A Brown Girl’s Guide to... Interview with Aranya Johar (II)
Read first part here, or go to Traditional-Chinese edition.
4. Denunciation of victims is ridiculous, however, usually happening in public gossiping. As you mentioned, wearing “less attractive” is what many Indian parents teach their daughters to follow. Please give more instances of this kind of “education”. In your experience, what is major opposition against promotion of women's rights?
There will be people constantly trying to stop you. Even if you look bathroom signs, the first thing you see on a board bathroom sign is a male figure that has stick legs, and a female one that is triangular, wearing dress or a skirt. Naturally, most of our uniforms are skirts, but if you have seen women older than me, about 4-5 years older, they have to wear these kind of shorts that look like a skirt because of the flap. I don’t know what it should be called, basically they are shorts with flaps on the front. They are shorts that look like skirts. And my seniors said that, they spoke to the teacher and faculties and ask why should they have to wear these “skirts”. All the girls collectively called every female teachers and the PE teachers, and the students signed a petition form, saying that they want to start wearing pants, at least for physical education or sport classes.
Because of them, the year after that we got chance to wear pants when we had sports classes. Therefore I feel that while a person that stands up to a situation would get scared of the judgement and fear of what’s going to happen, it's another story when a whole community does the same. You can imagine what these girls have gone through, but they had each other’s back. Examples like these encourage you to do more and get further with your goal. As a result, I feel like having community supportive is a very vital part of bringing any kind of change.
5. What’s attitude of legislators, political groups, citizens to women rights? Based on your understanding, have Indian government executed laws well to improve social environment for women (e.g. conserved seats for female in firms or administrations)?
The way Indian politics works is that most of the politician promote themselves to sell and reach an older audience because they realizes that, at least in India, the way most of the election work is that they “buy” votes. For example, when they come to your vicinity, they hear that you have a problem with this disposal and with water. They will then promise safe disposal methods and water if you vote for them. So that is how it works, people go to different municipalities, they figure out what the problem is, and they find a quick, short term solution. After the elections are over, no one cares and no one tries to help. But with these short solutions, they reinforce people to follow their political parties. And because of that, most of the time the youth is never involved in discussions when it comes to Political situation or political discrepancies. The elections have always been the stage for older age groups.
But recently, because of the issues we have mentioned earlier, and the way people have been talking about it, they forced politicians to make youth a part of the conversation. Two of the things that the Indian youth care a lot about are gender equality and LGBT rights. For the LGBT rights, we kept trying to make notions, to get them to reconsider, because currently it is illegal in India to have a same sex partner. We continue to discuss these issues so the government will eventually listen to us.
As for hope, I have two examples. We have one politician called Sashi Taroor, who had tried this his own way to be the mouthpiece for the youth, and even with gender equality. Sashi Taroor serves as a hope that console the youth because now it is possible that more politicians will realize they have to support India for our generations, the generation that is concerned by all these things, not just generations and concerns of the past. Another person is a journalist named Barkha Dutt, who is also very active with issues about women, women discrimination and gender equality.
Overall however, I feel that it is still very quiet. No one wants to talk about it unless something tragic like nirbhaya case or laxmi case happened. No one addresses these issues unless absolutely required. This is very sad.
6. We appreciate your efforts of speaking for women's rights. “Feminist movement is not only for female but all male living under stereotype.” As spoken in HeForShe. Wed like to learn whether there are men get hurts under current social system which male take advantage in general (e.g. men can only behave in ways “like a man”)?
This is a question I really like, because a lot of people don’t realize what feminism is. For example, there a lot of fake rape allegation that happens in all over the world and feminist are against that because it is very harmful for the men and men in general. These are very heavy acquisition and can in fact ruin lives. Another examples is that, in India there is no act in the constitution for sexual harassment within the workplace that protects men. That means if men is sexually harassed at work and he goes to the judicial system to sue the women, it will be treated as a special case and take years altogether to get to court because they have to research further accordingly.
So normally these male victims neither go to the system nor report to the police, they just have deal with it on their own, which is very unfortunate. When a male is raped, he is not given equal judgement or equal justice just because he is a man. But a male victim suffers as much as the women. This is thus something we are trying to change as a movement against sexual violence, because we realize that this affects more than just women.
On the other hand, the media keeps selling how men and women should look. Women are toned, fit, with voluptuous curves if needed and men are supposed to have abs, skinny, and a certain jaw line which is always reinforced by media and magazines. People talk about how women are live up to certain stereotypes, but men also have to live up to certain stereotypes too. But no one talks about it unless we feminist bring it up. And when we bring it up, people realize that feminism is more than just for women, it’s for women and men and their equality and acuity. So it’s really great being able to create a space for both genders to pick up where there is lacking and where there are faults. When men realize that feminism isn’t against men, it’s with men, they become more supportive and appreciative.
7. Being able to advocate these issues at such a young age is a very rare opportunity. How has your family influenced you in this regard?
I believe my older brother is a very influential figure to my decisions. My brother is a very informed person and we love discussing these issues at the dinner table, often with our parents. Our parents have stated that it is alright to have different opinion as long as it is informed, which means you read about it, you have certain reasons to believe, and this is how you should be opinionated about things.
Personally, I perform poetries and some friends of mine do the same. I write about or care about these issues. So it’s always a healthy interaction and there’s always learning, no matter who you are talking to. But it is not that common. It’s only fairly recent that people are willing to talk about this. I luckily come from a school where we have at least one discussion per week about social causes, but most school don’t encourage it. I am fortunate enough to have friends and family who want to talk about these things.
A lot of my friends are on the other hand very ignorant, because they don’t realize how much of these affect themselves or their lives. The minute they realize it, they will start caring about it more. I feel that after the piece went up, a lot of my friends started reading up on their privilege, and about sexual discrimination that they faced or other gender has faced. It has surely created a conversation and people are beginning to talk more. I am glad about that.
8. At last, we would like to mention a matter as an addition. On May 24th, the Supreme court in Taiwan has declared the exclusion of same-sex marriage illegal and unconstitutional. But prior to this, the Taiwanese crowd has been advocating for this issue for the past 3 or 4 decades; proceeding the public opinion from discriminating, prejudiced, indifferent and now understanding and support, which was a very long and difficult process. We hope more people will join your movement in India, and that one day realizing the Indian society that you envisioned.
I read about it. I follow lot of LGBT and feminist page on Instagram. You are the first Asian country to make same sex marriage legal. It’s just so fantastic that Taiwan is being the crusader for something like this. I hope this will encourage a lot more other Asian countries to make this legal. I follow lot of Korean culture but I realize that, in lot of East Asian countries, there’s stigma around these issues, even more than India. In India no one talk about it, so it’s just so great I was reading that Taiwan is the first country in Asia to make it legal. I hope India will be along the line.
There are of course many closeted homosexuals that don't have the courage to come out in fear of the awkwardness or social discrimination. They are not much different from me as a heterosexual. In addition, we should not be allowed to hate on a person for what they like or love. So far there has not been much voice backing up this issue, but I know things will turn better soon.
It's a brown girl's guide to gender parity including LGRT's right. We witnessed what this young brown girl bears is not only criticism and insights but enthusiasm toward future of Indian society. Hope more and more people ─ both male and female ─ devote like her, then one day, we'll see a new India where love wins.