22: F*ck the Patriarchy

To travel to India I prepared myself for the sheer volume of poverty, pollution, trash, cows and traffic. In fact, sheer is an understatement. It’s endemic. In and of itself, these things make India both harrowing and draining. However, as hard as these things were, I was not prepared for how absolutely blood boiling frustrating it is to be a woman in India. And as I write and re-write this blog post, let me also clarify, to be a white woman in India.  

These have been my experiences and I can’t speak for the other women’s experiences - both better and worse. In fact, I probably have it much easier than other younger, more beautiful and physically smaller women. And yet, it’s infuriating. And yet it’s the reality. And yet, the unspoken and spoken privilege of being white in India is unavoidable in this conversation. 

Let me try and explain my experiences in India so far, likely butchering many of the complicated social, economic and intersectional feminist issues that are required for this conversation while experiencing a culture that feels both obsessive and repressive towards women. Also, I want to be clear in saying, this topic is complicated and I know very little about all of it’s complexities. The longer I’m here, the more conversations I am having, both in an attempt to teach some men about equality and also to learn more from Indian women who live this daily. I don’t really have a point to prove - except that the collective we (Americans, Indians, residents of this planet) have a long way to go to recognize equality and women’s rights. 

Trying to look fierce but ending up just looking like I’m trying to see if there’s something in my teeth.

It didn’t take long for me to feel the blatant sexism in India. And perhaps, it happened so quickly because I have been traveling with my friends Mary and Xedex (I’ll call him X in this post). There are countless wonderful things that traveling with a group provides, but there are also situations that felt so annoying and infuriating because of only one little detail. I was traveling with a man. 

More often than not my moments of the most frustration and criticism happened while traveling with X because some form of sexism occurred. It didn’t really matter where we were, taxis, tuk tuks, stores or restaurants, the following types of situations would happen:

Me walking ahead of the group, looking for a tuk tuk.

Tuk tuk driver: Taxi? Where do you need to go?

Me: Hello. How much to [insert location name]?

Male friend is now in view and it becomes known that we are traveling together.

Tuk tuk driver: Hello sir! Good day. Tuk tuk? Where?

X: No sir. I’m not the boss. She is the boss. She has all the money.

Me: Yes, I make the decisions. Tell me, how much to [location]?

Tuk tuk driver: Sir, tell me. How much? Where do you go?

Tuk tuk driver won’t even look at or interact with me.

And this is repeated, endlessly in any magnitude of experiences. The feeling that women are second class citizens, especially in the presence of men, is overwhelming. 

If there’s a man, especially an Indian man at the table in a restaurant waiters won’t look at you for anything you may need. I’ve asked a male night attendant in a hostel for some help. He ignored me, wouldn’t speak to me and when I brought it up the next morning he laughed in my face. I shared a table for dinner in a restaurant with 5 other Indian people traveling in Rishikesh. I asked the only Indian woman at the table a direct question, “If you wanted to, could you travel alone in India?” Then I witnessed her husband answered for her, she never spoke more than 10 words on the topic. I’ve been yelled at at a swimming pool for sitting on a lawn chair in my very appropriate one-piece bathing suit because I was required to cover up because “it’s not what happens in Indian culture”. (Mind you, there was not a single soul at this pool.) I can’t count the hundreds of times I’ve been stared at, ogled, glared at and gawked at. I’ve been waved at dismissively while bargaining prices of goods and services. I’ve been cut in line by men who were totally dismissive. I’ve gotten in near shouting matches with Indian men I’ve met in hostels when their claims that sexism doesn’t exist because, “India passed a law that says sexism can’t exist”. And this same man told me that dowries only exist in India because, “Fathers love their daughters so much they want to give their daughters the best chance to start their new life with their husbands.” Ignoring entirely that in this exchange women and this dowry is treated as property and requirements for marriage.

It’s so pervasive in culture and interactions between the sexes it’s somewhat remarkable to sit back and witness it. Remarkable in its inequity and how antiquated it feels. India is this modernizing country and yet the social interactions are ancient. 

So one day I had enough. I was so frustrated and angry and annoyed on the day we were doing a driving tour through Jaipur. Mary, X and myself decided to rent an all-day taxi and the taxi driver again would only interact and direct questions towards X. We stopped at Jal Mahal in Jaipur. This is a sunken water palace in the middle of a lake. Unfortunately it’s off limits for visitors so you could only see it from the shore. There wasn’t much to see or do on the bank of the lake but there were tons of stalls and vendors setup selling the typical tourist junk. Except one. 

Sunken water palace, Jal Mahal in Jaipur. Only the top 2 floors are above water because of flooding. Also, this picture is the best I have because of the pollution.

There was one stall that had maharaja and courtesan outfits that you could “rent” and then you could buy a photo of you with the palace in the background. It’s basically like a Disneyland photo trap and I was into it! Renting the costumes (without a photo) was a mere 100 rupees (~$1.42) so I thought, ya, I’m in. And I knew X would be into dressing up with me too, especially for the sake of a great photo. 

As my morning frustrations were bubbling over I thought to myself, “Fuck this gender bullshit in India. I want to be the maharaja.” So that’s what we did. I dressed up as the man and X dressed as the woman. And unexpectedly it was a really POWERFUL moment for me. I felt like I could embody this hyper masculine essence and the aura of the maharaja. I owned that masculine energy. I basically just growled and snarled for the whole time but it felt like I was reclaiming this backwards gender role. It allowed me to say, “Fuck you India and your sexism!”; and all we did was dress up for 15 minutes in these silly costumes. It was liberating. 

And guess what happened? It completely backfired. Because I was dressed up as the maharaja it caused a scene and everyone wanted photos with me. Seeing X in the women’s costume didn’t really do much for people, the attention was on me for photos as the locals swarmed me. 

And while I was still in this masculine role, I took my sword and posed with them. For the most part, I’ve been accommodating to photo requests. It’s a conundrum for me, I have taken photos of people here with and without their consent, so why shouldn’t they also get a photo with me? And for the most part, it’s a 30 second interaction and then everyone moves on with their lives. I can do that and most of the time I don’t mind it. Although all of the time I wonder to myself why you want a photo of me in the first place, but that’s a whole other blog post. 

Except in this specific situation it went too far. You can see on my face I wasn’t enjoying it. This man crossed the line for the sake of a photo. He put his arms around me and move the sword from around my waist to my throat. It went beyond my boundaries in that moment and especially given the audience that it was attracting. We were right back into the gender roles I was trying to avoid and I hated this. HATED IT. 

Not happy here.

REALLY not happy here.

And while these experiences are frustrating, they are nothing compared to what India women face in their daily life, jobs and relationships. I read this article of a woman who was living in Delhi and experiencing the same issues but brought up the very real and very important difference. She is white. And while there have been times I have felt a little uneasy, I’ve never felt, not even once, unsafe in India. This is a part of invincibility that being white here provides. From what I understand, India women can’t travel alone here because of safety issues. Or the perception of safety issues but I sort of also think it’s another cultural expectation that has been unfairly created to keep women small and invisible. It’s far more safe for me to be a white woman in India than for an Indian woman to travel alone in her own country. And that’s assuming an Indian woman actually would or can travel alone. In the 5 weeks I’ve been in India, I’ve met only 4 solo Indian women in hostels or hotels, all of them traveling for work or school. None of them traveling for holiday or enjoyment purposes. (Note: For context sake, on average the makeup of a hostel is around 70% Indian and 30% Expats.) 

And then yesterday I met one of those women in my hostel in Pune, India. She is traveling for research for her Ph.D focusing her work on gender and mental health. Literally, I hit the jackpot. I couldn’t wait to talk to her. We went to breakfast and I asked her a million questions. And she affirmed all of my assumptions and added to them. 

Sexism is alive and thriving in India. It’s so complex she doesn’t know where to begin on writing her dissertation. The issues exist on so many levels like urban and rural, caste systems and religious background. She has friends that don’t know how to even acknowledge what sexism is let alone that it exists in India and she has friends that can talk openly about these issues. She is 25 and traveling alone for research and even thought she’s clearly an adult she had to call her father once she arrived to confirm she is safe and where she’s staying. And from what I gather, she fits into the socially acceptable definition of a woman in India - straight, getting a good education, on her way to marriage. It’s inconceivable to think what women who fall into what Indian society would consider “non-acceptable” norms would face. 

What was so refreshing about this conversation was that we could discuss it. She was open to hearing my thoughts and to providing more context. Of course it also helped she agreed with me! However, it wasn’t the first time I’ve directly asked, “So, what can you do about it?” And the response is more or less a shrug of resignation. This will be a long and challenging process of slow and hopefully deliberate progress forward. And I’m encouraged after meeting this woman that there is a population, albeit small, who are willing to talk about it. 

I’ve been writing this post for what seems like weeks. Almost daily I have either more conversations or more experiences that add to this complicated and colorful experience in India. And yet, the more I know the worse I feel about it. I can write and publish this because of my privilege. All of these thoughts are because of my very privileged background, education level and socioeconomic status. And as I acknowledge that, there’s a part of me that wants to delete this post because I’m not entirely sure if I’ve crossed the line. So in full transparency, I’m accepting any and all feedback on these complicated topics because it’s so easy for me to sit here in India and think or write this because at the end of the day it’s not my problem. I get to leave. And I’m not sure if I even have the right to comment on this.

Thanks for listening.

- M