Tag: academic

The Law, the Judgement of Women and the Basis of Misogyny

12.06.2024

I read an article just now about how Asian women are trolled for dating white men. The context for the accusations is that the Western media portray Asian men as unattractive and the claims that are made by the accusers are that the Asian women have a colonised mentality and want to be dominated by white men as a result. Article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/12/asian-women-dating-white-men-fake-oxford-study

Just like incels, the men here feel betrayed and passed over by women. They feel like they have been judged unfairly by women. And it is in that self-perception of victimhood that they expel all their hate about women.

Without going into the power dynamics of interracial relationships in a majority white culture – and whether there is any basis for the complaints of these Asian men (easy enough to investigate this if you wanted to through cultural materials) – let’s focus on this idea of the unfair woman judge which is present in both complexes of misogyny.

Historically, it is the men that have been the judges in the west. And these men have portrayed themselves as disinterested, objective, masters of ‘abstract reasoning’, fair, with universally applicable laws. Readers of the law that see deeply. The rule of the law is based on these ideas.

Therefore, let us imagine a woman judge that would be the exact reverse of these things. Instead of disinterest, she has interests in judging. Instead of being objective, she is overly emotional and biased. Instead of reasoning in an abstract way, she wouldn’t be able to achieve abstract thought and look beyond the circumstances. She might perhaps look at the colour of someone’s skin rather than ‘reason’ in her judgement. She can only see superficially and not deeply like the male judge, only at skin colour. She would be unfair. Her laws are specific only in a narrow sense to one particular situation.

Now, let us apply this monstrous female judge to the situation. The point of this exercise is to show that the criticisms made of these Asian women in interracial relationships stem from the conceptualisation of a masculine law as its polarised opposite. Hence, that the conception of the law is itself complicit in shaping how difference – in the idea of the ‘ethnic’ or ‘foreign’ Asian woman – is controlled in a cultural misogyny against female rule and female judgement and law:

– Her interest in judging is to accrue power to herself by dating a white man and make an investment into white superiority.

– She is not objective in judging men, but is biased towards white supremacy.

– She can’t reason in an abstract manner and looks at someone’s skin rather than their character, so she is superficial as well when she forms her judgements.

– She is unfair because the main thing that matters in her judgement is skin colour.

– Her law is specific only to the situation of white supremacy and therefore it is narrow.

So, you can see that all these negative constructions of female judgement relate back to the ideal of the heroic, unbiased, male judge which a woman’s judgement is supposed to subvert. This is what legally fuelled misogyny looks like.

Unfortunately, this judge that is so heroic, this whole ideal, is itself based on whiteness. Because the judges in this country have been white. And they have based their laws of relationships between men and women on imperialism and white supremacy. That is historical fact. So, for example, the reason the age of consent is 16 is because the British ruled over countries like India where the people married young and wanted to differentiate themselves from such ‘uncivilised’ countries. The laws against bigamy are another example.

So, these Asian men that are making all of these accusations against Asian women are themselves taking on the unfair and illegitimate role of these racist white judges that have historically ruled relationships in the rule of the law. They are projecting their own unfairness onto the Asian women.

This is nothing new. Read Wilkie Collins’s novels like ‘The Moonstone’ and ‘Poor Miss Finch’. I hate to spoil the novels for anyone that have not read them, but the typical plot is that there is a superficial and shallow woman that can’t differentiate past superficial legal appearances and therefore gets the identity of the man wrong in each case, a man that she is supposed to love. It is the role of the jilted lover who has been ‘unfairly’ judged upon to make things right and correct the woman’s judgement. So, the misogyny is completely entrenched within Western legal culture and fiction – since ‘The Moonstone’ was formative of subsequent detective fiction which rules the roost in Britian in terms of popular reading.

Some ethnic minority women undoubtedly do date white men exclusively because they hate themselves and do want to be subjugated by them, and to realise some of the power of white supremacy. However, to know which one is which would require study and time – you can’t just make up fake studies like in the news article I read. Obviously not every single ethnic minority woman is a racist against the men in her ethnic minority group. And I would say that most of them are not, based on my own experiences, where many Indian descent women of my own age have tried to contact me on dating sites and liked my profile to initiate a conversation.

But this is not the point of this piece of writing. The point of this piece of writing is to explain that misogyny stems from the Western law. Because the Western law has its monstrous other in the idea of women’s judgement. A woman’s judgement is supposed to go against everything that the legal ideal of masculine judgement is thought to represent. And we can see the repercussions in the misogyny of these men who have been judged by women as not being worthy to date. Yes, there is genuine hurt that is fuelling these assessments of women’s judgement. But that is not an excuse. Because there is no excuse to become like the imperialistic fascists that have historically made up the rule of the law in this country or in countries like America. There is no excuse for victimising others – for the fact that they are ethnic minority women. Because then you show that the monstrous ‘female’ judge is not them – it is you. To be fair, you have to judge someone on their behaviour to you over a period of time. Not based on the fact that they are with a white person. If, however, their behaviour with white men is obviously different from how they treat you, then you have a case. And for that, obviously you need to know these women. Not pick on people that you don’t even know.

The Meanings of Ruswa – Word Definitions and the Politics of Emotions

23.04.2017

In Thomas Hardy’s novel, Jude the Obscure, the eponymous character at first makes an elementary mistake in translation. He believes that words have fixed meanings independent of context. It is progress in the language under study that enables Jude to see that context determines meaning. Words have a plasticity, not a fixity. Their situation is what gives them meanings. In this piece of writing, I want to investigate the meanings of the word “ruswa” which is used in a number of South Asian languages. Ruswa is a word which aims to convey a particular emotion. I want to stress the multiple meanings and understandings of the word rather than insisting on one univocal meaning. I will first outline the differing contemporary interpretations of the word by summarising arguments from an online translation site. I will then investigate my own meaning of the word through the use of autobiography. I will then reflect upon the political implications of “ruswa”.

I first began to think about the word “ruswa” while I was translating myself. One of the major loves of my life is Hindi music from Hindi film soundtracks. However, Hindi is not the language that I speak at home. I am therefore a life-long student of the Hindi tongue. There is a particularly lovely song from the movie Aashiqui 2 (Love/Romance 2) entitled Sun Raha Hai Na Tu, Ro Raha Hoon Main (Are you listening? I am crying) which had a few words which I didn’t know the meaning of. It was while I was reading the song translation that I stumbled upon the equivocal significations of “ruswa”. I had first thought that I knew what the meaning of the word was. It seemed that there was much more argument over the word than I could have imagined.

The online translation of the song can be found here: http://www.bollymeaning.com/2013/04/sun-raha-hai-na-tu-ro-raha-hoon-main.html . I will present the part of the song that is illustrated, so that the reader can see the context (legally for ‘fair use’, non-commercial and scholarly purposes of commentary):

Manzilein ruswa hain – (my) destinations are not cared for..

Khoyaa hai raasta – the path is lost..

Aaye le jaaye – (Someone, you actually) comes and takes me away

Itni si iltijaa – only this is my small wish..

Ye meri zamaanat hai – This is my surety,

Tu meri amaanat hai.. – you’re mine..

Haan.. – yes

Ruswa is translated by the website’s translator as “are not cared for”. While I had thought ruswa was an emotion in itself, the translator related it to emotion by relating it to the emotions of other people. This translation was very controversial and drew dissent from a number of interpreters, who posted their thoughts in the comments section underneath the translated song. I will summarise some of the positions. An anonymous commentator wrote:

“dude you don’t know the meaning of “ruswa”?? it’s not angry or annoyed. it means “badnaam” or “negatively famous” or simply “infamous””

This first meaning was one that I had never associated with the word ruswa. There was a reply to this first comment: “Ruswa means sad..so the translator s almst right”. This meaning was more in keeping with my own position. It stressed that ruswa was an emotion, although I did not see the emotion as being one of sadness myself.

Both of these translations of ruswa aroused further discord. The next poster wrote:

“Ruswa neither means sad nor angry… or badnaam or even annoy. It means destroy… manzilein ruswa he… translates to my goals or destinations or simply dreams… are destroyed….”

Here was something that was new to my ears again. There seemed to be an element of violence in the word ruswa according to this latest poster. Other interpretations of the word ruswa then surfaced. Here were the other definitions:

  • Sad/upset
  • “khafa hona” (to become separate, alienated)
  • “Naraz hona” (to be angry)
  • Ruined
  • Wtf
  • Dishonoured
  • negative 
  • blocked

There were a whole host of seemingly differing interpretations around the word ruswa. Each interpreter thought that they were right in assigning their own meaning and that everyone else was wrong. However, there were some, like myself, who also thought that everyone’s meaning was equally valid. My own thoughts are that ruswa is such a complicated term that it can mean several things at once, whether or not we can see all aspects of the word and the relationships to self and other that it entails. It was very illuminating to see how much discord there was around this word in a contemporary song by contemporary commentators. Clearly, language is not the shared resource that some people claim that it is, but rather an all-out war of interpretation and meaning in which meanings and significations are highly contested over.

I want to outline my own interpretation of ruswa through an autobiographical example, for I have been “ruswa” myself as a child. In Punjabi, which is my mother tongue, I was “ruswa”. However, in Punjabi, the word “ruswa” was never used. The sentence that was used is “oho russ gaya” (He has become ruswa). The English translation that was used is “sulky” – He is sulking. I was frequently ruswa as a child and the terms were used a lot. I can well remember what the emotion of ruswa entailed in my particular situation.

I would become ruswa when my will and my desire was thwarted, when I thought that my family hadn’t taken me into consideration. Ruswa was set in the context of competing wills and desires: those between an organisation or collective (the family) and the individual (me). The original translator of the word ruswa was right: the emotion entailed a sense of being uncared for, or neglected. The emotion of ruswa entailed a particular feeling. The moisture in my throat would disappear, leaving me with a parched feeling in my body. There was a slight feeling of pain in my head. I felt angry (naraaz). I felt alone. I felt alienated, separated from others. I was misunderstood. I was the victim of power: the organisation, which was more powerful than myself, had tried to destroy my will and desire. The organisation had tried to destroy me (destruction and violence). However, this destruction had given rise to a peculiar feeling of individuality: I was now more myself in my hurt than I could have been if I was part of the collective.

The emotion of ruswa led to a particular strategy in which I expressed my emotion to the organisation (the family). However, my power as a child was severely limited by the range of relationship that I could take and forms of action against the organisation, the family. The act of resistance was in silence and active separation, termed misleadingly by western commentators as “passive aggression”. I would sulk. I wouldn’t communicate with anyone, or share their language. I would refute their entreaties. I wouldn’t be consoled or comforted. I would dwell upon my injury. The emotion of ruswa in my mind is connected with a word which none of the commentators on the website touched upon: aggrievement. The dictionary definition of aggrievement is the quality or state of being aggrieved, which Miriam-Webster defines as:

  1. :  troubled or distressed in spirit
  2. 2a :  suffering from an infringement or denial of legal rights aggrieved minority groupsb :  showing or expressing grief, injury, or offense an aggrieved plea(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aggrieved )

For me, ruswa was aggrievement. I had been slighted. I had been oppressed. As the party of limited power, as a child, I had suffered from an infringement or denial or rights. There was a response to injustice in the emotion of ruswa for me. I was the victim of injustice. I had been oppressed by the many. I was in the minority and made to feel it.

Ruswa then, in my translation, in my own personal response, is aggrievement. It is connected to justice and injustice. It is connected to the rights of the minorities and those with lesser power against the will and desire of the majority and their greater power. In contradiction to the other interpreters of the word, my definition of ruswa is connected to law, justice and power, to the relationship between the minorities with less power and the majorities with more power.

For me, ruswa is a political term. I am still ruswa. I haven’t changed. However, the family has been replaced by this society that I live in. The meanings of ruswa, which is a specific emotion, expresses the position that this society is trying to put me in. I am still caught up in ruswa. Being ruswa is a result of politics and power and the expression of ruswa is a result of politics and power and the expression of language and resistance. Ruswa is a word that every minority group in the world has felt and known. However, they have never been able to fully express what ruswa means in a language that the world will understand. To understand ruswa fully, one has to be ruswa. And being ruswa also means that one does not fully know ruswa: one is caught up in the trap of self-reference, out of which one cannot escape. Being ruswa means being limited and severely constrained, both physically and mentally.

I ask the reader to dwell upon the meanings of ruswa. I can only see aspects of ruswa, just as others can only see aspects of it. When I was a child, the emotion of ruswa would go away for a while and then resurface. I was trapped in a relationship outside of which there was no escape: the family. Even know, while I am trapped in the relationship of this society, there is no escape for the one who is ruswa. To escape the emotion of ruswa would take a world-altering event and only then would one be able to see what ruswa had meant, for it would be no more.