Comodifying women

Women walked bare-breasted very freely in kerala for ages, but mind you, there is no record of men pouncing and plucking out what they lusted from their bare bodies then.

It was the then english-educated desi madamas who told them that being bare-breasted was unwomanly. Madamas told kerala women to be ashamed of their bodies and told to cover up and even held a rally wearing blouse, but women were so ashamed that the women threw away their new contraption before the finishing line...so the story goes.

Now some 50 years after, kerala's madamas are desperate to flaunt a bit of cleavage there, a bit of curve here.

Infact, I wonder if men could get saline-filled chest muscle implants to level their big bellies in their desperate bid to look macho because if women can get that painful "investment on assets" and yet still be taken seriously, why cant men?

India stands 100th in the world when it comes to rape statistics and France the first. (see World Rape Statistics).

So if rape statistics is anything to go by, aren't Indian women in far better stead here.

Now Indian feudal cultural mindset should be at play even in France, if that is the reason for rape in India, and shall we inherit ideas from France so as to appear unmysogynistic and evolve our upbringing to catch up with the statistics in France, .... if fantasies of Indian men are that bad.

My award dreams asks me to fully support the slut walkers of Delhi, but these rapes tell it was a flop. So what next, a slutier walk or sluttest walk? A slut walk to force men to treat women with more dignity, Yes.

We cannot make this world a better place by pitting misogyny with misandry. Nor should we think the cause of assault is limited to just a handful of factors.

It is not just women who are victims, even men are.   Our media, our intellectuals, our women group are all slaves of hypocrisy.

On one side when they talk about woman's dignity, other side they allow women to be displayed as objects of lust, be it our serials, commercials, or movie so much so that the likes of Kareena Kapoors' future is at stake because Sunny Leone is in town. How much is a porn star on prime time TV helping our society? They tried to rope in another porn star, Priya Rai, but thankfully, she refused.

Morality is a bad word for both boys and girls today. The era of gentlemen is passe.

Lawlessness is the order of the day and we have to learn to live with it.  Enforcement authorities have a million handicaps and poor parenting is only adding to this unimaginable decadence. In this scenario, women wanting to dress the way they want only gives fallen men a chance to vent their heat on the women they can corner. Two to tango. These rave parties, nightclubs, massage parlous serve women cheaply to boys. There are many other instances where women are available cheaply, that I dont want to mention here.

Remember, the victims are not always women who were free to dress or do what they chose. It is the vulnerable who bears the brunt, not the flaunters or the elite.

No matter what, nothing justifies assault on women. I am for death penalty for rape, not that it equals a woman's dignity, but nothing more than that can be extracted from the rapist, and to act as a deterrent, but our govt will not do that because nothing much has happened yet for them to take our women's dignity more seriously.

Understand that even men are victims of exhibitionists and homosexuals.  Men are victims of unsolicited advances from men and is nothing new.  There are some sick men around, what is it that we can do about it? I say it is a medical/psychological case. 

One Cochin madama, as usual, waking up to a media frenzy, this time the Delhi gang-rape, wrote in her blog that she grew up seeing penises directed at her, in the buses, bakeries, flower shops, office, or bus stops.  She then goes on to dynamite her case by saying, she loves "to flaunt her curves whenever she can."  Now it is no crime to dream to be an Arundathi Roy and puke such logic to win applause from a kitty party, at the right timing, like selling peanuts with Christmas cakes.  Does it serve women any good?  No.

Women are equally to blame for the constant comodification, and "flaunting" is just a sugar-coated form of exhibitionism, exactly what those sick men in buses and bakeries want to see.  Anyway .. this is not helping men not see women as objects or commodity.  When you go to a carnival, which kid would'nt want to play with those balloons that that guy flaunts standing next to the mmm.. popcorn stand.  Whom will the dad blame, the kid, the balloons, or the guy who flaunted it - to market it?

So if flaunting is a kind of marketing, what is a woman who flaunt marketing?

She has that she has this, so she is sexy. She does not have that she has this, she is not so sexy. She does not have that, she does not have this, uh she is no good. She is flaunting that, she is flaunting this, hey guys comon let us see if we can get that pastry. That is how these sick guys think.

Yes we have a bad situation here, and playing into the hands of sick men is not going to help improve the situation.

....and what happened in the Delhi bus is ...She is flaunting that, she is flaunting this, but damn that pastry jumped into her car and sped away, but wait guys, see.... there in the bus, there is another pastry with that lone guy. You go get an iron rod, will fix that lonely bitch...

Catwalks, high heels, waxing, plucking, padded bras, bikinis, implants, lipsticks, tights, plunging neck lines and rising hemlines are all tuned to fan fantasies of men by fashion houses who wants linear sales figures be it by comodifying women. These things are sold as "modern, for the free woman, the independent and bold, liberated women" to market it....and the sales figures of these shows that women have fallen for their glamorized comodification.

I am afraid that the level of comodification women have allowed upon themselves had crossed the point of no return long back. Sick men are lapping up every bit of the clumsiness on display.

C strings is the best example of how clumsy a women can be made by comodifiying her in the name of fashion.

This urge to flaunt, please understand, is the response of a comodified womans mind, that wants to pander to the fantasies OF men, prescribed BY men, FOR satiating men who have "groomed" our women to fit themselves into custom built statistics prescribed by men, which the sick men readily exploit. Groomed by the fantasy mafia.

The outburst of "Chicks go Crazy" TV series guy Ed Kurtzman (Rob Schneider) towards the end of the movie "American Virgin" best describes from which rack our modern neoliberal fashion scions would like the product "women" be groomed and displayed and sold.  You may want to write it off as just a movie now ... never see how women are comodified.

You know how harmful how high heels are, you know how risky an implant surgery is, you have no idea what these cosmetics are really made of, dieting yourself to malnourishment...all just to conform to mens fantasy statistics. You dont see the comodification there?

So a man renting a Rolls exclusively to drive his girlfriend to an implant clinic, stopping by a flower shop to buy her her favorite roses, and opening the doors for her appear chivalrous and romantic to you.

A woman is violated only when she is raped.  She does not see the violation when she wears that diamond-studded high heels.

That is how even educated women are neatly taken for a ride, getting groomed and comodified, even when you protest your comodification, so much so that for these madams a day without high heels, waxing, plucking, padded bras, bikinis, C strings, implants, lipsticks, tights, plunging neck lines and rising hemlines is a very suffocating prospect.

Thigh gap is a new fashion among women, but that is an innovation of men who have a weakness of a quickie in car parks and one night stands.  Those days of elaborate undressing are passe.  Who likes to do chores these days anyway .... and who cares if women make their thigh gaps by starving themselves to death?  ..and have you heard about toe-besity surgery and rectal bleaching?

For them, a friend forcing on a woman on the back seat of a car is abominable.  The same man gifting a beautiful cellphone on Valentines day and weeks later going on to bed her in a posh hotel suite is so romantic and acceptable.

There is such a hoarse cry about violation of democratic rights when police whacked women during the antirape protests.  Where were these hoodlums who cry foul now when police made a guerrilla attack at midnight on Baba Ramdev and his supporters who were singing bhajans and patriotic songs in Ramilla, one women succumbed to her injuries following the incident.

Three more gang rapes happened in India after Delhi gang rape in December 2012.  On December 25th a housemaid in Kerala was gang raped in Kasargode and dumped, only to be raped again by an auto driver who offered refuge.  No cameras?

Water cannons on Delhi women protests was the most potent weapon because it smeared mascaras and base coats and lipsticks into a bad mess of a face and the prospects of cameras flashing that mess across TVs was a nightmare.

Comodification of women by price tagging her body parts is equally gruesome.  For eg, you violate feet - 2 points, violate thighs- 10 points, violate navel - 25 points, violate lips 60 points, violate breasts 75 points, violate vagina - 100 points.  Only those violations that score above 75 points will reach our newspapers and elicit mouthings from womens groups.

So what we have is a system that ignores a violation that does not cross the distinction mark.  Any jerk who gets hyper and crosses this lakshman rekha is the bread and butter of our women group and media.

A winker is just a coward and has the same contempt for the dignity of women and is not a mahatma when compared to a rapist.  If a few winks does not elicit a response, he graduates to a whistle.  If a few whistle does not elicit, he graduates to lewd songs or comments getting emboldened with his every attempt.  We groom these future rapists by ignoring/accommodating these whistlers and exhibitionists because they have not scored their 100 yet.

How is a man who secretly films private moments of a woman and uploads the clip to a porn site not equal to a rapist?  Will that women ever be able to live without that trauma haunting her for life?  There is no dearth of such instances, but it is never an issue even today.  Digital rape is no crime in digital era, not yet, even though it is called "revenge porn".

The dignity of women that a society attributes to and the respect women commands is what elevates and maintains a society to a higher civilization.  Swami Vivekananda rightly said "the best thermometer to the progress of a nation is its treatment of its women."

We need to punish those who fail to respect women and protect a woman's dignity, not by price tagging her body parts, not by grading or differentiating the type of violation.

Punish an individual not for the gruesomeness of physical violence against women, but for attempting to compromise womanhood, without a violation/disrespect grading scale.

Nip everything in the bud ... and also not wait for shaven madamas with mascaras and high heels lineup after a gang-rape for photo shoots exclusively for feminist magazines that sell French makeup, British C strings, and promote American implants and surgery clinics.  Madamas are as guilty as the rapists, both have no respect for women.

Enough of hypocrisy!! 

also read:  Madama's Monologues