Saturday, May 13, 2006

Lady in Red...

My involvement with a co-blogger's struggle forces me to write this, not out of concern, but out of regret, that "man"kind can stoop down to levels in history which believes in only one agenda, the lady in red..

Definition

Lady in red : Can be defined as

(1) The most lovable creation nature came up with..i have my own lady in red :) and therefore my first acknowledgement will go to this form of the lady i see every minute, even tho the blog is not meant to portray this.

(2) The ever angry lady forced to succumb to man's whimsical needs and fancies, boiling inside, but with no reprieve from physical and mental torture, which again is not the essence of this blog even though the reason of vent is a corollary of this.

(3) The ever bloody attitude of man, to portray every drop of blood in history due to a woman, and every sin related to a woman, this being the essence of this post..

A Brief history of time..

(a) "Sex was considered the special province of women, and in the medieval mind women were the carnal, lustful ones, while men were the spiritual ones victimized by their temptations. After all, they were the descendents of Eve. In art, the asexual beauty of the celestial angel was best represented by a young boy. The Victorian idea of the delicate, sexually naive "angel in the home" did not exist. The double standard certainly did though -- a women's honor resided in her sexual exclusivity. Married men were constantly afraid of being cuckolded, and seemed to think this was almost certainly to be expected, given women's voracious appetites. A lot of this, to our eyes, is certainly men projecting their own desires onto women, and blaming women for their own actions. The idea that a raped woman had invited it was certainly common (even Montaigne expresses this view). Christine de Pisan, writing in the 15th century, argues quite touchingly that this is not so, but her voice was a rare one.


(b)Prostitution was another option for independence for women. In the earlier years of the 16th century it was not uncommon for a town to support a municipal brothel, as a way of containing possible public disorder. n a public brothel she had protection from abusive customers, food, shelter, and medical care. On the street, she had none of that. An ordinary prostitute's life, out in the public space with no man to protect her, made her vulnerable to violence and disease, not to mention periodic social persecution.

(c)One cannot discuss the history of women during this time without discussing the craze for burning witches. This is a trend which seemed to have been seriously fanned by the printing press. The publication of the witch hunter's guide, the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) at the end of the 15th century and its popularity in print probably caused a great deal of harm. Enlightened Renaissance scholars like Jean Bodin wrote seriously on the subject of witches, and few philosophers found any conflict between science and magic. Witch persecution is a subject that deserves a huge amount of historical examination. It is clearly a social force directed against women, who comprised the overwhelming number of victims, but what this means about the pressures the society was feeling isn't clear to me.

(d) Our own scriptures :-

Manu VIII.416 " A wife, a son, and a slave, these three are declared to have no property ; the wealth which they earn is (acquired) for him to whom they belong."

Manu V.148 " In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a women must never be independant."

Manu Smrti IX.3 " Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independance."

Manu Smrti V.164 " By violating her duty towards her husband, a wife is disgraced in this world, (after death) whe enters the womb of a jackal, and is tormented by diseases (as the punishment of) her sin."

Manu Smrti V.154 " Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure (elsewhere); or devoid of good qualities, (yet) a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a dutiful wife."

Today's World..

The smart man..Courtesy the tamil punkster for her phrases

Why are you a feminist? Feminism is nat gud fer our women. Feminism causes wars, causes other problems fer women who want to work, it also causes rift in family, because women want to work, leaving males to do suicides, it causes psychological problems in marriages, and it makes women divorce men, leaving child as orphan.


In every religion, in some form or the other we have and continue to persecute and accuse women of deeds, and for someone like me who has met the most beautiful women, and in a relationship with one who deserves as much credit i can give her for a lifetime and more, I dont know what i can say, but i do know what i can do, regret my history...and work towards my cause, until then this layout is surrounded with apology to the lady in red..

Template taken off :can be viewed at
Lady in Red..

15 comments:

Raju said...

Wait this is yogi's blog.. know???
the same yogi I know for a decade??
Heaven's forbid.....Am I listening to....ooh that horrid word...."emotions"......about a woman......damn...and you’ve actually singled one out...and accepted it publicly.....and oh where has your ego gone....APOLOGIZED????

Ha ha...nice post buddy.

Yogi said...

what..me..ego??

Anonymous said...

You are right buddy about religons being biased towards men...

for example: look at 10th commandment

"You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s" (Exodus 20:17).

There are 3 probable sources from which 10 commandments have come... and all three talk in same... In this women are treated like objects, denied as a human being...

but I also feel it is people who have misused religon to create such biased favours in society...

Few customs were actually started with a purpose... for example 'Sati' was started in areas of rajasthan so that if a kingdom loses then women of that kingdom should die rather than serve in Harems... and infact queens and princesses were first to jump into so as to set example for commoners, who then have choice of getting raped by enemy or die with respect...

Then there Purdah system which came into palce because Muslim rulers used to kidnap any women they liked for their lust... Purdah system came to help women at that time against such tyranny..

But with time these once good practices started turning stagnant under control of humans...

Infact the witch thing you talked about is said to be started by people who wanted poach lands of poor widows and childless couples... It all started when a few people died after breathing pollens of a particular plant reacting in rains...


Yet if look at Vedanta if we'll find that even in ancient times women was given her due respect for e.g. Mahesh is considered to be consisting of Shiv & Shiva... male & female... It is said 'naari nar se uuch hoti hai'...
Manu Smriti was written and edited by old pundas, & not to be trusted...


Why you are concentrating on what is bad, and why not learn good from it??? Is there nothing good history has taught you...???

Yogi said...

@GK

Manu smriti FYI, is one of our most revered scriptures after the Gita, so somewhere down the line, i think you have got your facts mixed up when you say its not to be trusted..Giving a woman due respect in a scripture is not enough, it should be in practice too, and that is why we concentrate on the bad of history..

Both you and i dont know whether all rajput women were willing to jump into the fire sans a few "noble" stories perpetrated by man again, jules verne when he wrote around the world in 80 days, specifically talks of a drugged woman, which is more trustworthy and definitely more believable than every woman wanting to jump into the flame..like any other justification for crude history, Joan of Arc for instance, burn and then make her a saint and rid yourself of the crime..

and again there are innumerable cases in history and current(more recent than the ages you are quoting where the actions probably meant something good) where women have been ruthlessly taken advantage of, sadly i think you fail to see any point when it comes to women and their persecutions, you continue to go about trying to justify crime against them with some pretty pathetic reasoning about the good of history.

face the problem, women persecution today, the result of historical dictatorial laws, no one denies the good in any scripture, but i think i deserve to portray the parts of history which continue to persecute the present, especially a fellow person living with me!

Anonymous said...

Yup you are right that women are still suffering from centuries old traditional views...

But areas I have travelled... Northen, western and central india Manusmriti is not even given attention leave the possibility of following it... May be in southern india, it has it's followers... I do not know except one Dalit site which has same arguments against non-dalits relating to Manu Smriti, and other records...

And even Joan of Arc has two school of thought... one says she did what any king to protect his territory do, other says she was great... You must remember rani of Jhansi..right...??? but do you remember names other male kings who fought just like her in 1857...??? why you have forgotton it if you are indiscriminate???

Well you have written with passion about history... but that is not to say that I do not see their persecution in history... I never did justify wrong against women, I simply stated that there exists some records also for support of women...But that is not fair if I say women was only mistreated never given support.... I doubt then why men have left goddesses in temples...???

My view is like of a common individual who says Discrimination was always there... Gender discrimination is more visible because it has biggest population than other discriminating factors like Poverty, Race, Cast, Education infact IIM cartelization, which is although small still is discrimination...

Both you and I can doubt our scriptures, which technically are giving respect to women... There has been manuscripts with records especially of 'Rani of Chittaur', Raja Mansingh, infact manuscripts during mugal timeperiod describe this 'Save our Dignity' passion of women of that time... If we are not trusting even manuscripts then let us deny whole history as made up by some MCP...

We can doubt brave men who died on battle frontiers (both you & I may think they were cowards)... but it is act of great selfishness... Women deserve to be reminded of their greatness... Today if I'm doubting intentions of such great women like Rani of chittaur, Women who went Sati, Laxmi Bai it is like a slap on Women's great sacrifices and her free will...

Yogi said...

look at the ratios you are talking about yourself, its more of some form of wicked acceptance which made ppl make a few martyrs of women, the number of male sacrifices for the world, when compared to the female, you have pretty much named most of them any layman would know in one post, but men, no siree, we have always been the worlds most constructive people!!

Take any great male conqueror, his aim, plunder, loot, rape and kill, alexander, genghis khan, idi amin, hitler, napolean, kublai khan, just to name a few..the list is endless, but suddenly no women, not many ppl were known for compassion and love, sans a few like ashoka, or probably harishchandra, who again sold his wife to a chandala, to keep his dharma clean, dharma is quite misinterpreted and misquoted using such examples, even tho the basis of the story was only to portray dharmic principles.

Learning from the women in history whose names you quoted make me want to give that sense of equality to all women now, rather than an elite bunch of them, and i think my stand on current prosecution and an insufficient justice system to rid our system of these inequalities from misinterpreting and quoting the past holds good till today, except ppl are now doing something about it, well enough big posts on this, your disagreement on this is quite contrary to my beliefs and an argument with a few good women in history is not going to change the general life of persecution

twip said...

oh oh...gk's made his way here too? Have fun yogi...:P:P:P....hee hee...

Yogi said...

thank you so much!! :P heh

Anonymous said...

im your little brother and im gonna tell amma u used the "s" word! :)

Yogi said...

damn, ppl are seeing too many emotions in one post, there goes my reputation, android yogi mode on!! heh

Anonymous said...

What you are talking about...??? Raja Harishchandra's wife said that her dharma was to follow whatever her husband says... Her wish, her free will... do you understand that...??? you can't deny even an animal a free will... He sold her to pay 'chandaal' for final cremations of their son... you understand that 'Their son, not his alone'...??? He couldn't see himself because he was slave to chandaal himself... Do you understand he was slave 'himself' to feed his wife...???


Do you know history of queen Victoria of mid 1800, who beheaded peasents as easily as other male kings...or Elizabeth 1, or great Catherine or do you know about infamous burning of half of london...??? You'll find them same as any other male ruler & I haven't even started their military exploits... You want to go back in history to talk of Cleopetra who got 6 of her siblings assassinated, or chinese Hsi shi or Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon...??? But then do you know of Raja Bali, Raja Nal, Raja Janak, or even Akbar's respect for women...????

Man! your history knowledge is as incomplete as your analysis of them...

What type of foolishness is it to think that everyone can be a leader...??? What type of stupid analysis is it to interpret history without even knowing whole story...???

Yes, we must stand with women, but as my friends will say... Yogi is not intelligent enough even to observe that Megha wished him good wishes and disappeared while great yogi foolishly kept sticking his neck in her blog...

An unsolicitated advice... stick your neck for people who respect you, and none of them will have hairs like that of feminists...

Yogi said...

dude, your history is as obscure as your knowledge about it, i wonder which books you have been reading, akbar and respect for women???the mughal dynasty had no respect for women so dont even get there..and im not foolish to stick my neck alone there, i think i had enough ppl there who were doing it with me, and history will tell you they still have not even figured out if cleopatra was a man or a woman, your updates again quite historical as your data..why can you just face it and quit arguing, look at today with reference to past not just the past, we are persecuting women using history and religion as our bases do something about it rather than stick to your still justifying view of history rather than current situation with reference to it!

Respect comes to me when i deserve it, so i dont think your choice of commentin on it is very essential here, again dont waste your time here too, i think you just need a place to vent try somewhere else with ppl who have the same necessity

Yogi said...

and im quite happy megha didnt waste her time here too on you, ill leave that to me

Anonymous said...

Is that all...Is that all you can come up with...???

Then you might not be knowing that Akbar married rajput princesses... and they had full freedom to practice their religon in which Akbar also took part...??? There were Harems, and there were 'Begaars' who were only men, who worked in fields without pays... Do you know that 'Begaars' is word for slavery, not for kingly treatment...??? Cleopatra married her brother and bore him a son...??? It seems that blogs are only source of your knowledge... Manusmriti, raja harishchandra, conquerors, and now cleopatra...

So what do you really stand for...??? So every example is just one of the very few...???

Great going buddy...

As per your understanding there should be 100% reservation for SC/ST, because history, and traditions are proof of injustice, and then they are poor and face so many problems during arbitration...

Looks to me Megha doesn't waste her time on you either... tomorrow if she kicks your ass, she'll forget all respect, but if she fears you she'll just say Yogi is so great...

Foolish man, respect is always commanded... Deserving is relative dillusionary term...

But I suspect if you'll make out difference, for you'll quite happy for her and will start harping again 'women is persecuted, women is persecuted....'

Yogi said...

dde i dont even have patience to wrtie a blog too often i really don have the patience to sit and read your verbose nonsense so go do this elsewhere i have to start deleting your comments to do that..i will