancy to need to "act" at all.

Manipur comprises nine districts: four in the Valley and five in hilly areas, and all nine of those districts have been subject to militant activities for years. A separatist insurgency began in Manipur in the 1960s demanding that Manipur secede from India, and that a separate "Kingdom of Manipur" be established -- Manipur was in fact the last kingdom to be annexed by the British and made a part of British India in 1891. The arguments of the militants involve citing a lack of development among other factors. The militants are not a homogeneous group who are united in their cause though. There are several different groups and while "independence" from India is the aim of some of them, others have entirely different aims such as integrating Manipur with Nagaland -- Manipur's hills are inhabited primarily by Nagas and Kukis (Chin-Mizos) while the valley is inhabited primarily by Meiteis (including Meitei Muslims known as Meitei Pangal or Pangal and "Bhamons" who are literally non-Meiteis).

Militancy has, obviously, played a role in suppressing development in the state, and the lack of development has not helped to curb militancy in any way. There have been numerous reports of human rights violations in Manipur. Some of these instances have made headlines across the country. For example, in 2004, a supposed woman militant, Th. Manorama Devi, was allegedly raped by personnel of the Assam Rifles and died in custody. However, the number of instances which make the news appear to be minuscule in comparison to the sheer number of human rights violations. Activists like Sharmila Irom have done much to highlight problems in Manipur (particularly in relation to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act) but even so, militancy in Manipur is not a subject which is often discussed in the Indian media.

Not all human rights violations have been perpetrated by security forces though. In an opinion on "Freedom, Liberty, Human Rights And Manipuri Society", H Bhuban Singh described the situation. "In Manipur, there are plenty of Governments and various sets of laws. These unofficial but more powerful Governments issue diktats and enforce their laws. Some are shot in the calf or in the thigh, after due warning as they claim. Some unfortunate ones are tried by their courts of justice and given capital punishments.When anyone steps out of one's house, there is no knowing as to what may befall on you. One can be caught in the crossfire between security forces and underground elements and in the bargain, the innocent 'you' may get killed. Or you may be a victim of a bomb blast. Or you may have to turn back your car without going to Churachandpur when you face a wildcat bandh or strike at Bishnupur. Life is uncertain," he said.

Describing the situation as a breakdown in the rule of law, Human Rights Watch issued a statement saying, "The Manipur state government in northeastern India should act to end a cycle of unpunished violence, including killings, by security forces and armed groups," in 2009.

It was against this background that the play "Black Orchid" was set, and at times, it was heart wrenching.

Emotional Availability

From Ms. Robinson:

"I have become this strange combination of extraordinary mental strength and emotional fragility. .... My limits have been tested so much I now do cost benefit equations in my head to make sure I'm not giving away too much of me to anyone. I do them every day. Because I don't jump in easily but when I do I'm more open than anyone I know, giving intensely and with passion. You can't keep doing that."

The whole post is available at Maybe it was Already Broken