The unfairness of being fair
Most of my Internet browsing these days is lurking around parenting sites. It’s just fun to know what other infants and toddlers are going through. The posts vary from mildly interesting to outrageously controversial. In one such reading expedition I came across a posting by an Indian mom asking how to make her 5 month old baby fair. Face - meet palm. This brings me to a long standing rant of mine. What the heck is it with us Indians and wanting to be fair, especially for girls? I normally don’t judge other moms because I know first hand how hard it is to be a mom and would personally kick anyone’s ass who sat on a high horse to call another mom good or bad. But this thing about complexion is beyond limits. Isn’t a mom’s job to make her kids’ successful, confident and ready to face the world? What hope has that little girl left if her own mother says “oh my daughter is dark, how do I make her look better?”. No wonder 70% of the ads that run on TV say a dark girl cannot be successful. She uses fair and lovely, and voila! the world is hers.
Take a peek at matrimonial ads or even listen to aunties speaking about prospective brides for their sons. One line “She should be fair and beautiful”. No brains ? No character ? Nothing else? Just fair? They should probably consider a mannequin as a potential candidate, meets all requirements anyway.
It fails me why we have this long standing obsession with being fair. Being fair is not automatically = being beautiful. I remember that one summer when I walked to college in scorching sun and was all tanned, all my mum heard from her well meaning aunts was “oh if she goes dark, she cant find anyone”. What the hell? I was 19 years old, years away from wanting to be married and if a guy only wanted me for being fair, I would have shown him the door before he could say boo. Somebody enlighten me about this horrid fascination with being fair?
Grumpy Old Pharts
I follow politics avidly, its better than any soap opera you can find on TV. When I was back home I would poke fun of most politicians and get annoyed at some of their doings. In India , politics = vote bank. Every five years the loyalties of party leaders, workers and parties oscillate to where they think the votes will come in. I used to hate this hypocrisy but follow it nevertheless.
I come to US and boy oh boy! Indian politics is still in a very nascent stage of being annoying. The Indians only crib like small children, pass the candy from one hand to another, backstab each other and get down to any level to stay in power. But US politics? They think they can walk right into your bedroom and preach how to lead your life. Especially the grumpy old pharts (GOP). I’ve been following the debates for primary election and the GOPs all suffer from a common ailment - called male chauvinistic piggism and verbal diarrhea. They think its okay for them to
1. Tell a woman what she has to do with her uterus and precisely when. Abortion will be illegal apparently. Well didn’t you know? It’s god’s work for a bunch of smelly old farts sitting in clergy or some air conditioned room to dictate the best course for a pregnant woman. They want to educate her. Yes please, since women lost their brains somewhere along the evolution chain.
2. Tell a woman that in case of an unplanned pregnancy, it definitely is a mistake and the man has no stake in it. Right, because the woman is a hermaphrodite and produced both the sperm and egg. Thank you for enlightening me with mysteries of human biology and woman’s capabilities. She isn’t just fit for being bare foot and staying in the kitchen, she can actually do something that a man can! Also, you are pro life but call the child a mistake? I just received an advanced degree in hypocrisy.
3.GOPs also left logic somewhere down in the gutter. They seem to think unplanned pregnancies happen only for single women. Such women should marry someone, anyone! Single parenting apparently will be a cause leading to child abuse. Thank you for educating me that married women or rape victims don’t have unplanned pregnancies. Or are they suggesting rape victims actually marry their rapists? Such a noble and sensible thing to do isn’t it? I also wasn’t aware that being married automatically negates people from committing child abuse.
I really want to know how long any of these idiots have been women in their lives to even begin to understand what a woman should or should not do in her life. Here is the deal: Until you grow a pair of ovaries, don’t even attempt to talk about it.
