Hindu extremists and pink knickers

[DMB]

Hooray for Indian women fighting back against religious oppression!

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article5970307.ece

On Saturday, January 24, about 40 members of the SRS waded into a bar in Mangalore ... and beat up every woman they could see. Screaming abuse and smashing the place up, they chased the women into the street, pulling their hair and shoving them to the ground. “We are the custodians of Indian culture,” declared Pramod Mutalik, the unrepentant founder of the SRS.

...But the pub attack backfired. A week before Valentine's Day a 29-year-old journalist called Nisha Susan was sitting at home, raging at another assault - two thugs had hit one of her friends in the street - when she decided to launch a protest group on Facebook. Two minutes later the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women had its first members. When Susan woke up the next day, it had 500 members. “Then it went into the thousands,” she says, “then we were getting calls from Bihar, from Calcutta, from people who wanted to join.”

...Then the consortium came up with a stunt that really caught people's attention: the pink chaddi campaign. The idea was simple: get everyone to send a pair of pink chaddi - knickers - to Mutalik and the SRS; the Facebook site supplied the address, under a pink chaddi poster.

It's well worthwhile reading the whole article. The pink-knicker campaign has got the headlines and the laughs, but this is deadly serious.

[Garnet]

That was deeply disturbing. It's easy for me to get complacent and forget that women in other parts of the world are beaten and humiliated for the simple act of leaving their homes without a male escort and forget about going to a pub.

[Ronin]

That was deeply disturbing. It's easy for me to get complacent and forget that women in other parts of the world are beaten and humiliated for the simple act of leaving their homes without a male escort and forget about going to a pub.

Well, forgetting to go to a pub is fairly serious business no matter where it occurs?

Not sure if that deserves a beating, but a bit of humiliation may be in the works.

...

...

...

I miss Boro Nut, sue me.

[Ronin]

PS This thread needs photos and posters.

[DMB]

PS This thread needs photos and posters.

These any good?

http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gauravonomics/3308995741/

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090308/jsp/calcutta/story_10635061.jsp

[Cliché Guevara]

"To the men of religion, women's lives simply do not matter: 'respect for life' never ever means 'respect for a woman's life." Anon.

[tjakey]

I don't get it. In the world I grew up in a man beating a woman was the sorriest excuse for a piece of shit imaginable. In fact it was a pretty good way to ensure that some other men nearby would surely kick the offender's ass close to the point of killing him.

I can think of several cases where the woman involved got fed up. One in particular finally defended herself by shooting the man 8 times with a six shot revolver, meaning she had to stop an reload! No charges were ever filled. In another a man bet his girlfriend apparently thinking her two clean cut, straight A student brothers, wouldn't mind. That miscalculation cost him several weeks in an ICU.

There is nothing lower than men abusing women. (Since that seems a constant theme in religion it is one of the many reasons I loath religion.) Ah well, I wish women would ban together and act in their own best interests, like quitting the Muslim and Catholic religions in droves, protesting loudly in every way possible, and putting pressure on their governments to sanction and condemn other governments who tolerate such things. (I hate that a US ally is Saudi Arabia. I would love if the Secretary of State would make the treatment of women around the world one of the center pieces of her diplomacy.)

Not meaning to dismiss gay people, but what the world really needs is a massive civil rights movement centered on the rights of women.

[dancer_rnb]

That world was in parallel to one where Jimi Hendrix could sing "Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?"

[tjakey]

I like Hendrix as a rule, but that song always made me laugh and cringe at the same time. I can't imagine being much dumber than killing, or getting killed, over sex.

[Puck]

I don't get it. In the world I grew up in a man beating a woman was the sorriest excuse for a piece of shit imaginable. In fact it was a pretty good way to ensure that some other men nearby would surely kick the offender's ass close to the point of killing him.


Thank you. I've been saying pretty much this for years. The first line of defense is the woman's male family and friends having a little 'talk' with the abuser, the second is her willingness not to hide the abuse. Third should be the legal system. Unfortunately, the legal system decided that the men defending their female family member were in the wrong and would go after them for 'taking the law into their own hands'. And the legal system can't stop it all, so the woman feels she has little to back her up. :bang:

[premjan]

In India (some cities at least) it used to be that molesting a woman in any way would get you a beating from the crowd. Also hitting a pedestrian if you were a motorist. But times are apparently changing in some parts.

[dancer_rnb]

I think part ot the problem is that a lot of men will defend women from those they see as outsiders, but not from themselves. Same attitude as women have towards their kids.

[Ronin]

I don't get it. In the world I grew up in a man beating a woman was the sorriest excuse for a piece of shit imaginable. In fact it was a pretty good way to ensure that some other men nearby would surely kick the offender's ass close to the point of killing him.


Thank you. I've been saying pretty much this for years. The first line of defense is the woman's male family and friends having a little 'talk' with the abuser, the second is her willingness not to hide the abuse. Third should be the legal system. Unfortunately, the legal system decided that the men defending their female family member were in the wrong and would go after them for 'taking the law into their own hands'. And the legal system can't stop it all, so the woman feels she has little to back her up. :bang:

I'm no supporter of vigilantism, Puck.

This doesn't mean that folk don't have the right to defend themselves if they or others are in imminent danger.

The legal system currently obligates officers by statute (http://www.mscode.com/free/statutes/99/003/0007.htm) to make an arrest in any cases where they find signs of violence in a domestic assault incident.

I'm not sure what you mean by not having a legal system "back her up".

In practical terms what happens most often, in my experience, is that once the month or so rolls around for court the relationship is reconciled. I cannot tell you how many times I've been back to the same residence for the same complaint taking someone to jail.

Granted, there are horrible extremes out there to be found, but if we all went around kicking everyone's a$$ I'm not sure how far down the slope we'll slide.

Would the same mentality apply to "street justice" for police officers who want to "have a little talk" with the abusers?

I don't think it would and would not advocate a return to those dark ages.

:2c: