I am very emotionally and intellectually affected by the idea of ‘otherness’. I find myself unable to champion either a purely South Asian standpoint or a generalized ‘Western’ stance on social issues, especially feminism and it’s relationship with culture. This means that I am perceived as the ‘other’ to people from both worlds – and truthfully, I don’t know if this admittance helps or hurts any arguments I make.
In short, I am an Indian expatriate, inexperienced with my maternal and paternal languages. Despite this, I grew up eating ‘rice and dal’ everyday for lunch (a South Indian staple) and I’m comfortable eating with my hands. I speak an “accentless” English but when I am angry or speaking to my family, I inevitably find myself being sharper on my consonants, with a trace Indian lilt. I’m somewhat forgiven for my lack of “Indian-ness” by relatives and other expatriate friends but beyond these superficial things, certain combinations of conservatism, unequal gender roles and cultural identity have made an impression on me.
As pointed out by my sister in a casual conversation, there are many faces of Indian feminism, just as in the West – the conversation has been had and re-had with marginal real-life improvements and there is little that is new to say about it. Therein lies a glimpse of the true problem-gap between cultural identity and feminism in India, and I daresay to an extent in the West. We’ve come up with different variations of feminism for various cultural contexts but there is limited discussion about the ways in which to move beyond the intellectual bubble. This bubble has been formed around the intellectual nature of feminism but has not been adequately conveyed in context of the nuances and challenges of everyday life in Indian society for both men and women. The purpose of how feminism or equality of the genders has widely been acknowledged in terms of economic benefits but not in terms of social ones because such progress is hard to gauge when it comes to India’s religious diversity and hierarchal society.
In this sense, a valid defense is that someone who is representative of the ‘one’ or the ‘other’ cannot speak for the many different contexts at hand. In this way, my cultural “otherness” is shared with the large feminist-oriented culture in India and seen as not really belonging. Identity has always been a transient concept, but somewhere along the way South Asian cultures decided that it shouldn’t be and this became reflected in social issues too.
I recently came across this TED talk by Malala Yousafzi’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzi, which surprised me in a good way. He was speaking about patriarchal societies in a way that acknowledged the possibilities for a different kind of approach to the ‘girl-child’. He is evidently a well-educated individual but he is also very clearly not from an urbanized context. Western influence was literally the most improbable factor in the way he chose to raise his daughter. This serves to say that just like how Ziauddin Yousafzi chose to bring up his daughter in a home that allowed her to develop her own sense of independence, free of cultural hangups, so has my life as an Indian been more-or-less free of such restraints without completely altering my cultural roots (I can’t say the same for my identity). I can only speak for myself and other women who can relate to my experiences but I feel that in order to push out of the intellectual bubble-wrap that shields feminism from the difficult question of social progress, it must start as a personally generated phenomenon. Phenomenon implies that we don’t need to rely on a correct or singular version of feminism. It is contextual to each person, resulting in a generation of men and women that are willing to widen their cultural values without compromising them.
Once again, we come back to what authority I have to say this – especially since I have been more or less spared from the often-suffocating expectations of Indian conservatism and one could say my cultural boundaries are hardly existent. The truth is, I speak from first-hand experience. My father was brought up in rural Gunadala in Andhra Pradesh and my mother, in colonial Bangalore, Karnataka. To say they had different childhood values growing up and a subsequently different viewpoint on child rearing is an understatement. They grew up in India with many social restrictions but there was decisive shifts in choosing to let most of these values go by adopting a more liberalized approach to raising us. (Mind you, moving away from India played a huge role in being able to do this.) As a result, I was not constrained to the belief system of my parents. Freedom to study in my field of choice, freedom to marry the person of my choice, freedom to disagree (even if it was met with a sometimes confusing and strict moral code): this was all a result of a personal choice made by my parents for which I am grateful.
Therefore, I know for a fact that growing out of the cultural mould into which you’re born is alienating. There is nothing worse than being rejected by your birth culture and labeled as ‘other’ (which is often a synonym for a generic wannabe for the West). The fact is that there is nothing pegging feminist values to Western culture: on this point, I will not back down. South Asia has a history and far more advanced track record of female leadership. In the Indian home, the mother is the backbone, if not a breadwinner as well. The issue at hand is that despite all this – the cultural mould for women remains narrow. It’s perpetuated in wedding rituals, marriage, child-rearing versus career building, the same as in the West. So often, the platitudes that mothers pass onto daughters about the nature of men and their “irrationality” and patriarchy are nurtured and not actually deconstructed. This is why raising your daughter in the way that Malala and myself were raised is so important in allowing a person to really understand themselves and where they’ve come from but also in terms of seeing these cultural expectations for what they are: changeable.
To not speak loudly, to not back-talk, to be neat- all these things are seen as positive and encouraged in the Indian home. When people say that Indian women are “taught” to be a certain way – this isn’t some broad reflection on the education system or Indians as generally bigoted people. It comes from this fixed gender role that’s part of culture. My Indian parents were/are no different in this respect, except, that they have grown to accept my “non-traditional characteristics” because they consciously encouraged it in my formative years. Even in my context, I had to exercise my freedom of thought and independence – it was not assumed of me. The bottom line is, I am an Indian but I am also a feminist. I am a person without a home country but I have a root culture. Feminism cannot fit squarely into the current expectations of South Asian women. This culture should not be reduced to narrow social norms, resistant to “otherness”, when it’s been shown that there is so much room for a brighter future when those boundaries are widened.
Mallala Yousafzai
Love this. Totally relate to it. I struggle to call myself a feminist. But, I just totally nodded along and raised my eyebrows in a “I know what you’re sayin sister-girl” way as I read this post. Guess that makes me a feminist too.
I guess that just speaks to how feminism is often only seen or portrayed in this snobby intellectual light when in reality, it’s a lot more grounded in truth.
But thank you for reading! I hope there are more of us out there :)
As you age, perhaps you will shed culture, language, country, gender and all “isms” as you come to understand that they are meaningless. The process requires clear, logical thinking and the understanding that happiness requires no great intellectual efforts, merely a bit of luck and the ability to share with other human beings. Best of luck!
Wow, Mahendra, I really don’t agree with that at all. Culture, gender, language and country may be cultural in a lot of ways, but they’re certainly not “meaningless”. They have a huge effect on people. I think I’ve gotten more aware of that as I’ve gotten older, not less.
Just because something matters to many people doesn’t mean it is real or important. Millions of people believe that the ideas implanted in their heads by others are objective, factual truths. The mental contortions they go through to make reality fit these shared beliefs is astonishing at times … example: a mixed-race person identifies herself as Indian because the father is Indian. This is because she regards the father as the predominant parent, ergo, his culture is her identity.
Every single qualifier in the above statement is a shared, social fiction that has no basis in reality. Race is an utterly meaningless fiction. Culture is an accident of location and can be shed like a clothing. The father being predominant is an assumption based on what your parents tell you to be true. Grow up in Assam and suddenly the mother becomes dominant.
Take away the labels and you are left with a human being … a human being who feels naked perhaps, but is finally a genuine human being. To see a thing for what it truly is, what a difficult and demanding task for even the wisest heads.
Mahendra is right on the money. To forge your identity as an individual, you really must question all the cultural foundations of your mother/father civilization.
Mahendra, from your surname I guess that your ancestry is Sikh. An embattled minority in India, a rebuke to Hindu caste. Are you in this line?
Alex and Mahendra – to “forge your identity” as an individual certainly involves questioning, I agree. But in all this “soul-searching” – the current reality is that we like to categorize things.
As Mahendra said, we rely on these fictions in real life and it’s only on a theoretical and philosophical level that we can let those fictions go.
Unfortunately, for happiness, we need other people and we need to “belong”. That’s why “otherness” has been such a painful topic for me. But as I do grow older and meet more people like me, what made me feel excluded by one group of people is slowly becoming what makes me belong. It’s a different type of culture and you could also call it a different type of fiction…
Hiba, from your article we gather you’ve grown up in an Anglophone cultural milieu. But which? America, Britain, Australia, NZ, South Africa, other? I think knowing this would enrich your very interesting article, please.
Alex – I was born and brought up in Oman which is in the Middle East. I’ve been to Indian, British and American schools (as well as went to boarding school in India with my siblings for quite a few years). I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by many different cultures from a young age as well as a large Indian community in Oman and the U.A.E.
Thank you.
“a genuine human being…”
Because what it means to be a human isn’t tied up with cultural and historical context, and the notion of what constitutes the “genuine” isn’t at all tied up with intersubjective judgement?
Perhaps as you grow older, Hiba, you will feel less of a need to belong. It’s natural for young people to feel this way, esp. if you grow up as a minority. But as time progresses and you travel through the world, you realize what a silly business it is. In fact, if you are lucky, you will always live as a minority and thus learn the value of tolerance faster than others.
I’m actually Rajput and German, 1st language German, lived most of my life in USA and travelled/worked there, Canada and abroad. My family has Germans, Indians, Bangladeshis, Japanese, Americans, Armenians, Belgians, Aussies, English … it’s a fiesta, baby!
Race, class, religion, caste, it’s all really meaningless in the end. As is most of the human condition: meaningless, self-imposed suffering. The only people who profit from it are the peddlers of religion, politics and “isms”.
Just being a human being should be your only “ism.”
A long session of drawing all day on something meaningful, a good looking woman, a dish of sauerbraten with red cabbage, mashed potatoes, decent rye bread and a glass of plonk, happy children and a few bills paid on time … what more do you want from life?
Yeah, I’m with Nate; even the idea of individual identity isn’t something that comes from the individual; the words you use to talk about it and think about it are social, and the idea that it’s the most important thing is totally a cultural idea. The belief that the individual somehow stands outside everything as some sort of disembodied mind — that’s Western philosophy from Descartes. It’s not opposed to culture.
I’m with Hiba too, when she says that we need other folks. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, either. Communities can have problems, but they can be beautiful things too. Needing and caring about other people is a strength, not a weakness. Why would I want to have my wife and my son peeled away from me? If anything is who I am, it’s them.
To add to what Noah and Hiba are saying about other people, I find the notion that we can understand who we are without others dubious. Our sense of self is invariably caught up with our interactions with others. And I don’t just mean those closest to us, but everyone with whom we interact, even if we only interact with them long enough to reject their “isms.”
Maybe it’s a generational thing but I get the feeling that the Enlightenment’s hold upon North America is slipping. If it ever really took hold to begin with … perhaps a good idea for an HU article?
Everything old is new again, these cycles of birth and rebirth are really quite boring, the invention of an uninspired sadist.
Mahendra,
Do you realize that your first comment was in many respects a paraphrase of Descartes? Indeed, it strikes me as very consistent with enlightenment conceptions of the individual. At this point, I’m thinking you’re messing with us. Am I correct, or missing something?
I’m serious about all this, sorry to create confusions. Been ages since I read Descartes but I still have Voltaire at my bedside. The Sage of Verney has much to offer young people today, he’s still very relevant.
Modern America is hurtling backwards so rapidly now … it’s very depressing. Science is mocked and ignored, history is a “narrative” and thus fit only for children, every human transaction and emotion is monetized, the Enlightenment is anathema to even the educated classes. Especially the educated classes.
The ideals of objectivity and simplicity and logical rigour, combined with moral humility, this is what is lacking.
One other thing: this American deterioration is not the “fault” of young people, on the contrary, it is my generation’s fault. We have really made a mess of things. The world we’ve created for our children is not a fitting inheritance for them.
We could have done better but we didn’t …
I think Mahendra is describing his sense of membership in a world community, Noah.
Thanks for clarifying.
I misread you as favoring the Enlightenment losing its grip on America, hence my confusion.
For my part, I think that the legacy of the Enlightenment is mixed, and its grip on contemporary culture mixed with pre and post Enlightenment thinking.
The last thing Wall Street or Silicone Valley or the military-industrial complex want the average voter thinking about is the Enlightenment. Heck, it’s been that way since the Garden of Eden.
Like Nate, I’ve got mixed feelings about the Enlightenment. I would point out, though, that Hiba actually seems to be agreeing with you on many points. She’s arguing that feminism, equality, and liberty are values that are relevant and worthwhile across cultures. (Or at least that’s one thing I get from her essay.)
I agree that feminism, equality, etc are universal concepts for human beings. But many cultures do not agree with that at all.
It’s a Catch-22, people want to belong but they want to pick and choose the cultural baggage that goes along with that. There lies the conflict … they want cultures to change for them, not the other way around. But when the culture changes too fast, most people become very unstable mentally. They must have stasis to remain mentally secure. In fact, that’s the job of culture.
I regard culture as a suit of clothes that I change whenever social, family, business conditions necessitate. If others wish to let the clothes make the man, fine. Not me though.
The idea of genuiness and authenticity perplexes modern Americans because their society is of recent manufacture. I doubt if it troubled the pioneers. Survival focusses the mind like an Ockham’s razor.
Well…the pioneers were somewhat focused on expropriating the land and wealth of the folks who were already settled here. Judging from Fennimore Cooper, at least, the justification of that expropriation actually involved a fair amount of mental gymnastics around authenticity issues.
The mental gymnastics were for the benefit of those who worried about such things (lawyers? Frightened housewives? Lazy farmhands?). The idea of authenticity is an anachronism in Colonial America, it’s the gift of modernism and postmodernism to today’s advertising industry.
You can get any group of humans to kill another for any reason at all, take your pick. You don’t even need a reason, quite often, although culture does facilitate the process …
One might even say that the shared delusions of culture, religion, etc make mass-murder inevitable. That’s why humans want to belong, it makes them feel less vulnerable. More powerful. More aggressive. More imperial.
We keep circling around Canetti …