Men, Boobs and Pink shirts

We will be talking about the correlation between men, pink shirts and women's breasts today. Before I start, a little FYI for you. Originally, Pink was considered a masculine color (due to its association with  Red) and Blue was considered dainty,  feminine and hence speculated as an ideal color for girls. Up until 1985, gender neutral clothes were being used for both sexes but soon after, a whole generation of parents, somehow bought into this idea of Blue=masculine and Pink=feminine. This segregation would turn out to be great for maternity businesses but it also managed to crush the psyche of men for a long time. Long-lasting prejudices against these two beautiful colors were ingrained in people’s minds forever. These days, men are actually ashamed to wear something pink because apparently they don’t have enough balls for that.


Independent UK recently published the findings of a study, which claims to have found that men who (dare to ) wear pink shirts to their workplace, earn on average 1000 pounds more than those who do not, are better qualified, more confident and get a greater number of compliments from female colleagues than their more traditionally beshirted colleagues. It is obvious, that by taking that extra leap of faith in their ‘masculinity’, these guys become cultural rebels in a way and rebels are always sexy.

The color Pink is so synonymous with women that International Breast Cancer society uses it as a sign of moral support. Every October millions of people buy pink ribbons and contribute to the Breast Cancer cause. Pink Ribbon Campaign is also endorsed by many celebrities. When Australian cricketer Glen McGrath’s wife, Jane McGrath, died in 2008 after a lengthy battle with cancer, the Australian team, wore pink ribbons on their sleeves during international matches to show moral support to McGrath and millions of other survivors, patients and relatives. They made an excellent show of support to the cause.

While what the Aussies did was quite commendable, it was the South Africans, who took the cake. They played an international cricket match in PINK UNIFORMS to create awareness about Breast Cancer in the native South Africa.

Display A: This viral picture had more than 5000 likes.

Yes, they did it and pulled it off with their traditional charm.  Fortunately, that day they were playing against Pakistan, a developing country which has the highest rate of Breast cancer amongst all of Asia and where every year about 40,000women die due to this disease. The very nature of  the Pakistani society is such that anything containing or involving any reproductive female body part is automatically sexualized/eroticized. It is also a highly male dominated society, where even most educated men, are rifed up with prejudices and biases against women. Following is a status update from one of the biggest online cultural hubs in Pakistan, Mango People. They tried to pass this status off as mere “good-humor” (very funny indeed!) and interestingly, this is also the so-called the English speaking elite of the country. When this is the level of maturity shown by the well exposured elite, what exactly can we expect from the lower segments of the society? These attitudes are not breeding ground for good, solid and intelligent discourse.

Display B: This status update had more than 400 likes, although  it is refreshing to notice that it is only 0.08 percent of the likes that display A got,still some comments were quite disturbing.

Unintentionally, South Africa has done for Breast Cancer in Pakistan, what years of small scale campaigning by nonprofits and government have been failed at doing. They have penetrated the market and created a lot of awareness in just one day. By acting on the tough call to wear Pink, Team South Africa has caused a ripple effect of huge momentum. Sure, some people laughed at them, but majority got the message behind the medium. People started asking questions. They wanted to know more and were willing to discuss it further in disease terms rather than in physical attraction terms.

Display C: Can masculinity get anymore real than this?

South Africa won that match , advocated a very noble cause and managed to raise 200,000 dollars at the end of the day. But in my opinion, their real victory came with their own conviction in their masculinity and their commitment to a cause as a team. They proved that colors are meaningless and what really matters is the strength of character which cannot be masked or enhanced by wearing any color. Celebrities have a lot of referent power and Team South Africa used it for a good cause with great elegance.
 

What are your thoughts on men wearing pink? If you are a girl, will you date a guy who likes wearing pink shirts? If you are a guy would you like to try pink shirts and if you have ever done so  please let me know how was that experience for you? What do you think about this Western practice of general gender specific color culture which is influencing the elite in third world countries? Please leave your valuable comments in the discussion board below.

One woman VS a Multimillion Dollar Industry

What will be your reaction, if you ever heard a rap song called “Rape Rap”? Wait, if the name of the song isn’t self explanatory enough for you, I will give you the basic synopsis of the song. In this song, the singer relishes his fantasy/experience of savagely raping a helpless woman. I am hoping that your only possible reaction will be of shock, disgust and utter horror. Yet, such a decadently lavish display of misogyny was not only produced, but has been widely circulated to an international audience since 2006. The credit to this derogatory song goes to none other than the star Punjabi rapper, Yo Yo Honey Singh.

Being Punjabi myself, I have nothing but absolute respect for the ethnic Punjabi music industry. We have the most beautiful songs which can compete with any form of international music in terms of their emotional and spiritual depths. Yet, recent years have seen people’s preference shifting from traditional Punjabi music to Punjabi gangsta rap. Punjabi gangster rap, like its North American father (which it religiously tries to emulate) is a multimillion dollar industry erected entirely upon objectification of women.

 The nosedive of Punjabi rap started when countless videos displaying scantily clad women dancing in clubs going crazy over wannabe rappers went unchecked; and has culminated in songs like Main Hun Balatkari (I am a rapist) and Choot (Vagina) having become cult hits. While researching this blog post, I had to read the lyrics to these songs, and trust me I could not go past the first verse. The sheer lewdness and sexual deviance shamed the most misogynistic North American rap song I had ever listened to. What troubled me the most was the fact, that these lyrics came to light only now in the wake of the Delhi gang rape case even though they are in wide circulation since 2006.

This is where the proverbial 'light at the end of the tunnel' enters our story. We have a heroine here. Kalpana Misra, an Indian blogger and activist, started an online campaign against the rapper’s New Year night concert in an up class hotel on Change.org. She managed to garner more than 2600 supporters (men and women) in the first 24 hours. Social media created a powerful ripple effect which resulted in outraged remarks by thousands of people on Twitter. Soon after, massive media coverage followed and the hotel managers had to cancel the show.  The campaign even reached the neighboring Pakistan, where Honey Singh was scheduled to perform, and where he enjoys a huge fan base. This episode has sent out a strong message to the Indian Music industry: that from now on they are under close scrutiny; that misogyny and objectification of women are not acceptable; that women have had enough; that rape is rape and sex is sex, and distinction between the two must be clearly understood.

Learning Experience:
I chose to write about this incident because in my opinion, it is a small but meaningful event in the context of development and women rights. In the past, I have conveniently ignored misogynistic descriptions of women in media, even though I loathed them. I created a shell and taught myself to look past magazine covers and ignore vile rap songs, not out of choice but to keep my sanity intact. It’s difficult to be a woman in this world and it’s further difficult to be a woman of color because we face discrimination on multiple levels. Lending out our voice to a cause immediately labels us as feminists (which has a very bad connotation) and even homosexuals (both of which I do not have a problem with personally, but these labels tend to discourage intelligent discourse). Kalpana Misra’s courageous example is inspirational and has taught women like me that we should believe in the power of ripple effects. We shouldn’t be scared of what we are not comfortable with. We should report, campaign and use social media to our advantage. We should be on the lookout for such songs and images which depict us as anything but living, breathing, fellow human beings. We should create awareness not just for women but for our brothers, boyfriends, husbands and sons.

So what do you think about this story? What are your thoughts on Honey Singh and rap music in general (Any type of rap music)? What solutions do you put forth for the reduction of objectification in the rap music industry? Please let me know. Thanks.

                                          The Casanova himself. Feel free to bleed your eyes out.

Grassroots ingenuity

Have you ever seen a man who loved his wife so much that to find a solution to her monthly problem, he actually wore panties and simulated an experiment involving animal blood to understand how she felt during her period? Sounds fairy-tale like but meet Mr. Arunachalam Muruganantham, a South Indian man, who has accomplished not just this but so much more. Dubbed as the “first man to wear a sanitary towel” by the BBC and “Tampon King” by the Independent, he is no pervert but a dedicated and self-motivated individual who created a social enterprise from nothing but scratch and has revolutionized the period industry for good.

Mr. Muruganantham inspirational story started in 1998. He belonged to a BPL ( Below poverty line) household where his mother worked as a hand loom operator and he himself, a high school dropout, worked as a workshop helper. One day he saw his wife going to the bathroom with an extremely dirty rag. Upon asking what it was, she told him that she was going to use it for her time of the month. He was shocked to see the unhygienic cloth being used for this purpose. But more so, he was shocked to hear that his wife was forced to use this horrible fabric, just because she could not buy milk for the family, if she spent money on expensive sanitary pads.

 This event would mark the beginning of his decade long tiresome, long and searing journey to find the cheapest sanitary materials that could give his wife a safe and clean menstrual time.

In India, only 2 percent of women can afford to use sanitary pads during their periods.   The rest of 98 percent (millions of women) use rags, ash, mud and some even sit on hay for days until the periods pass. Some even die due to infections caused by using moldy clothes in which insect live and thrive. Due to these reasons, many school going girls end up dropping out because they just cannot cope with the pressures of managing a period. This creates a never ending cycle of poverty and misery.

 On top of that there are extreme superstitions and taboos attached with the menstrual talk. As a convention, a man just cannot talk about it, let alone know about it in detail. Women guard their period like a closely guarded secret. Talking about periods to a girl and between themselves is actually a sexual fetish for many young South Asian men, due to the cultural secrecy surrounding the menstrual cycle in those countries. So you can imagine, what kind of problems Muruganantham had to face when he set out in his quest to find a cheap alternative to expensive pads for his wife. He outlines his journey in the following talk.( I highly recommend listening to this)

He realized that the multinational corporations were selling a 10 Paisa  (0.001892 Canadian cents) raw material for 4 Rupees (0.08 CAD). There, his quest started for the best raw material to use in his sanitary napkins. After many trials he finally found the material known for excellent absorbency. Yes, it was wood pulp.   He sat down to make a low cost effective machine that would convert wood pulp to sanitary napkins.After 6 years of relentless determination, hardwork and dedication he finally made a machine that would make, not only  sanitary napkins but will provide employment for millions of women in rural India.

 Instead of creating a corporate structure, he opted for Self Help Groups where rural women are taught how to make the pads, who then sell it to women like themselves at a very low cost (less than third the cost of traditional napkins).  His aim is to make India a 100 percent napkin using country. Currently, 627 of his machines are in production in 23 states of  India and 6 other countries, which creates employment while creating tremendous amounts of  sustainable social change.  The reason why he is doing that is following in his own words:

“From the childhood I know, no human being die because of poverty. Everything happens because of ignorance. So, ignorance means what you know? Just chasing this money.”