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The desperate plight of trans widows An Indian filmmaker risks everything to tell women's stories

“This is the untold story no-one wants to hear.” Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/ Getty

“This is the untold story no-one wants to hear.” Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/ Getty


September 4, 2023   6 mins

“Terrible things are happening to women and girls across my country… and the media doesn’t care. It’s only interested in the trans issue.”

Vaishnavi Sundar, an Indian feminist filmmaker, has long been furious at the way women and girls are treated in India. Not only do many of them live in fear of rape and sexual assault, but there is still a staggering gender disparity when it comes to education and workplace equality. This, combined with honour killings; abusive menstruation huts; child marriage and the dowry system, leaves many women longing for a way out.

When Sundar set up her charity Women Making Films (WMF) in 2015, in response to widespread sexism from male film technicians, she was celebrated as a darling of the liberal Indian elite. “Years before Hollywood paid attention to this issue, I encouraged women to work with other female filmmakers and technicians,” she tells me. Yet in 2020 she became a pariah in the film world for a series of tweets questioning gender identity. One of those was: “There are no identities. There is only sex. Male and female.”

She was swiftly punished for her defiance. The film she had spent three years making, But What Was She Wearing? — which is about sexual harassment towards Indian women in the workplace — was pulled just before its screening in New York in February 2020 because the Polis Project had deemed it transphobic. “To block a screening of a film about an urgent topic that affects women across all social strata in society is obscene,” Sundar says. “And all because I say sex is real, and men in women-only spaces can pose a danger to women.”

Since then, Sundar has been ghosted by several liberal media outlets that once asked her to write. “Friends have completely abandoned me; film friends who used to collaborate with me have all stopped responding to my messages. Screenings of my films that used to happen regularly have all been called off even when the film is not about the transgender issue.”

With the well of donors drying up, Sundar began to crowdfund her work. By January 2021, she had raised enough to write and direct a four-part documentary series called Dysphoric: Fleeing Womanhood Like a House on Fire, which interviewed women who regretted transitioning. It was then that she began to see the spread of gender ideology in India as part of a wider international context, with a universal language and terminology. “I learnt that it is just as pervasive in India as it is in the rest of the world, maybe India was just a few years behind,” she says. “I wanted to shine a light on what’s going on in Anglo-Saxon countries and consider how this might impact developing countries in about five or six years.”

It was while working on Dysphoric, that Sundar started wondering about the suffering experienced by the families of trans women. “I was starting to wonder what it feels like for a wife when their husband announces that they are going to live as a woman, and they are just expected to affirm it.” It was then the idea for her latest documentary, Behind the Looking Glass, was born. The pioneering film tells the story of 18 “trans widows” from Europe, Asia, and America whose male partners transitioned and left misery in their wake. Eight of these women have to remain anonymous because of potential danger from ex-partners. As one interviewee says: “This is the untold story no one wants to hear.”

The story is one of humiliation and sexual abuse. What unites all these women is the sense that the person they had married had disappeared, and been replaced with a totally different individual, with a new name. Some women in the film speak of being pressurised into validating their husband’s “womanhood” and being told they were in a “lesbian relationship”. Then there are accounts of the horror of discovering a male partner dressed in female underwear, and of husbands going outside dressed in “pornified” feminine frippery. “These men often force their wives into unspeakable pornified sexual violence”, says Vaishnavi.

There are notably no Indian trans widows interviewed in the film — but this doesn’t mean they don’t exist. (Instead, the film conveys their predicament through images and voiceovers.) “The regions in India where women experience the life of a trans widow are mostly rural,” explains Sundar. “‘Kothis’ — intact males who live a double life, one with family, children and a home, and the other with a cross-dressing fetish, where they may or may not prostitute themselves — are largely prevalent in rural India.” This means it is more difficult for trans widows to speak publicly about their ordeals for fear of shame and ostracisation. It is also harder for them to get a divorce, as it is considered a mark of shame in rural communities.

Many of the women whom Sundar interviewed feel extremely isolated. Their friends don’t dare to say, “That’s horrible, you should just leave”, because the cost — in terms of social capital — is too high. Instead, they have to affirm the husband’s choice and say: “Your husband is stunning and brave — why don’t you just cooperate and become a lesbian now?”

The overwhelming majority of stories from the widows describe husbands enjoying the act of “wearing a woman”, says Sundar. In other words, they are deriving some kind of sexual pleasure from dressing up as women. But the women she has spoken to are no longer willing to keep up the facade of a happy, progressive married life; they are saying, “No, my husband is not stunning and brave.”

Sundar is also interested in the tragic fate of their children. Some are being forced to call their father “mother”; others have experienced being “breastfed” by them. One woman talks about the pleasure her husband takes in “passing” when he is out and about dressed as a woman and posing as a mother. Sundar believes that what excites these men is the idea of having a child and of “being a lesbian mother” — rather than the child itself. The child is simply an accessory to help realise their fantasy.

Not only has the Indian legal system failed to stop violence against women, but the entire apparatus, along with much of Indian society, appears to have capitulated to trans ideology. In February this year, a man was sentenced to seven years for raping a minor in 2016. But because he had transitioned following the rape, female pronouns were used to refer to him in court, and he was subsequently placed in a women’s prison. “Men are being given even more opportunities and excuses when it comes to rape and sexual assault,” says Sundar. Meanwhile, even though many women do not even have a functioning toilet in their homes, laws and policies are being introduced that allow men to enter the few public toilets available to women.

Meanwhile, in a country where gay and lesbian marriage is still illegal, “upper-class so-called feminists have become fixated with trans and non-binary marriage rights”. “They’ve removed the words ‘same-sex’ from this entire debate.”

The trans lobby’s latest tactic, according to Sundar, is to compare the battle for trans rights to the dismantling of the caste system in India — both being about “freeing individuals from the cage into which they were born”. She says that many trans activists have “very cleverly, actually strategically” bound up the issue with that of caste. Yet it takes quite a leap of logic to compare the two: “Caste oppression is the most sinister form of human discrimination ever.”

Dalit women, previously known as “untouchables”, are among the most maltreated women in the world. Not only are they part of India’s lowest class, but they are also considered inferior for their gender, and so are often raped, beaten and abused by men across all caste groups. And yet, Sundar tells me incredulously, there is now a group named “Dalit Trans Lives Matter”, which claims to be an even more oppressed group than Dalit women.

Sundar despairs at the ideological capture of the LGBT and feminist movements in India, which she would ideally like to be working alongside to achieve women’s liberation. Instead, so-called liberal feminists are busy defending pornography, the sex trade, and trans ideology rather than oppressed women. “These women dare to claim that the campaigns to end male violence towards women and girls are a ‘Western import’,” says Sundar. “These upper-class women ignore the fact that rape and domestic abuse is a fact of life for so many women, and that pole dancing is not going to liberate them.”

In this way, India’s struggle is not dissimilar to the West’s. “Women and girls are dying, are raped, on a daily basis,” says Sundar. “We are in a state of emergency and need a united front to even begin to solve the problem of male violence.” With so much work left to do to improve the lives of Indian women, she doesn’t think this is the moment for a feminist civil war.


Julie Bindel is an investigative journalist, author, and feminist campaigner. Her latest book is Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation. She also writes on Substack.

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Richard M
Richard M
1 year ago

“There are no identities. There is only sex. Male and female.”

I would beg to disagree slightly with Sundar and instead say:

There are as many potential identities as there are people. But so what? It’s biological sex and its consequences which is the primary cause of women’s vulnerability to male violence, sexual abuse and coercion.

I support women’s sex-based rights to separate, protected spaces for legitimate purposes such as safety, fairness, same-sex attraction, and dignity.

david barlow
david barlow
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard M

I’m a chocolate teapot. That’s why I keep out of the burning sun of reality.

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago

“The overwhelming majority of stories from the widows describe husbands enjoying the act of “wearing a woman”, says Sundar. In other words, they are deriving some kind of sexual pleasure from dressing up as women.”
AGP is a fascinating phenomenon.

Jane Watson
Jane Watson
1 year ago
Reply to  R Wright

Not really.

Waffles
Waffles
1 year ago
Reply to  R Wright

It seems that blackface is wrong, but womanface is fine. Oh and whiteface is a-OK (see White Chicks, the hilarious movie where 2 black men wear whiteface and use racist and gender stereotypes as they pretend to be white wome. Available on Netflix last time I checked, uncancelled)

William Shaw
William Shaw
1 year ago

“many women do not even have a functioning toilet in their homes”
Contrast that with the fact that India just landed a rover on the moon.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  William Shaw

Pretty much nobody in Europe had a toilet pre 19th century.
Should Newton and Galileo have spent their time digging toilets?

You can do two things at the same time
Invest in space research which actually provides significant financial returns.
Invest in toilets, so that the proportion of those without toilets reduces from 90% at independence and 70% a couple of decades back, to 20-25% now, eh route to full coverage by the time India gets to Mars.

David Lindsay
David Lindsay
1 year ago

Having been around the Dalit cause for years, although I have never done as much as I should have done, it has always boggled my mind that Dalit women were raped and prostituted. You are not really even supposed to look at them (or their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons), much less, well, we all know what. How does that work?

Leejon 0
Leejon 0
1 year ago
Reply to  David Lindsay

It works because most people are sh**heads (in private I would use the ‘c’ word – sorry Julie) they see someone who cannot defend themselves so they hurt them for the fun of it. Society pretends that this is deplorable, but no punishment is given to these deplorable, strangely. I once saw a big man screaming abuse at a one legged beggar (in the street, B-road daylight (5ish) central Edinburgh (an otherwise civil city) – (next to the usher hall lothian road to be precise), there had been no previous interaction, I’d watched the big man get out of a car and kiss the driver goodbye. The abuse was disgusting, suddenly the beggar jumped up with the aid of his his crutch spun on is leg and hit the man in the head with the wooden crutch. Horribly violent, teeth and blood all over the pavement, at least 40 witnesses. My very sweet companion said “what should we do?” I said let him bleed and we walked away, uncivilised indeed, but if society will not punish the opportunistically belligerent, people can turn a blind eye to those that defend themselves robustly, using our own moral judgement. This was 20 years ago, but i still think about it on occasion, one of the very few acts I have casually observed in public where I though there is a hero. Interestingly, there was no report of this in any local media (and an un-emptied litter bin can be big news here), so I can not have been the only one to have considered the rough justice appropriate.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  David Lindsay

Why not ask one Pryamvada GOPAL? She teaches at Churchill College Cambridge, and is a BRAHMIN. What could be better?

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

Professor Gopal gets a mention in my heroic couplet satire, The Wokeiad:-

Out through the bedsit window squeezed like pus,
Bed-wetting melt and demon venomous,
O’er verdant meadows, pastures green and gay,
O’er retail park and busy motorway, 350
At length the concrete and the asphalt yields
To serried ranks of cabbages in fields,
And these in turn cede to the dreaming spires.
J____ the Obscure with galvanised blood wires
Cries out as they touch down in Churchill’s Quad
To see the gathered pantheon of gods:
Professor Gopal, Brahmin demiurge,
Of cringing servant and cowed porter scourge,
Professor Andrews, the woke Brummagem,
Of anti-racist cant crème de la crème, 360
And Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu,
PhD, MBA, and IAQ,
And LLM, MA, and LLB,
Who by acquiring letters came to be
The alphabet chimera, nemesis
Of mansplainer and white supremacist.

https://rcraven.substack.com/p/the-wokeiad

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

Excellent!
Are you by any chance a graduate of ‘Porterhouse’?

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

Not I, Charles. UCL, Bristol, and a few months at a philosophical research institute in Paris.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  David Lindsay

“always boggled my mind that Dalit women were raped”
It would boggle the minds of most Indians as well. Even a single case (they do happen), become a huge media issue and can cause heads to roll.
Funny thing is, in recent decades, the places where dalits would most likely face mass scale sexual assault…are where Hindus are in a minority.
That, though, is a rather taboo subject for those who keep whining about the evil Brahmins.

Jim Bocho
Jim Bocho
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

In fact, the rape of Dalit women by high-caste Hindu men is the norm and an everyday occurrence in rural India.

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
1 year ago

Like Iran, another quietly crucial country in the trans debate, where the opinion is often offered that owing to the preponderance of transsexualism in countries such as Thailand and India it is clear that “biological sex is a spectrum” (like autism!)
The implications for the UK are clear: minority community families would prefer their children change gender than be gay or lesbian; there is an unspoken bedrock of community support in private schools and increasingly in state education for a focus on gender rather than sexual preference.

Gabriel Mills
Gabriel Mills
1 year ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

Yes: transing gay kids is the new “conversion therapy” to eliminate homosexuality among the young.

It’s why outfits like the LGB Alliance set itself up to protect LGB people from the predatory T: who promptly branded LGB Alliance a “hate group”.

And transactivist outfit Mermaids, a group of homophobic parents keen to “trans” their gender-non-conforming kids, tried to strip LGBA of charitable status, and to get its lesbian founder, barrister Allison Bailey, expelled by her Chambers. But Mermaids were countersued by Bailey and lost in court.

Having started young children on puberty blockers long before they can give informed consent, unscrupulous “gender-affirming” doctors even prescribe the same cross-sex hormones (like Lupron) previously used for “chemical castration” of gay men, when homosexuality was illegal. Wartime Intelligence hero Alan Turing was “chemically castrated”: and became so depressed that he killed himself as a result.

The suicide rate goes UP after “gender reassignment” transition: contrary to the lies routinely told by transactivists, that “gender-affirming” transitions are “life-saving”.

Last edited 1 year ago by Gabriel Mills
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

In fact most of India opposes trans- genderism. There is just a Harvard educated CJI of the Supreme Court who is pushing the Woke agenda
See the speeches of Sushil Modi in the Indian Parliament to understand how we are mostly opposed to trans – and gay marriage. The instances cited in this article of suppressed homosexual and lesbian behaviour are highly dubious.
And if I were to write a similar one on the British Establishment in the 1930s and 1940s( including of certain members of the aristocracy and Royalty )on cross- dressing, and sexual dysfunction , it would be rich pickings indeed.

Jane Watson
Jane Watson
1 year ago

But the Hijra(?) have always been a thing in India?

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Jane Watson

Actually that term refers to those born with defects. Yes and no. They mainly existed as a fringe. Were popular with Muslim mediaeval rulers who used them as Praetorian guards for the royal ” harems”.
That’s different from homosexual relationships which were also quite common with the Muslim Sultans. Allaudin Khilji the notoriously cruel Sultan of the 13th Century had a lifelong relationship with Malik Kafur, his best army General.
There is no concept of gender reassignment surgery etc as in the West.
Like I said, the only recent state institutional area where these Woke concepts are being enthusiastically disseminated are in the Supreme Court whose head is a Harvard trained dynast( his father was the longest serving CJI under Indira Gandhi)
The judges are still recruited there with an opaque ” Collegial” system by serving judges themselves, which is a matter of great concern as it’s clearly an undemocratic mode.
Thus it’s the perfect place to impose concepts which have no support in society overall.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

Yet again, there is nothing liberal about “liberals”.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

Pliny the Younger puts it very succinctly with:-“ Nothing is more unequal than equality itself”.*

(* Book IX letter V.)

Dominic A
Dominic A
1 year ago

Yet, it seems transpeople are less liberal than straight men. Would explain why they can be such blowhards.

https://www.metroweekly.com/2019/08/study-finds-transgender-people-are-more-politically-conservative-cisgender-men/

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Dominic A

Self-described “transpeople” are the least liberal people on earth and they certainly blow harder than everyone else.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

I was starting to wonder what it feels like for a wife when their husband announces that they are going to live as a woman, and they are just expected to affirm it.

Presumably it is quite like the situation when one’s husband or wife comes out as homosexual, though I believe we are supposed to applaud that. This is well portrayed in the film Carol, where our sympathies are clearly meant to be with Carol, not her husband, or even her shopgirl (so not very important!) lover.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

The trans lobby’s latest tactic, according to Sundar, is to compare the battle for trans rights to the dismantling of the caste system in India — both being about “freeing individuals from the cage into which they were born”. 

Then again, feminists compared the situation of women in heterosexual marriage (or in society in general) to that of black slaves in the American south.

It’s all BS rhetoric of course – but once it’s been normalised all activists for all causes are going to use it. Just like the victim card.

Douglas H
Douglas H
1 year ago

Thanks, Julie. A thoughtful and honest article, as ever.

Waffles
Waffles
1 year ago

“But because he had transitioned following the rape, female pronouns were used to refer to him in court, and he was subsequently placed in a women’s prison”

Judge: Your punishment for the heinous crime of rape, is to be locked up with thousands of women. You will share a cell with women, and you will have to shower with them every day.

Rapist: Oh THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Er, I mean, oh no what a terrible punishment.

Linda M Brown
Linda M Brown
1 year ago

Not certain if the accompanying picture is stock photography or not, but it does say a thousand words; the excitement on his face vs the resignation on her’s.

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

In other words, they are deriving some kind of sexual pleasure from dressing up as women.

I don’t have a horse in this race, but I can’t help recalling that the accusation made against homosexuals, pre gay rights, was that it was a sexual perversion.

Last edited 1 year ago by David Morley
David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago

I find myself playing devils advocate here, but: could you not argue that if the whole trans thing was more normalised, you would reduce the chances of men entering into heterosexual marriages which did not in any way suit them.

The same was the case for homosexuals in the past who entered into heterosexual marriages, either as cover, or simply because it was what was expected.

Jane Watson
Jane Watson
1 year ago
Reply to  David Morley

But the vast majority of trans identifying men are heterosexual. They even, bizarrely, expect heterosexual women to fancy them (why some claim to be lesbian).

David Morley
David Morley
1 year ago
Reply to  Jane Watson

I get your point. But if they were able to be open about their identity/predilection (according to taste) then better choices could have been made. They wouldn’t be coming out later with shock to all concerned.

btw – do you have a reference for the claim in your first sentence. I know some are. Is it really the vast majority?

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago
Reply to  David Morley

I couldn’t care less about transgenderism except for several big things that stand out for me:
Gender ideology is being inserted into official governmental language with the result that it is being normalized and, to some extent, even encouraged as a wholesome lifestyle.It is being preached in schools where teachers are instructed to talk about sexuality to young children yet pretend to parents that they are not doing so. It prioritizes adult sexuality over childhood innocence.Gender ideology is forcing people to participate in a lie in order to avoid social ostracism or loss of livelihood.It is being pushed by massive pharmaceutical companies who stand to make billions of dollars by surgically altering or prescribing drugs to children and mentally-confused people. Check out the Pritzker family who own the Hyatt hotel chain and are very high up in US politics.
What was once a niche fetish is now being pushed on to us by governments and corporations who are keen to assert control over a people rapidly falling into brain-sickly infantilism.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

This is an entirely misleading article. No one denies that there are issues on women’s rights in India. But to portray a negative image in entirety is not only false but also a deliberate attempt to denigrate.
As an Indian woman I will say that it’s the best time for women in 75 plus years of independence .Women’s problems are mainstreamed into a discourse ranging from the top level of government to the lowest.
As a scholar in the area of women’s studies I challenge the author to debate with me.
The invisibility of Indian women from discourse is a matter of times past.And merely to quote one disgruntled film director to write an article is mischievous and slanted.
I suspect the timing of this article too. And for the information of this ignorant author we have a Dalit tribal Head of State, several vocal Federal Chief Ministers in federal states and many more civil servants and professionals than any region in Asia at present.

Last edited 1 year ago by Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

Are you speaking as a BRAHMIN by any chance?

Still NO answer Ms Jafa, it has been two hours since I enquired.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago

The person in the article Vaishnavi Sundar is a Brahmin. She said in a recent interview that as a Brahmin she has often been told that she can’t talk about women’s issues, particularly about the dalit women’s plights due to her “privilege”.
I’m interested why you seem to have a real prejudice against Brahmins?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Nonsense!
My late father impressed on me that whenever one was speaking to a ‘native’ it was axiomatic that you first established their CASTE!
Thus I am only following sound advice.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

If your late father was alive, he would have told you that you to use your brain and not go by what someone was told told 60 years ago.

In decades, nobody – NOBODY – asked me or anyone else their caste in India.

Today, we have a lower prime minister, president and several chief ministers.

How many lower class British are in the parliament?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Your first sentence is incomprehensible.
Your second sentence surprises me, perhaps ‘they’ don’t have to ask, and judge by physiognomy, dress, accent or some other such indicator?
You third sentence is obtuse, you have a “ lower” what? Presumably caste, but WHAT caste exactly?
In answer to your final question, far too many if the truth be told.Particularly in the House of Lords as it happens.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

The President, prime minister and many chief ministers are lower caste. As was the man who wrote the constitution.
In any case, caste is a complex construct. But not a lot of Brahmins at the upper levels of power anymore.

“perhaps ‘they’ don’t have to ask”
There is a subtle difference in the concept of “class” in Britain and “caste” in India.

Class is far less rigid, agreed. The biggest issue with caste was how watertight it was (and there wasn’t just one “upper” and one “lower” caste – there were literally hundreds of caste silos, each separated in terms of occupation and marriage.

But, there is much less difference in terms of dress, behaviour, accent among different castes.

You can’t tell someone’s caste without asking.
And nobody asks about your caste any more in cities and educated classes. Not because they can guess, but because they don’t care.

It’s different of course in villages , and certain specific castes (typically business related castes).
But those are declining, increasingly irrelevant segments.

Gabriel Mills
Gabriel Mills
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Both the Leader and Deputy Leader of the UK’s Labour party, currently in Opposition in Parliament but expected to win a 2024 General Election, are of working class origin.

The father of Sir Keir Starmer MP KC was a tool-maker: as one of the most skilled engineering trades. And his mother was a nurse. Starmer’s working-class accented English is something he has apparently been unable — or unwilling — to eliminate from his speech: having risen to be Director of Public Prosecutions heading a government department of 6,000 civil servants, before becoming an MP and subsequent election as Labour leader.

And Angela Rayner MP, Starmer’s deputy, is a woman of Northern working class origins. She was an unmarried single mother in her teens, before rising through the ranks of trade unions to her current status. Pretty impressive.

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Reply to  Gabriel Mills

Are you on their payroll?

Robert Hochbaum
Robert Hochbaum
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Charles was not speaking with prejudice against Brahmins. It’s nonsensical to not consider that in a society which still is mired in a rigid caste system that Brahmins may have a different perspective on freedoms enjoyed by women (or men) than Dalits. You know that.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

Thank you.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

Are you one of those white men who murdered millions of Indian women through starvation and famines by any chance?

Incidentally, “Brahmins” were at the forefront of the Indian independence movement. Because they were not some “oppressor” class but the teacher / priest class who happen to be highly educated.

It was those Brahmins who, at independence, ensured that
A. Everybody got the vote, women, “lower caste”
B. A so called lower caste was entrusted with writing the constitution.
C. Casteism and untouchability was made illegal and lower caste people received extensive quotas in government and education.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

In answer to your first question, no.
As to the rest of your tirade, I am fully aware of who and what the Brahmins are, and that is why I asked Ms Jafa is she is one.
A perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances don’t you think?

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

No, it’s not a reasonable question.
What caste she is has no bearing on her argument.
Just like what coulur skin you have has no bearing on yours – my comment on white men and famines in India was rhetorical, just to being out the ridiculousness of dismissing arguments based on evils supposedly commited by your “group” centuries back

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

We shall just have to disagree then.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

Stop deflecting, and tell us whether or not you think that men (meaning adult human males) should be allowed in female-only spaces.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

Tell us, should women be allowed in men- only spaces?
Is it all right to have men only spaces?

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Yes.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

Thanks Allison for confirming that “women’s rights” advocates are the true sexists and two faced hypocrites.

And practical reality is, its women with that shitty attitude, who attacked men’s clubs, refused to allow shelters for male victims of violence, forced boy scouts to open up to girls…..
are precisely the ones directly responsible for girls losing their spaces.

What goes around, comes around.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

The “yes” was for men-only spaces. Women have no business demanding entry into men’s clubs, sports, or even just a personal “man cave”.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

Ah – apologies. I was to be honest a bit surprised to read your response, but the fault was mine, I misunderstood.

It’s a pity though that there are people who do think that way.
Real men and women enjoy the company of the opposite sex, but we all need that time when we are with our pals. Thankfully my wife, after much cajoling, has finally started going for movies etc with her girl pals, while I hold the fort with the daughter – and she is clearly much the better for it

Gabriel Mills
Gabriel Mills
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

These are not equivalent issues. The need for single-sex spaces for females is predicated on male violence towards women and girls.

In England & Wales, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Crime Survey of England & Wales (CSEW) provide the following stats:

99% of adult sex offenders are male
88% of victims are female

Trans-identified males are five times MORE likely than males generally, to be convicted of sex offending.

This is the reason for the introduction 200 years ago of single sex prisons, plus (at various dates) legislation for single sex public toilets including in schools, changing rooms etc.

And because predatory males will do anything — including cross dressing — to access victims, most women with any sense do NOT want males in our single sex spaces. Especially trans-identified, cross dressing males.

I worked for several years as a fundraiser for educational charities in developing countries. To get girls into education, the first thing these charities did was to build single sex toilets for girls. It cut down on rapes that were common where toilet facilities were shared. And it got girls into school while they were menstruating: too embarassed and ashamed to use mixed toilets during these times.

It’s not only safety from sexual assault but also the privacy and dignity of women and girls which are compromised by allowing males into these female-only spaces.

Last edited 1 year ago by Gabriel Mills
Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago
Reply to  Gabriel Mills

Schrödinger’s feminism: women are both kickass strooong women who are full of “girl power” and as strong as girls….and weak, feeble victims, until you open the box and figure out what’s convenient.

I don’t disagree with you on girls spaces. I have a daughter, and the though of her bathroom etc being invaded by weird male strangers fills me with horror.

The problem is the hypocrisy around this, and it’s two fold.

Firstly, going on and on about “rapes” doesn’t change the fact that if you refuse young boys their own spaces, you will end up with girls losing it as well.

Secondly, if you refuse to accept males are different when it comes to military recruitment, prize money in sports or physics grads, you have no leg to stand on when those same weird men use that same argument to enter girl’s bathrooms.

Here is a stat: between one third to half of victims of domestic violence are men. But pretty much all domestic violence spending and infrastructure is for women.

Being a hypocrite works, in the short term.
And then, it doesn’t.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Richard Craven

No

Naren Savani
Naren Savani
1 year ago

Sadly a lot of the comments come from people who have no idea what giant strides the country has made in the past few years.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Naren Savani

May I ask which country and what ‘giant’ strides?

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

“May I ask which country and what ‘giant’ strides?”
Guatemala.
They allowed women to eat Doritos recently, a fundamental human right that was denied them for centuries.

On an unrelated note, my mother faced severe pressure from her parents (my grandparents) in terms of being forced to give up her career. In her generation, practically no woman had a career.

By the next generation (mine), every girl I know pursued higher education, career, was pretty much allowed to choose her husband.

Just one generation, and that was decades back. It has gotten better with each passing decade.

Fun fact: the % of women pilots in India is double that of the US.

Last edited 1 year ago by Samir Iker
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Thank you, I would never have guessed.

Moving to the sub-continent for a moment, perhaps if India put a woman on the Moon (and got her back) that really would be something n’est pas?

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Naren Savani

They are ignoramuses who are the most pea- brained I have encountered.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

Fact of the matter is, women were never “invisible” in India. Ahalyabai Holkar, Tarabai, Rani Lakhmibai….
And it’s also a fact that laws in India are aggressively in favour of women. Which is good, for women who face harassment (sexual, dowry related etc) but very prone to misuse as well.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Yes. The laws are very progressive and pro women. The Anti Dowry legislation as well as the Sexual Harrasment guidelines and Act of the 1990s were very enabling. Most of the welfarism including targetted digitally enabled payments to women headed households, single women, widows etc are working very well since 2014. The Triple Talaq ban has empowered poor Muslim women too, and that’s why the BJP consistently wins in North Indian states which had a poor track record under previous non BJP governments.
It’s actually the Woke lobby which is anti women. See how the Communists, Congress and all Opposition parties join hands with Sunni clerics to oppose any enabling legislation ranging from banning the hijab to disallowing polygamy and child marriage especially among minority Muslim communities.
The problem is that the Woke lobby is desperate to get funding from the West to run its sleazy NGOs since Government has cracked down on the dodgy funding they previously received from overseas.So they sell stories like this to gullible Westerners hoping to get some crumbs.
Also, the Opposition ruled states like Bengal have made a habit of political violence targetted at women from households of political workers who canvass against them.
There has been remarkable social transformation in the last couple of years, if you visit rural India ( as I do) you will be amazed to see the number of women in Western attire.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
1 year ago

Yes, of course no place is perfect.
But I have seen enormous changes in India between my parents generation and mine – and between mine and the next.

It’s a mix of old fashioned bigotry and ignorance, but most western people would refuse to face facts. Compared to the West, India has a higher proportion of women as pilots, engineers, doctors, etc. Or in upper echelons of politics and administration.

Also, India is still “traditional, in the sense that many women choose to remain housewives, and divorce rates are v low. That is blasphemy for feminists, and unlike what we see in the West. But having seen the ground reality first hand in the West, I think the Indian “system” works better for society – and actually means more choice for women.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Till now we have managed to hold out against the worst of Wokery. Society is far more liberal than before. At the same time we still have family traditions and bonding, and a sense of community.
The problem is that the Left Liberal set generously funded from the West is trying hard to unpack this balance. Aided and abetted by the Western campuses where most middle class parents are forced to send their children.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

There are some individuals here( clearly evident to most as to who they are) who claim to be the epitome of good behaviour and logic. They are actually noxious, unemployed and perhaps perpetually high on ” liquid refreshments”, who make wild, abusive and frankly despicable and ethnically slurred comments which are certainly not ” cricket”. ( Or maybe only of the Larwood- Jardine variety).
Trapped in a perpetual and declinist Kiplingesque sunset, they are sad and pitiable creatures.
I donot intend to reply to them as their ignorance levels are startling about modern India.
To console them I will also add that the said film director whose words they cling to, is desperately seeking funding from the UK. Perhaps even citizenship.
Please do oblige her with the latter as you seem to all be such fervent advocates of her lies

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

So you’re a fan of Cricket Ms Jafa!
Join the club!

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

I am, but of Gubby Allen, not Harold Larwood- and Douglas Jardine.

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

I am, but not of your kind.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

What is that supposed to mean?

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

If you promise to play straight bat and fair, as I was taught the English always do, I shall certainly be a club member. But if you play sledging and bodyline, a firm ” no”!

Last edited 1 year ago by Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

I do like your cricketing analogies, but you have somewhat demeaned yourself by rather intemperate, if not downright vulgar outbursts.
To whit:- “They are ignoramuses who are the most pea- brained I have encountered.”

or this:-“They are actually noxious, unemployed and perhaps perpetually high on ” liquid refreshments”, who make wild, abusive and frankly despicable and ethnically slurred comments which are certainly not ” cricket”.

Come, come I am sure you can do better than this?

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

Of course I can, but I tend to be influenced by my elders on this site who have such highest standards of courtesy to me.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

Would you care to rephrase that, it is somewhat unintelligible?

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

Is it? Why don’t you teach me? I am only a ” native ” woman of a darkest shade after all who is just learning the King’s Speech..

Last edited 1 year ago by Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago

Well rather than say:-
”who have such highest standards of courtesy to me”, perhaps this would be better:- ‘who maintain much higher standards of courtesy towards me’.
As for:-
“I am only a ” native ” woman of a darkest shade after all who is just learning the Kings Speech”, why not :- ‘I am only a native woman of a darker shade who has only just started to learn the King’s English’?
Finally I must congratulate you on refusing to answer my initial question today, ‘are you a Brahmin’!
I thought that my initial ‘googly’ might have you lbw, but you played it deftly. Bravo!

Sayantani Gupta Jafa
Sayantani Gupta Jafa
1 year ago

Sometimes I go to some ” creative licence”, and prefer the ” darkest” as emphasizing the ” Black and Tan”, of my side.
As well as the ” highest” well befitting of those to the ” manor born”.
But like a leopard of these parts I do change my spots frequently, so I may surprise you the next time!
Thanks for the praise. You are too kind.

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago

“They are actually noxious, unemployed and perhaps perpetually high on ” liquid refreshments”

May I suggest the substituting ‘unemployed’ with ‘retired’. Otherwise, you may not be too far wide of the mark.