How a woman's body-size is like an ATM PIN

A few days ago, this article from the Guardian popped up on my social media news feed. I wouldn’t have clicked on it were it not for this excerpt – “I don’t think it's important to return to the shape you were before. I think if your body grew a baby, that’s an amazing thing and you should be proud of that.”

On the face of it, this seems an important and empowering message. I clicked on the article and read it. The article itself was also undoubtedly important, as it highlighted how pressures to return to a pre-pregnancy body lead some women to taking risks with their health in order to stay slim. My only issue with the entire article was the idea of pride in oneself and accepting one’s body being linked to the fact of having grown a baby. The human body is amazing, and true, one of the amazing things about women’s bodies relate to how they prepare and change for childbirth and childrearing. But the pressure to conform to a certain body-type isn’t specific to pregnant women and mothers. The conditionality introduced into the sentiment – “if your body grew a baby- subtly disempowers and excludes women who aren’t mothers. This isn’t to say that health risks of wanting to be slim aren’t more pronounced in case of pregnant women. They are, and they’re vital issues to address from a health perspective. However, rather than justifying why it’s okay that we are “not the shape we were before”, the message we should be putting out there in response to societal pressures around body-size/ shape should be one of unconditional acceptance and choice (because I believe it’s important for women to be able to choose whether or not their bodily appearance is important to them, instead of telling them it “shouldn’t be”). Instead of empowering people to stand up for their rights unconditionally, the “because you had a baby” part is like giving someone a temporary crutch with which they can ward off societal pressures to conform to an externally imposed standard that shouldn’t be there in the first place.

I’ll segue into another example from a few months ago to illustrate my point. Sania Mirza, a tennis player was asked by an interviewer on Indian media why she hadn’t ‘settled down’ (the colloquial meaning of which is “why haven’t you had children yet?”). Sania’s response to the question was as follows:

“…that’s the question I face all the time as a woman, that all women have to face- the first is marriage and then it’s motherhood. Unfortunately, that’s when we’re settled, and no matter how many Wimbeldons we win or numbers ones in the world we become, we don’t become settled. But eventually it will happen, not right now. And when it does, I’ll be the first one to tell everybody when I plan to do that.”

This response went viral as ‘the perfect response’ on electronic and social media. I -and others with similar thoughts, such as my close friend TQ (who has appeared on this blog before)- thought that while it was good in that it addressed the fact that women are considered complete only once they’re married-mothers, it was just short of perfect.  This is because once again, there was an implication that she shouldn’t be asked this because she is a top tennis player. A society in which traditional, patriarchal expectations are shut down through justifications grounded in successful careers is desirable, but not perfect.  Perfection would be a society where people don’t have to justify their personal choices, period.

Returning to the article, I messaged TQ almost immediately (as I usually do, about most things) and shared my annoyance about the “because you had a baby….” part. I said that as a child-free woman, I resented the implication that the rest of us child-free or childless (because the two mean very different things, and I respect a person’s right to choose a term they identify with) shouldn’t be proud of our bodies just as they are. If mothers get the “you just had a baby” crutch, what legs do the rest of us have to stand on if the ideology itself-- that women should either conform to external standards of beauty or give solid reasons as to why they should be ‘exempt’-- goes unchallenged?

TQ agreed, and added “there is a lot written about pride when it comes to mothers. Whether it’s about body image or about work-life balance or many areas of life that all women, mothers or not, struggle with. As a pattern, it becomes excluding, and therefore problematic.”

This led to a discussion about other situations in which as non-parents, we have felt excluded, disregarded or dismissed. A classic example was offered by TQ, who found herself on the receiving end of much eye-rolling by someone in her neighbourhood concerned about the numbers of stray dogs in the area. A notice had been put up about this “menace” (I use the quotation marks ironically, because neither TQ nor I are the sort of people that would think of large numbers of dogs as a menace. Far from it. More the merrier, we say!). The notice supposedly came from the hearts and minds of concerned parents.

TQ told me how she and her partner got into an argument with one of the concerned parents when they asked if anyone had been harmed because of the dogs. “The guy stutters”, TQ went on, “and then says ‘well no one yet, but I am sure you wouldn’t want your kids to be the ones to be bitten first’. We replied that we aren’t parents…. The guy just rolled his eyes as if to say ‘That explains!’ and walked off.” 

I noted to TQ how the “concerned parents” line is often used to close arguments. Is there a respectable retort to that that won't make you look like an evil sociopath who wants the world-and-all-good-things-within-it to end? 

I often find myself pushing back against the notion that the child-free are just, oh I don't know, soul destroying scum who clearly don’t care about anything. We just guzzle fossil fuels from beer bongs, sit around in our underwear scratching our crotches with one hand while clutching a bottle of tequila with the other, watching trash on Netflix and you know, NOT calling our parents because of course we-are-not-parents-ourselves-so-how-could-we-possibly-know-that-parents-want-to-hear-from-their-kids. While we’re at it, we also like to have sleeping parties to celebrate all the sleep we clearly get (“Because you’re lucky you don’t know what it’s like to have a toddler waking you up in the middle of the night”) and like to roll around naked on all the wads of cash we have lying around (“Because you don’t have to worry about kids’ college fees”).

I can’t keep track of the number of times I’ve been told how I wouldn’t understand something because I don’t have kids. Whether it’s debates about vaccinations, climate change or organic food, casual conversations about being sleep deprived or Brexit (yeah, Brexit. Apparently the legitimacy of my socio-political views is directly linked to whether or not I’ve given birth. Sidebar: I #Remain terribly sad at the looming prospect of Brexit). 

The “you won’t understand because you don’t have kids” line is strange for several reasons. Let’s start with the fact that no one really understands – on an experiential level- what it’s like to BE another person. A lot can get in the way of this. The laws of physics, for one thing. Privilege, for another. All we can do is try to understand the other as much as possible.  Of course I don’t have experiential knowledge of being a parent. Just like I don’t have experiential knowledge of what it’s like to be a skydiver. Or a beetle. Doesn't mean I can't imagine the anguish the poor creature must feel when it's lying on its back, tiny legs flailing, trying to turn itself the right side up. Secondly, it implies that those who don’t have kids can’t empathise with being a parent – which is a very narrow and inaccurate view of the capacity for empathy. There are people who can’t empathise with challenges of parenthood. There are people who don’t have children. They don’t necessarily overlap completely. Plus, due to things like, say, PRIVILEGE, it’s not like some kind of magical shared understanding exists between all parents. A single parent from a low-income household doesn’t see the world the same way, or even see the same world as a parent with a  lot of financial and social support. If I were to represent the capacity for empathising with parents in the form of a basic Venn diagram, it would look like this:

So maybe it’s not just about some of the non-parents not being able to understand till we have kids of our own. Maybe it’s also a case of some parents not being able to see beyond their own experiences and imagine a scenario in which someone could care about principles, values and issues even in the absence of any direct offspring that may be affected by said issues. For instance, I don’t need to have children in order to be concerned about climate change. My love for polar bears and feeling of solidarity with people in the rapidly sinking pacific islands has that covered.

To this category of parents, I’d just like to say the following: I am pleased for you if you anchor your moral and ethical compass around your children. In some cases, maybe it took having kids in order for you to discover or strengthen your morals and ethics. But if you could please refrain from assuming moral, ethical and intellectual bankruptcy on the part of those of us that don’t have kids, that would be great.

As for challenging social pressures, when you start to justify yourself in response to ridiculous expectations, it gives them a legitimacy they don’t deserve. Worse, it does absolutely nothing to challenge the insidious ideology behind the expectations.

So I propose the following, alternative response. Here's how I'd like to see such conversations go-

Person A:  “When are you going to lose all that weight?”

Person B: “What’s your ATM PIN number?”

Person A: “That’s none of your business!”

Person B: “Exactly. Glad we clarified that.”

'Leaked' celebrity nudes and their relationship to sexual violence

My reaction to the news that a celebrity's nude photos had been 'leaked' was one of exhaustion. I'm sick and tired of people obsessing over women's naked bodies. 

But the last few days* since some nude photos that a woman took of herself have 'leaked' have raised some very troubling issues. 

First is the fundamental issue that most people are unable to see this for what it is. It's sexual harassment. Naked images of someone have been obtained and made public, to be seen by millions, without their consent. Needless to say, the link to the website carrying these images has been shared and re-shared countless times already. Some might think that once the images are online and publicly available, they are fair game and others who view and share them are blameless. This is the the-people-who-did-the-hacking-and-actually-got-and-shared-the-photos-are-the-criminals-and-not-us logic. But the fact is these people are accessories to a crime. 

If this were to happen to anyone other than a celebrity- or specifically, someone other than a film or TV personality- I would hate to think that this many people would partake in the enjoyment derived from looking at the naked body of a woman (or, think about it, a child) without the woman's permission. I recognise the tragic reality that many would. But I suspect the number would be fewer than the number currently engaging in this reprehensible behaviour. What is it that makes a celebrity different? Being in the public eye doesn't mean the person is not entitled to privacy. Even if the person had previously presented as fully naked in a film or television show or made previous decisions to publicly share naked photos of themselves, it does not give us the right to assume that by doing so they have given us permission to freely view other naked images of theirs. 

Just like when a woman agrees to have sex with you once it doesn't mean she has automatically consented to having sex with you on every other occasion. 

Unfortunately the parallels between the public response to illegally obtained images of female celebrities and other types of sexual assault- including rape and sexual intimidation- doesn't end there. 

Consider the dangerous and absolutely idiotic argument doing the rounds that "if she didn't want the photos to be shared then she shouldn't have taken a nude selfie in the first place." This is exactly the same kind of victim-blaming, twisted logic that, when a woman is raped or sexually assaulted in any other way, concludes that she shouldn't have been wearing that/ doing that/ drinking like that/ any-other-prohibition-that-sexual-assault-survivors-should-have-imposed-on-themselves-to-allegedly-prevent-the-assault-from-happening. 

The fact is that taking photos of yourself naked is not a crime. 

Illegally obtaining and sharing naked photos of other people is. 

Just like drinking or wearing tight clothing is not a crime. 

Rape is. 

The second similarity is that the issue here is not about looking at a naked woman. You don't have a to try too hard to find consensually obtained nude images online. This includes pornography (which is not blameless in perpetuating a culture of misogyny and violence against women) and celebrities who are quite happy to share nude photos with their followers/fans on social media. So why do people get so excited when a naked photo is 'leaked'? The logical conclusion is that the lack of permission adds the extra thrill. You have got something that the other person did not want to give you and that you would not have got by any other means at this time. In what other situation is the absence of consent the distinguishing feature? Oh yes, rape. And other forms of sexual assault. Most intelligent people know that rape is not about having sex. Or sexual pleasure. It's about power and coercion. It's about the perpetrator (i.e. 'P') making a violent statement that the other person's body is their (i.e. 'P''s) property and 'P' can do what 'P' wants with it without ask for permission to do so. 

The third parallel that I draw pertains to the idea that Jennifer Lawrence (and the others who have been affected by similar 'leakages') should be embarrassed or shamed by this. Er, what? I cannot help but relate this directly to situations where women are made to feel ashamed about their bodies, their sexuality and even the fact that they are the victims of a sexual assault. Victim shaming is as bad victim blaming and just as prevalent. Part of the reason for this is the fact that we live in a world that sexualises the bodies of women and girls to a ridiculous degree even as it attempts to stifle and restrict female sexuality. Across the world, from a very early age girls are made to feel overly conscious of their bodies as something to be 'covered up', 'hidden', 'embarrassed about' or 'careful with'. So if someone ogles Jennifer Lawrence's nudity or Kate Middleton's breasts, it is these women who are expected to feel embarrassed and ashamed as if there is something inherently shameful about a naked female breast or butt. 

It's not the victim but the perpetrator who should be ashamed of their choices and behaviours. Whether it's the rapist or the person who illegally obtains and circulates naked photos of people without their consent. 

*I started putting these thoughts down a few days after the photos went viral. Between then and now, Jennifer Lawrence has shared her own thoughts on the matter and rightly, places all of the shame entirely on the people who viewed the images. 

The fact that she has done so in a magazine article for Vanity Fair, on the cover of which she is posing topless in a pool of water holding a parakeet has been regarded by some as hypocrisy. 

I actually think it's as clear an example as you'll ever get of the crucial ingredient that makes the two scenarios very different - Consent. 

On being 'good enough'

"When I was eleven, my sister bought our father a "World's Greatest Dad" coffee mug; and, frankly, the man coasted until the day he died."

- Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory)

Donald Winnicott (Yeah, I did just abruptly go from Sheldon Cooper to Winnicott) said and did a lot of useful things. Among these were his detailed postulations on motherhood and what a child needs in order to develop a healthy sense of integration and be initialised into the larger world with a sufficient degree of mastery, self-worth and confidence. Even better was the fact that Winnicott's ideas developed from earlier psychoanalytic thought that emphasised the role played by the mother/ primary caregiver (though the primary caregiver bit was only added as an afterthought) to such an extent as to frighten prospective mothers into believing that every problem faced by their offspring in adulthood could potentially be traced back to something they did or did not do as mothers of young children. Winnicott's theories offered mothers a necessary breather by dis-idealising (un-idealising?) motherhood ("It's only too easy to idealise a mother's job. We know well that every job has its frustrations and its boring routines and its times of being the last thing anyone would choose to do. Well, why shouldn't the care of babies and children be thought of that way too?"), advancing the idea that a parent who has fears and frustrations is preferable to one who is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent ("I would rather be the child of a mother who has all the inner conflicts of the human being than be mothered by someone for whom all is easy and smooth, who knows all the answers, and is a stranger to doubt") and forwarding the notion that one did not need to be perfect, but just 'good enough'. 

I find myself remembering Winnicott's 'Good enough mother' on the eve of the American version of 'Mother's Day'. My Facebook feed is already filled with posts about mothers, honouring mothers in general and our mothers in particular, doing something 'special' for them on this day et cetera, et cetera. While I personally don't participate in these 'Hallmark Holidays' or 'Symbolic' days, I'm quite happy to leave each to their own. 

Having said that, one of the themes that social networking sites throw up near such holidays are posts about having "The best mom in the world", "The world's greatest dad" or "The best husband/wife ever". These make my face automatically twist into an expression combining bemusement with just a trace of annoyance...and let me tell you why. 

Because it's not a contest. There are no awards or prizes and there shouldn't be because there is no gold standard against which one's prowess as a parent or partner can or should be measured. Motherhood, fatherhood, indeed all relationships are extremely complex, highly diverse, subjective processes. They can mean vastly different things to different people so even if it were a contest, what scale or measure does one use to assess a parent or partner's greatness? This becomes particularly tricky when you consider things like liberties and privileges. For example, how do you compare a woman in South East Asia who works as a labourer for 60 hours a week and feeds her child one meal a day with a well-to-do mother who feeds her children organic, homegrown stuff three times a day? How does one judge a father who works evenings and nights to support his children but in doing so, misses all their school plays? The problem with superlatives like 'best' is there can only be one. 

Since 'best' and 'greatest' are superlatives, they are essentially based on comparisons. Who are people using as comparatives? If someone has only been married once and states that their husband/wife is the "best husband/wife ever", the sheer inaccuracy of the statement irks me. Only someone who has been married more than once can make a comparison of their various partners and arrive at some conclusions on which one is (or was!) 'better' (though in the absence of damning evidence or facts, even this comparison would be unfair based on the point previously mentioned). How do you know that your husband/wife is the best husband/wife ever? And more importantly, why does he/she need to be the best? 

Society and culture bombard us with messages about what it means to be a "good mother", "a good wife", "a real man" et cetera and these have done more harm than good because people ruin their identities and lives, and often the lives of others, in trying to subscribe to these imaginary, impossible standards. They tell us that parenthood and relationships exist in a world of absolutes (where there is an absolute good, an absolute bad is implied).  In such a world, comparatives and superlatives about motherhood (and any other -hoods and -ships) can make people feel guilty or stressed about "not being a good mother", let alone not being "the best". 

I JUST googled the words "Am I a..." and- I KID YOU NOT- the first two autocomplete hits were "Am I a bad mother" and "Am I a good mom". Incidentally, these were followed by "Am I a psychopath" and "Am I sociopath". Interesting, and slightly disturbing. I don't think these ideas emerge out of a vacuum. There are mothers out there who are wondering whether they are 'good' or 'bad' because there is some standard in their mind they are trying to live up to or worried about falling short of. 

There is no universal definition of a good mother/husband/wife/father. No boxes people can check to ensure that they have met the requisite criteria with merit or distinction that puts them in the 99.99th percentile and therefore makes them the 'best'. What is out there is a world of real relationships, diverse collections of people with different identities and backgrounds, and people you care for and who need you to be there for them in a manner that is unique to your relationship with them. 

Why must we use inaccurate superlatives to describe our loved ones when accurate adjectives would suffice? 

"You are funny" or "You are caring" means a lot more to me than "You're the best partner/daughter/sister ever" because a. I know the latter is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty and b. I believe that when someone close to me tells me specific things about me that they cherish, they speak from experience within our relationship rather than a comparison with someone else or some imagined standard. 

Some might say that it's just a sentiment or a figure of speech and that I'm being too literal and over-thinking this. Well, so be it. 

I do like to think about the words we choose to use. 

I would much rather be a sincere 'good enough' for my loved ones than an inaccurate and impossible 'best'. 

The Cabin in the Woods: A cinematic lesson in existentialism

A few months ago, against all my natural instincts, I watched Cabin in the Woods. My reasons for doing so were largely due to the trailers that promised something unexpected and the words ‘you think you know the story, but….’ aroused sufficient interest in me. I convinced a friend- who is horror/ thriller aficionada and didn’t need much convincing- to tag along.

!!SPOILER ALERT!!- Do not read further if you intend to watch the film and want the film’s plot to remain a secret. You have been warned. My responsibility ends here.

 

The story revolves around five college goers (being represented by a jock, a somewhat provocative blonde woman who is also the jock’s girlfriend, an academic guy, a stoner and a demure, brunette woman) who take a weekend break to a cabin in the woods and like any other slasher film, start getting killed off one by one.

Usually, films of this kind have plots that offer thrills and little else. Remember the episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S in which Rachel suggests that Joey can't take her bra off because on some level he doesn't want to, and Joey responds with “No! I don’t have another level!”? Well, that’s my opinion of slasher films of the I-know- what-you-did-last-summer and Scream genre. Cabin in the Woods however has several levels. In fact, I think the film offers rich subject matter for a discussion on philosophy and existentialism. And having sat through some rather tedious films in the course of my academic life, I can honestly say I’d be happy to attend such a class.

Some of the dialogues and one-liners are quite witty and the film definitely has its moments. It offers thrills and humour in somewhat equal measure, sending an ever so slight chill down your spine or making you laugh at appropriate junctures.

Secondly, it’s gory. Now all slasher films necessarily involve some amount of blood and gore, but Cabin in the Woods leaves most of them far behind by depicting a colourful tumult of blood, body parts and bodily fluids. I loved it. I’ve always enjoyed blood, gore, decapitations and disembowelments. Some of that is down to curiosity about the human body I suppose (‘I wonder what slicing through flesh feels like?’). I am not a violent person in my real life. That being said, I am also not in denial of the fact that certain actions – cruelty, bullying or abuse of any kind- make angry enough to want to rip the perpetrators to shreds with my bare hands and wish them a slow, painful death. I find that indulging my aggressive side in the form of fantasies, videogames etc. is quite therapeutic. The key is the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality, thought and action, desire and behaviour and to accept the psyche’s various inclinations without judgment or suppression.

Those are the textual elements of the film, what is seen and heard. What sets it apart from other slasher films is what can be inferred from the plot.

Before I delve into the film’s subtext, I feel the need to expand on the plot somewhat for the benefit of readers who ignored the spoiler alert because they don’t want to watch the film or don’t care much for its surprise element(s).

So the youngsters are on vacation but what they don’t know is that in passing through a tunnel they have crossed over from the real world into a world controlled by white-collar technician type of people. These technicians are employed by their bosses ‘downstairs’, referred to in the film as the ‘ancient ones’, and the travellers are essentially sacrificial lambs who are to be killed off to please the ancient ones. Similar events are shown to be taking place all over the world. The cabin world contains a plethora of evil creatures that can potentially be the cause of the youngsters’ deaths, each one the result of a separate action taken by the vacationers. Long story short, in the end only the brunette and stoner reach ‘downstairs’ in their quest for answers and discover that their sacrifice is essential for the survival of the species because the ancient ones (aka Gods) are mad at human beings for their transgressions, and they will destroy the species unless placated.

Call it delusional over-thinking or unparalleled creative prowess in film interpretation (there are no prizes for guessing which one I prefer), but here’s why I think Cabin in the Woods is a film of great relevance to human existence.

 

Puppets and puppeteers

 

The human-beings-as-puppets theme was apparent on two levels- philosophical and cinematic. On a  philosophical level the film was significant because of its allusion to aspects of human existence that we cannot control. In some ways, we are puppets in the hands of destiny, fate, biology, science, god- whatever you choose to call it. I resort to lines from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam to make my case:-

 

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

 

From a cinematic perspective, and as someone easily scared by scary films, I like the idea of there being a finite number of gimmicks employed by filmmakers to frighten audiences. In the moment that we watch these films and submit to fear, we are like puppets in the hands of puppeteers/ filmmakers who are able to evoke certain reactions from us by pulling the right strings. In Cabin in the Woods, we see the two survivors travel in an elevator of sorts across different rooms, each containing a different scary character. This scene was quite comforting for me because once you’ve seen scary creatures tucked away in closets by other humans it makes them less scary. Context is everything. If the guy from Texas Chainsaw Massacre approaches you in the dead of the night in an isolated dungeon it’s much scarier than if he were to be walking around in a crowded mall on Halloween.

Free will

 

The film highlights that even in the midst of a world they cannot control there is some element of choice afforded to the unsuspecting vacationers. As one of the technicians points out, they have to choose to ignore the extremely creepy guy in the run down petrol station, they have to choose to go down to a cellar in the night, and the reason for their demise is directly dependent on which, of many different objects strategically placed in the above mentioned cellar, catches their fancy. The final choice facing our protagonists is whether to kill themselves and save humanity or save themselves and face the consequences. The relevant point is that even in a world under the influence of an entity other than you, you have the capacity to make choices and the consequences you face depend on those choices. Additionally, though you don’t choose to be born, how you die can be up to you. I think the right to self-determine how or even whether one lives is a fundamental and unconditional right, well depicted in the film by the final decision taken by the protagonists to sit down with each other and smoke a joint while the world comes crashing down around them.

Tied to this idea is the eternal struggle between fear and freedom. For the religious- particularly followers of a prescriptive religion that tells you you’ll go to hell if you are gay, drink alcohol, have pre-marital sex, use contraception etc. etc.- many decisions are motivated entirely by fear of some allegedly negative consequences of deviating from the prescribed path. I’ve met many people who are all too willing to relinquish any rational thought or introspection in the face of religious scripture or doctrine. The answers to questions such as “Why/ why not?” are mind-numbingly simple – “Because my religion says so”. And more often than not, the follow-up question “Why do you follow said religion?” doesn’t yield an intelligent answer either.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with an old African woman. She said “The fear of God is a great excuse to make people do what you want them to. When I was young, my mother used to tell us not to play in the street because God would punish us if we did. We listened. We wouldn’t have listened to her if she’d said we’d get run over by a car”. This particular story made me smile but how many people the world over perform the cruelest, most despicable acts of hatred and aggression because they believe they’re doing what their religion asks of them? “People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction”, writes Umberto Eco in The Prague Cemetery.

In the film, the threat of extinction is used to persuade the girl to kill her friend, and she very nearly succumbs to it. In the end however, they both choose not to kill each other despite Sigourney Weaver’s (who by the way, seems to be in every science fiction film!) attempts to scare them into taking each other’s lives. This is refreshing to say the least because what you see is a human being exercising free will in the face of catastrophe, taking a stand for what feels right to him/her, choosing a friend and fellow human over the alleged dictates of a God they’ve never met.

The end of the human species

Those who know me and/or have read this blog may be aware that I don’t have a high opinion of the human species and in fact delight at every little thing that puts us in our place and drags us down from the high pedestal on which we usually park ourselves.  Consequently, I thoroughly enjoy watching films in which people come under attack from other creatures – aliens, spiders, dinosaurs, sharks and suchlike. Even better if the attack is the result of human arrogance and/or stupidity (like in Jurassic Park). Watching such films, there is a huge part of me rooting for the non-humans to win. I mean, I thought it was tragic when the shark gets blown up in Jaws! :-( I find it utterly disappointing and boring when we are promised the end of the world and at the last minute, Tom Cruise or Will Smith manages to single-handedly save the day.

Films in which human beings end up vanquished rather than victorious are a breath of fresh air. Cabin in the Woods such a film. The film suggests that the survivors’ decision not to kill each other leads to the ancient Gods rising from the depths of the earth to take over (a giant hand comes out of soil and engulfs the screen). The last dialogue of the film is “Maybe it’s time we gave someone else a chance”. That’s terrific I say, because it reflects an awareness of something bigger than us, in whose plans human beings are just another species that happened to come into existence because the conditions were right rather than having some kind of central or special place in the cosmos. Whether due to Gods or physics or both, the universe is ever changing. Species come and species go. Stars are born and they collapse. Even the end of the world is not necessarily the end of the world. It’s only the end of the world as human beings know it.

If there is a choice between between fear and freedom, quantity and quality, longevity and liberty,  one hopes that one has the courage to make the right choice. The way I see it, the final decision of the people in Cabin in the Woods is a respectable one.

 

Clean ≠ Fair

It is either my good fortune or bad that I am not exposed to Indian advertisements on a regular basis any longer. Recently, a friend posted a link to this article about a new feminine hygiene/ beauty product that appears to have hit the Indian markets- Clean and Dry.

While I agree with many of the points made by Pal (the author)- namely the objectification of women and the locating of their self-worth entirely in how their physical self is perceived by others- I’d like to offer my own thoughts on the product and the ad which I believe are quite distinct from one another (a distinction not clearly apparent in the above mentioned article). I believe that the advertisement is not only a failure as far as feminism is concerned but also as far as good advertising is concerned.

The ad

The advertisement is awful and misogynistic on several accounts. Firstly, let’s take the song. The ad opens with a wistful female voice singing ‘Kho Gaye Hum Kahan…’ Only problem is, the 'hum' (i.e. the duo) do not appear lost in the slightest. The woman is in grief. The man clearly is not.

This line could potentially also apply to any domestic difficulty from infidelity to divorce to bankruptcy. I'm sure a coffee company could recycle the same song and make an ad opening with the same sequence as this one ending in the couple being all happy and content because they changed their brand of coffee. So for me, apart from the fact that the ad depicts the woman (and only the woman) fretting over/ mourning a loss that later turns out to be related to her partner's sexual interest in her, the song in the ad is abrupt, unclear and well, pointless.

The final line of the song is 'Jaana na, hai taazgi yahan' (roughly translated as 'Don't go, here be freshness!) which plays soon after the woman throws the man's keys down her shorts. Is she inviting him to have sex or begging him to stay because she has now 'fixed the problem'?

The man is depicted as being either totally oblivious of his partner’s anguish or totally unconcerned by her distress. Both are fairly undesirable stances. He’s shown to be reading the paper –a somewhat intellectual activity (depending on which paper one reads of course) and carrying on with his life while she ponders over what is lost in their relationship. This suggests that her self-worth begins and ends with how often she and her partner have sex while his sense of self is undisturbed by this aspect of their relationship.

Anatomical ambiguity

My main critique of Pal's article is the failure to distinguish between various components of female genitalia and the use of the word ‘vagina’ by the author when this ad seems to refer to an larger area. I'd like to stress that I am not defending the ad or its ambiguity but only pointing out an anatomical-linguistic inaccuracy that reduces the clarity of what is being communicated. The vagina is not the most visible part of the genitals so it’s more likely that the focus of beautification is on external genitalia. Cosmetic surgery to make the genitals 'look nicer' is increasingly becoming popular in the west and almost always or majorly involves a reconstruction, realignment etc. of the vulva or labia.

Beauty vs. Hygiene

It is very interesting that the ad for the intimate wash is drastically different in its content from an ad for a cream version of the same brand/ product.

Here’s the ad for the wash

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tx9vVVMWw0

And here’s the ad for the cream

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWRg8XvmzHA

I’m going to bullet-point the major points of departure between the two commercials

- The former has beautification as it’s core benefit while the latter emphasises hygiene (with the almost too professional looking doctor as the main protagonist).

- In the former, the woman’s unhappiness is relational. I.e. it is not limited to how she feels about herself but rather how her partner responds to/ feels about her. In the latter there is no mention of a relationship/ partner/ sexual desirability as the doctor speaks to an animated version of a female patient about discomfort, problems and infections in the genital region. This suggests a more internal sense of comfort/ happiness with one’s body and how one feels about oneself rather than approval from one’s partner in the form of a willingness to engage in coitus.

- The latter makes direct references to possible infections and problems women may experience which is totally absent in the former, giving viewers misguided impressions about the cause of the woman’s dissatisfaction with her genitals and contributing to a negative perception of female genitalia in general.

- There is no silly song or wistful longing in the latter as there is in the former

All of the above make the former misogynistic and offensive and the latter more acceptable.

(On a side note, it is also interesting that the woman in the former appears more ‘modern’/’western’ – clad in shorts- as compared to both the doctor and the animated woman in the latter – wearing saris and salwar-kameez respectively. I may be hypothesising here, but it may reflect the assumption that ‘traditionally’ attired women are more concerned with practical/health issues than sex. The eternal mother/whore dichotomy in traditional Indian psyche. Not entirely implausible, given the appalling views recently expressed regarding the attire and habits of female rape victims).

The existence of an inoffensive ad for a similar product makes it easier for me to isolate the product from the ad and criticise only the advertisement.

The distinction between beauty and hygiene/medical reasons is quite an important one – whether it’s in the field of everyday products or surgery.

I think in general, if there is a new over the counter cream for genital infections/ discomfort, and it is advertised as such, it is a good rather than a bad thing if it allows women to get access to effective medication for non-serious conditions.

The biggest problem with the first ad therefore is its emphasis on ‘fairness’ and a complete lack of any hygiene related advantages to using the product. The unfortunate truth is that the existence of a product that promises to make the nether regions ‘fairer’ doesn’t surprise me. Why would it? It seems like a natural progression after Fair & Lovely (for the face) and Fairglow soap (for the body). Though it is utterly deplorable, I’m not going offer a detailed critique of the fairness bias in Indian – particularly North Indian- society or the fact that in almost all advertising campaigns pertaining to ‘fairness’ products a woman’s physical appearance determines her competence, employability, confidence et cetera, et cetera. I’m in general agreement with feminist writers about the points they make regarding the objectification of women in Indian advertising.

‘Beautification’ of female genitalia and violence against women: related but distinct

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) (Those who don’t know what this is can read about it here) is beautification of female genitalia at its worst, performed on girls as young as a year old in several countries, majority of which are in Africa. It is torture and abuse practiced on the pretext of ‘religious custom/ duty’ and/or making the woman’s genitalia more pleasing- visually and sexually- for males.

I attended a seminar on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in which an FGM nurse specialist was talking about how, in her perception, FGM was also on a continuum of prejudiced, gender discriminatory and archaic patriarchal attitudes, and adult women who opted for cosmetic surgery on their genitals or even piercings etc. in the genitals were willing participants and perpetuators of these attitudes. I haven’t formulated my thoughts coherently on where I stand with regards to such a comparison, but I can try to see the point she’s trying to make.

One of the readers of Pal’s article commented that in a free market people should be permitted to advertise whatever they want while another commented that women who get drawn into the pull of these skin-lightening products based on advertising and marketing don’t deserve much sympathy. On the other hand one could argue that societal attitudes and prejudices are so deeply ingrained and social pressures so high that women who rebel and don’t conform risk ridicule/ disparagement/ isolation and in many cases, let’s be honest, torture/ abuse and even death.

Women who opt for cosmetic surgery to make their genitals more ‘aesthetically pleasing’ may or may not be doing so under pressure to conform. Aggressive advertising by the beauty and cosmetic surgery market probably does have a negative impact on how female (and male consumers) evaluate their own self-esteem and self-worth but the fact of the matter is that women are free to pierce their clitoris and consent to a doctor taking a knife to their genitals should they be so inclined.

The increasing popularity of cosmetic surgery is not something to celebrate because it indicates that we are tumbling down a path of insecurity and unhappiness with our physical selves and moving from an internal to an external locus of evaluation that, especially for women, begins and ends with how they look.

For many, FGM may lie on the same continuum as cosmetic surgery but while the former is criminally abusive the latter is merely tragic. To put things simply, preventing women from opting for genital reconstruction for aesthetic reasons is not the way to tackle FGM. Similarly, it is tragically true that the objectification of women occurs at varying levels and degrees. While all of its forms, levels and degrees are unacceptable, all of them are not the same as rape and violent sexual assault. There is a distinction between social attitudes that contribute to violence against women and girls and acts of violence. Tackling both is essential if we are to create a world in which women and girls can live free from fear of violence but the distinction between the two must not be lost.