More gender links

Folks,

A few collected links from the Austin Openmike (that Subbu refers to) in his post are at:
[1] Gender bias, stereotypes, and sensitization [India] (links)
[2] More gender links...
[3] More links related to gender discussion
There are more links and posts related to sex education and assessing pornography from a feminist perspective. But those need not be related to this discussion today.

Thanks
Vinod

From Sandhya:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/27/SPF810TP5J.DTL

http://www.sports-media.org/newpedimension5.htm

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=womenshistory&cdn=education&tm=10&gps=122_166_1020_581&f=10&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.fair.org/extra/9200/sports-bias.html

From Sabita:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/apr/30inter.htm

Can you elaborate on his original ideas?

His ideas about women, caste and communism were very original. His ideas on women were far ahead of today's feminists. He said the subordination of women was because they gave birth to babies. He said unlike the man, from the moment the baby started growing inside a woman, her thought process changed. According to him, man and woman become unequal from that point onwards. He spoke about equality even in those days but in a different way.

He also had a strong opinion on thali (mangalsutra).

He said thali should not be worn by a woman at all.

From Deepa:

A bbc article on gender bias:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7570192.stm

Gender Bias (below) continued

Additional links for the Gender Bias topic below
A person who is transgenderred sees the world with both points of view
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/07/13/neuroscientist_once_a_woman_says_he_saw_gender_bias_firsthand/?page=1

A link on harrassment
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/28/soangryicouldstrip

I would have encouraged a discussion on gender and religion, unfortunately, since the majority attending will be Hindu, i think this may be a skewed discussion.

Gender Bias

All,
Sorry for the really late notice. No excuses for my tardiness, just my humble apologies. Thus, if due to my tardiness, this post does not resonate with you, my regrets in advance.

Since we left off last week talking about Gender Bias as the subject to discuss this week, I found a few links (from the Austin Thu Open mike - thanks! - and elsewhere) which I have listed below

I'd like the discussion to be around gender equality. Are men and women really equal? Can men and women really do what the other can do? If not, are the different skill sets brought to society by men and women thus render the two sexes equal? If they are equal, why the historical bias? Is it only due to Man's strength superiority? If so, is might right? Or, to ask the same question differently, should might be right in a world of survival of the fittest?

Some links are below:

If Men Could Menstruate - by Gloria Steinem
http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/steinem.menstruate.html

This was the US point of view in the 50s!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQBtcmO_RD9vyD1LGHHWh0qin5aZ7EanNrhGBJ2V8oPrHdCw9kVaPNUtotx1ZSE0aiJ5DfTFUoex48UTQljU1rNi6mdOeovlnVKxZRZ1OLaA_bIhwHkLltkihPDCzM4r_QZsdwci0X7RM/s1600-h/gwguide.jpg

"The zeitgeist in which Hillary floundered and “Sex” is now flourishing."; "Striving While Female – if it goes too far and looks too real — is still held to be a crime."
http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/woman-in-charge-women-who-charge/index.html?ref=opinion
I would also encourage you to read the comments by others on the article above.

Another indian article - Seven Markers for Gender equality
http://www.indiatogether.org/2003/feb/wom-markers.htm


more links coming...

Tuesday Open Mike 1: summary of the first meeting

Meeting was attended by 6 people. Logistics and possible topics were discussed. Broadly, this was what was decided:

• We will create a blog to document the links and learnings of the various topic during this exercise. This blog will be new and separate from Austin's version of Open Mike (http://thursdayopenmike.blogspot.com).
• We will join the same yahoogroups list as Austin's Open Mike group (thursdayopenmike@yahoogroups.com) [assuming Austin is okay with that].
• We will continue to meet at Red Rock Cafe on Castro&Villa in Mountain View, every Tuesday evening at 7PM.
• Some sample topics were suggested and Subbu to send out an email on the first of them later this week. The plan is for everyone to read and send out links ahead of time, so that we can discuss in a more informed and focused manner at the meeting. (More on topics later in this post.)
• We would like to narrow down the specific question we are trying to answer or get an opinion on before the meeting itself, so that one (albeit small) issue is completely discussed and threshed out, while allowing for discussion to organically move on to other topics. This is to ensure that there is some focussed learning instead of random desultory conversations.
• We would also like to have a way to review and see if our opinions and thoughts have changed, increased etc. from what they were about any topic prior to the discussion -- this is aimed at a way to track and see if the Open Mike is really working for each of us.
• The Open Mike is definitely a non-Asha event, and is also definitely not restricted to any geographical region (like India) either in topic or in members.
• All present to spread the word and invite everyone we know who might be interested in such an activity.

Apart from the above, we discussed possible topics and this is broadly what different folks came up with:

• Gender bias/perspectives/stereotyping/spousal-abuse(either direction)/affirmative action along gender lines
• Conservation -- energy/resources/environment
• Secularism -- why hate? [addendum: Why religion?]
• Is organic farming a good (economically viable) option for India?
• Why nation boundaries? why demarcations?
• Animal rights? why hunting? vegetarianism?

More clarity on topics will be developed as life goes on. For the next meeting, Subbu will formulate a question based on what he has suggested and send it out with a few links. For now, I've listed that topic as "Gender: bias or reverse bias?"