Of victims and victimization -2

(To continue with my random rambling and incoherent thoughts....)

Another thought that struck me that if we remove all the layers of discrimination and bigotry, at the very bottom you would still find sexism. In the US, African American women are the most marginalized. In India, lower class women are the poorest. Women are killed more often than men in the name of "family honour" when they marry outside their caste or religion. Its insidious, its all pervasive and worst of all, its overlooked, neglected and brushed aside. America may have proven that it can elect an African American president, but it still couldn't elect a woman president. They have merely proved that they are less racist than sexist. The sexism in fact went mostly unacknowledged.

There a lot of theories to explain why misogyny has lasted so long and why we are still struggling to even recognize it, leave alone eliminate it. The one that made the most sense to me was something another blogger wrote. To borrow from her, only in the case of sexism, as opposed to say racism, is there an inevitable relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. The oppression is so intertwined with the natural relationship that its difficult for most people to untangle the web of prejudices. Even I struggle with it everyday. To be in a state of constant awareness and to question everything that happens to figure out what is sexist and what is not, is not an easy thing to do!

The other reason that this blogger writes about is also an interesting observation. Women are present all over the world. They have different experiences, are a part of different cultures, experience so many other kinds of discrimination apart from sexism, that to unite together to fight misogyny is complicated and difficult. Even the kind of misogyny faced by each woman is so different in different cultures. For example, in India, the question of banning abortion never arose since discrimination against women starts from the womb with sex selection. In the US, the discussion around abortion has become a fight to guard the bodily integrity of women. The continuum of sexism ranges from rape, denial of basic human rights and honor killings to objectification, street harassment and unrealistic standards of beauty. All women fall somewhere on this continuum and all of us don't experience it all. I have a seen a lot of dialogues between feminists from different backgrounds break down for this very reason.

But I still hope. With the kind of technology we have at our disposal right now, connecting with people has become as easy the click of a button. Perhaps, we have a better chance of overcoming these hurdles now more than ever!