Against Our Will - Men, Women, and Rape - Susan Brownmiller

As I've mentioned in my other blogs, I live in India. India has a rape problem - a big, ugly one. Understandably, assaulted females have been on my mind as of late, which is why I picked up this book.

I found it to be a very interesting read. Susan Brownmiller brought up many historical contexts and proposed rationale for rape (both in U.S. culture and other countries) and how man's historical, archaic superiority complex and property ownership has led to a current culture of rape. I cautiously agree with some of her precepts and found myself often stopping to consider things I hadn't thought of before. This is the mark of a good book for me, whether I find myself agreeing in the end or not. I found the identified motivation for rape to be refreshingly accurate in a world where the motivation is still thought to be sexual.

Susan Brownmiller is the archetypal old school feminist in my mind. This should not surprise anyone, and if you are of the younger generation and not well versed in the previous generations feminists, you need to read up on that. The old schools are the reason women live a reasonable free and equal existence in the western world. Of course it's not perfect, but it's not terrible compared to some places in the world, like India where I live.

With this outlook in mind, I find myself wondering as to Brownmiller's assumptions and assertions that men are responsible for all of women's misery, which definitely makes an appearance in historical examples. The man who commits a rape is definitely to blame for that rape, but men in general are not necessarily to blame for societal constructs, especially when it sounds like women are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I also found Susan Brownmiller's belittling of men's fear of being falsely accused of rape a bit much. I would never advocate ignoring/guilting a woman who says she has been raped, but Pottiphar's wife cannot possibly be the first/only/last woman who has ever claimed something falsely. Police, courts, and justice are not infallible and for a man who was truly innocent, the prospect of being thrown in jail for something he didn't do, have his reputation trashed, and have restrictions placed on him even after prison would be enough to make him fight back.

Brownmiller comes from a generation when anger and blame was effective for feminism. New age feminists no longer look at men with anger and blame, even if current ideas (both recognized and subliminal) are not acceptable. This makes it hard for me to swallow the feminist agenda that shines through loud and strong in this 400 page treatise on bodily invasion.

I was also puzzled by Brownmiller's angry ending tirade against pornography. Any pornography at all is seen as a "chic" diversionary enjoyment that people are now tolerant of but is actually a huge debasement to women both acting in porn or who are watching it. Sorry, no. Being aroused by seeing sexuality and sexual acts is as old as time and has never been confined to men. Nor is the act of sex ever degrading to women in a consensual relationship. This is where I start to have huge problems with old school feminism. By blaming men, some women actually participate in placing additional/unnecessary limits on women. It was an ineffective and puzzling end to an otherwise insightful book on the motivations and act of rape.

New school feminism focuses (or should, in my humble opinion) on a woman doing what she wants to, regardless of what men or other women think of her. This is where real freedom and equality lies.

Verdict: Every woman should read books of this sort. Even though I couldn't put it down in a morbidly curious way (which I'm actually ashamed of for some reason), feminism and the subject of rape are something every woman, no matter how young or old, should spend time contemplating. After all, it's when you don't have your own opinions that others step in for you and give you opinions to have, which is unhealthy. I think it would be beneficial in general for men to read. If the problem of entitlement comes out into the open, perhaps we can reduce it, if not end it. Read it.

The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India - Siddartha Deb

To be sure, India is one of the easiest places in the world to see the dichotomy of society into rich and poor.
This book wanders around this dichotomy in a pondering and not so orderly fashion. Aside from pointing out the differences, I could not find much of a point to this book.

That is not to say it isn't interesting. Deb introduces you to charaters so colorful, they sound like fiction. They are probably not the average people a westerner would run into, which makes them fascinating to me.

Verdict: Read it - good time pass.

Dreaming in Hindi - Katherine Russell Rich

This book appealed to me due to my seemingly never ending quest to speak passable Hindi. Admittedly, I haven't been all that disciplined.

Rich goes to India on a midlife quest to master Hindi. She does, by the end of the book, reach passable Hindi. I was rather confused by this book as she seems to wander around with stories that don't seem to have much to do with her quest for the language. She also seems apathetic about the whole thing by the end of the book and admits in the post script to not using it often again, leaving me to wonder what the point of her trip was all together. Rich doesn't have any profound revelations (that she shares) about her time in India. What she does share in depth is much of the etymology of learning Hindi and how language experts view acquiring a new language.

Verdict: Meh. It was an interesting read, but don't look for any humorous anecdotes or revelations about life in India. Learning any new language is challenging - with or without expert opinions.

Sold - Patricia McCormick

Sold is the story of a 13 year old Nepali girl named Lakshmi. The narrative opens with a description of life in her villiage, how difficult it is for her family to feed everyone, and the male worship that is an overwhelming force in her part of the world. Lakshmi's stepfather is worshiped to the point where even though he openly talks of selling her and bets away all his money, and her mother still tells her to be thankful that they have a man looking after them.

Lakshmi feels the pressure to help earn money for her family and agrees to go and work. Her stepfather instead sells her to a trafficker without telling her and she ends up in an unnamed city in a brothel. Her transition from care free child to exploited woman is short and brutal. It is made clear that even those who escape their "debt" to the madam and are allowed to leave will never be welcomed back by their family and diseases are neither avoided nor rare.

At the end of the book, Lakshmi is rescued from the brothel by a man from an NGO. It leaves you feeling both glad she got out, and ashamed that so many will not.

Verdict: Read it. Sexual slavery and trafficking is a problem that spans the whole world and needs the attention of everyone.

Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars - Sonia Faleiro

In this book, Sonia Faleiro goes in search of information on the underworld of Mumbai Dance Bars and the girls that dance in them. She comes across some very colorful, yet tragic personalities.

Far from respectable, yet not as disregarded as prostitutes, dance bar girls often walk a very fine "sugar daddy" line that is never stable nor secure and very easily slides into prostitution. Echoing some of the other less fortunate parts of different societies, getting a glimpse into the mentality of people who didn't come from money and find themselves with some of it is fascinating. There is no thought to saving, no thought to making smart decisions, should the girl have the ability to. Most girls got into the dance business from sexual abuse at home/in their village and strike out looking for a better life and more work. What she walks into is a seedy, crime infested, insecure life that she finds herself resigned to. It's tragic and fascinating at the same time.

Verdict: Read it if you have a soft spot for people forced to do their best in bad situations, especially if you have a tender for women doing the best they can while being utterly exploited. 

Do You Suppose it's the East Wind - Muhammad Umar Memon

This book is a collection of stories that started in Urdu - a language that is a mix of Hindi and Arabic and used by the Muslim world across India. Urdu has it's own colloquialisms and culture that I was fascinated to explore.

I don't know if I walked away with an increased understanding of either one, but it was still an interesting collection of stories.

Verdict: Read it.

Stranger to History - Aatish Taseer

Aatish Taseer takes the reader on an abridged tour of the middle east in an effort to understand the religion and culture of his estranged father. Taseer has an interesting viewpoint in that his mother grew up in a Sikh family. A man searching not only for the identity and support of his father, but also for a culture in a house that has always had two.

Of course it didn't really bring him closer to his Muslim Pakistani father even if it did help him understand himself, which is generally how these things go.

That being said, it's an interesting view into the different subtypes of Islam. I think it may interest a Muslim more than non Muslim, but it's still interesting to read.


Verdict: Read it.