TV stuffs

I'm stealing the idea for this post form Sita's post on crap tv.

I've been watching endless reruns of Frasier. That show is hilarious - and always surprises me in so many ways. It is shockingly conservative in some ways (largely heterosexual plots, surprisingly pro-life in Roz, that sort of thing), but also delightfully subversive in others. The writers and a good portion of the cast was *not* heterosexual (Seth macfarlene takes his pot shots at this, I will post links when I'm at a computer).

The lead characters are rich, patently non-middle class snobs. We all know from Arrested Development and Better off Ted that in American TV this is not a good recipe for running more than one season, or three). I'm guessing that the tempering of the snobs with a good ole working class ex-cop father and a quirky British physiotherapist helps offset the perceived snob value of the show making it infinitely more relatable and friendly.

The first time I saw the show (actually, the first time I watched both this and arrested development) I hated it and made fun of my sister for watching this tv crap even - this Is a recurring theme of my childhood. She's awesome for dealing with it.)

But tv I truly hate - Sony tv and Ekta kapoor serials which despite their new packaging, have the most ridiculous plots.

So the shows that I've recent watched and hated intensely - Parvarish and Kya Hua Tera
Vada. So painful!
Parvarish, I have to admit, was a guilty pleasure for a while there. Despite its upholding of traditional middle class values, that show seemed like it was treading an interesting line between thoughtful parenting and "traditional" values. But all that went to hell when they introduced the "American" educated desi mother who is Wrong Because She Gives Her Children Too Much Freedom and Doesn't Understand What They Really Need is Parents Who Will Make Their Decisions For Them Until A Certain Age.


In case I haven't made my self clear, I loathed that turn of events.
It is that kind of rubbish that ratifies the self-righteous predisposition of middle class (Indian) parents to judge everyone who is not toeing the invisible line of Good Indian Values. By equating art (the pursuit and appreciation of), vine (or any taste for alcohol) and any interest in seemingly foreign culture with elitism, irresponsible parenting and neglect of the family, the show glibly reinforces traditional Indian values and, of course, heteronormativity.

So, for instance, saying "why the fuck is it wrong to let your husband have a life independent of yours" is met with with the extreme argument that "your teenage son will get roofied and drunk and have a life threatening accident all in one night".
It posits that if you're an independent woman, you're the product of Terrible Foreign Value Systems which will ruin your children's lives. And let's not forget the implicit "Mother is responsible for the way her children turn out" logic here.
That kind of logic is silly at best and misogynistic and xenophobic at worst.

Bah. I am irked by that show. But I watched it for two months there. So there's that.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

On Sunday afternoon, I did two things that I haven't done in longer than I care to admit. I cleaned the kitchen with the latest two episodes of Galactic Suburbia (one-and-a-half episodes, if you insist on accuracy). I used to listen very, very regularly to the GS podcast while I still commuted to school, or walked around campus. Since I've been on a break, however, not so much.

Oh wait... I've gushed on about this podcast before.
My "Culture to Consume" list grows dramatically after I listen to the podcast. My SF/F news comes from there. But most of all, I love, love, love that they bring up things that are always thought-provoking - even for someone who isn't interested in genre.
In listening, I thought of at least two things that I wanted to blog about (re-blog, okay! okay.)

I had the lofty idea of saving these wonderful Galactic-Suburbia inspired posts for later.
But then, I just saw this from "I Fucking Love Science" on facebook. (Friend that page. Seriously. Friend it.) And the post that appears after the jump just had to be written.

"Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know."

~ Jeremy Knowles

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a truly extraordinary woman.



Oh come on. You did not know that.
Shamefully, neither did I.

The inequality of women in the workplace (to keep with the topic, in the Sciences) is not a new thing. Even when it does not seem like it exists. 

You're familiar with the stereotypes of women in science - the geeky, socially awkward, dorky and dowdy - think Amy Farrah Fowler from Big Bang Theory (played by the Neuroscience-Ph.D.-holding Mayim Bialik)*.

There are worse ones IRL.
For instance, I was talking to a friend (you know, the same one who got lectured by the doctor about her moral responsibility to stay home with her baby instead of choosing a career). She has a doctorate in Neurobiology. She is also pointedly not dowdy - her wardrobe is always (has always been) painstakingly put together. At a conference where she was presenting a paper, she got told, "Honey, you're too well dressed! Nobody is going to take you seriously!" She brushed it off, presented a fantabulous, well-received paper that eventually got published.

The same friend, while on an internship, also heard from her male supervisor. "Go home and change and come, your shirt is distracting me."
(And if you're thinking "maybe her shirt was too _________________", you need to go back and re-think the whole victim-blaming thing.)

The IFLS meme made me think of her. And of the politics of gender everywhere.

There is, apparently, no winning this without a penis.
I've been asking myself what the point is of talking about this - and I think the answer is that discussion is the first step to reform of any kind.

More along these lines, tomorrow.

*(With apologies - a footnote.) I know. This is a rooted in a specific culture. So help me here, what's the Indian stereotype of the Science Woman? Sibling? S.B.? Anyone else reading? )

Incomplete thoughts on Anger and fear from Gender and Being

Amidst the two big rape cases in the news (Delhi and ohio), I've been thinking about a conversation I had in the cafeteria last year, where I ended up, rather frustratedly asking the man with whom I was talking to fuck off. A year later, I stand by everything I said then - that we hide under the blanket of culture, that women are not taught to stand up for themselves and that men are not taught to treat women as their equals. That more middle class Indians need to acknowledge that patriarchy Dictates norm. That India needs to be having a conversation about the place of women as individuals (and this means legalizing marital rape).

This is a hard fight, especially in a country like India, because all things heteropatriarchal (normative, cisgender, heterosexual) are automatically granted sanctuary under the umbrella of tradition.

I (like countless other women) am quite tired of the "asking for it" argument and not the least because it presumes that the natural state of all men is Rapist. By extension, I'm tired of women being asked to cover their bodies (No, government of Pondicherry, overcoats do not prevent rape). And I'm fucking tired of arguments like this one - no you sick bastard, there's no reason for the girl to have held her attackers' hands and feet in the name of tradition .

I grew up much too conscious of my own body. All the modesty in the world didn't stop me or my peers from being grabbed, from having penises thrust into our back, and from facing catcalls or lewd remarks. This *is* the typical experience of my generation (and the ones before me). And that was bad enough. There is no justification (nor has there ever been) for letting this state of affairs continue.

Random Musings, More Star Trek and The Galactic Suburbs

Today's post is long and somewhat roughly stitched.
After the jump, you will find a delightful StarTrek poster, more gushing about galactic suburbia and some lamentation about the perennial feminism 101 discussions to which we circle back.

Day 20: Sunday Cloudy Sunday.

Zilch, nada. Zippity-do-dah! I did absolutely nothing today.

But, I have been thinking about being a woman, and rape and the choice to control whether or not I can have children - see A.B.'s post here and here, and Simbly Bored's here. The discussion is engaging. And I agree with both of them. Anyone saying there's no need for feminism is thinking with the scum 'neath their uncut nails.

Which then brings me to a post of which I've been thinking - a response (of sorts) to A.b.'s post about TED Women from some time ago. She makes a strong case for more women speaking out in the TED (Regular).

I'm not opposed to that line of reasoning. At all.
This whole segregation of women into our own neat little box is all very well, but is also awesomely demeaning. [It is, after all, this very line of reasoning that brought us this gem of a publication last May (cue: sarcastic cough) - yes, an SF anthology of *Greats*. yes, in the in the twenty first century. yes, yes with only One female author. Whoodle!] Separating TED(Regular) from TED Women has the same implications.

That said, however, I've been toying with the idea that in some ways I'm for the idea of TED (Women).
For the same reasons that I'm for the idea that we still need feminists*.
There has to be some way to even the score, to make up for all the "Before we were Giants" and the "you deserved to be raped, because you were doing a man's job" and everything else. And a forum that seeks to showcase the contributions of women just might be one step in the right direction.
(Yes, the same reasoning that spurs reservations and reserved parking spots for the physically disabled.)

This line of reasoning, however, falls apart in the case of Tony Porter's video  because, as a.b. points out, he preaches to the choir. (No, seriously. Why are there only women in his audience?)

But, I've been watching a couple of the other videos and I'm beginning to believe that they're headed in the right direction. As a platform to foreground the spectacular work women do in a large variety of fields, we need TED Women. Because even today, it is natural for even supposedly well-read editors to be gender-blind (which basically means they don't even notice that they don't read enough women). This is not gender-neutrality, it is gender-bias of the most insidious kind.


*This is Feminism 101: But it annoys me no end to have to explain the idea that feminist is not against men.
All you folks, "I'm pro equality, but I'm not a feminist." Really?

On the Politicising of Ficciones

From a conversation with a friend, having entered a discussion (about comments on a recent SF anthology) sideways:

me: I understand being uncomfortable about "politicising" genre fiction. Which is not to say I think it is justified

(the singer): the thing is, for me. that it's always already politicised... There's a much stronger sense that things as basic as who gets published are inherently political and so not wanting to politicise it doesn't mean not politicising it.It means allowing it to continue to be politicised in a way that is simply not working for a huge number of peopel

me: hmm.. .yes

(the singer): which...I don't think anyone has the energy to politicise everything all the time. But not acknowledging that it's there and at least being supportive of people who are fixing it stinks to me of collaboration.

And yes, I agree.