Cleaning the Augean stables with a toothpick
One of the official visitors I've been running around our region with lately turned out to be not only a terrific speaker on a topic dear to me ("gender equality"), but also an all-around mensch (AAM), with a delightful Mel Brooks rasp to boot. But oh, geez, was it ever painful watching this energetic, enthusiastic, optimistic force of change go slam into the brick wall of India.
Our first stop was the "ladies auxiliary" wing of a community business association. During the compulsory preliminary tea, we sat on dainty damask settees, and were surrounded by a group of elegantly made-up matrons, genteelly rearranging their silk saris.
Within the first five minutes, our self-nominated social vanguards assumed that I was the wife of the speaker (some 30 years my senior, incidentally). And this, despite the fact that my assistant had told them that morning that the speaker would be accompanied by Esquiver, [job title].
I guess they all figured he couldn't make it.
Anyway, Mr. AAM gave a fantastic two-hour presentation packed with strong arguments, vivid data, and excellent demonstrations. Everyone stayed focused and attentive, and concepts such as "househusbands" -- he honestly had to explain the term -- drew audible little gasps of delight. I looked around the room at the rapt faces, and thought: this is a real "Helen Keller" moment for them...aw, heck, maybe I should stay. Fight the good fight, etc.
And then he finished, and was packing up the laptop. The woman on my left looked through me and addressed the woman on my right:
"It's all very good, but at the end of the day, I feel that men must be manly and strong and women must be gentle and soft. Or else --" and here she gave a tinkling, patrician laugh, "what's the difference?"
"Oh, I quite agree," said the woman to my right, in cultured tones. "The main problem facing Indian women today is that they have lost their femininity."
Me, I might've selected any number of other problems -- say, the number of dowry-related fatal "stove accidents." Or, y'know, the way that rape charges are dropped if the rapist agrees to marry his victim (they pretty much have to be, as India doesn't recognize marital rape). But, what the heck, "loss of femininity," sure. I'm getting on a plane in eight weeks anyway.
We tried another venue the next morning, a college lecture hall, where Mr. AAM gave his talk in reassuringly familiar surroundings, save for the large mirrored disco ball hanging directly above the podium. I saw Mr. AAM, his eyes atwinkle, stare at it and begin to form a question. I caught his glance and discreetly but firmly shook my head no.
It's a role I've pretty much accepted on these trips -- my primary function is to model culturally appropriate behavior for my wards, who metaphorically cling to me like a life raft: do I eat this, or wear it? In either case, how? What the heck do I do with this candle? Is this person speaking English?
I always seat myself so the speaker can see me but few other people can, and I exaggeratedly mouth a rephrase of what the audience member has asked. It seems to take most American ears a minimum of about two weeks to be able to parse Indian English, and even experienced presenters can really panic before that point. Mr. AAM seemed to be particularly on my wavelength, so it made it easier to guide him, in the midst of a lengthy audience question, from what sounded even to my ears kinda like "we must bend the cat" to "we must bell the cat" (after an initially unsuccessful silent "B-E-L-L," I added a sort of Monty Pythonesque "Goood-a-night-a-ding-ding-ding" mime, which did the trick, though it caused him to fumble the chalk).
And when we were discussing the results of an interactive "gender communication quiz" ("True or false? In public settings, men talk more than women do"), and the twelve men in our group of about a hundred participants kept standing up to speak, the better to drown out the women who merely raised their hands, and speechified at extraordinary length on how the answer was obviously "false," and Mr. AAM began shooting me looks of helplessness, I was able to pantomime to him that a tea break was in order. At which point, the men all hopped up and cut in front of the women in line to get their tea and cookies. During the break, Mr. AAM also got to witness what I experience an average of five times per day, and which I figure is alone responsible for a ten-point rise in my blood pressure. One of the male seminar participants strode over to Mr. AAM while he was chatting informally with one of the women, and launched abruptly into his own and very separate conversation, cutting off and ignoring the woman (who dutifully slunk away), and fully expecting to divert Mr. AAM's attention. 'Cause, y'know, he had an important insight to offer about gender equality.
After lunch, Mr. AAM spoke to a group of teachers about gender equality in the classroom. He played a video of an instructor interacting with a small class, and asked the audience to rate how equally they thought the male and female students were treated. Nearly everyone -- including me -- agreed the man on the tape was unbiased in distributing his attention and encouragement. Next, Mr. AAM walked our group through a simple coding system to record the frequency and type of feedback teachers give students. We all drew a schematic of the students on the tape, and watched it again, this time coding the instructor's behavior. As I was marking down the 19th instance of the teacher eliciting further comment from a male student (vs. an average of four for the women), I looked around at everyone scribbling furiously, not taking their eyes off the screen. Fantastic! I thought. Nothing beats good ol'fashioned grubby empiricism. And then I glanced at the coding sheet of the woman sitting next to me. She was working very hard, watching the tape carefully, and assiduously marking down exactly the same type and frequency of codes next to each and every student. 'Cause, you know, we had succeeded in convincing her of the importance of the topic, and she wanted to do her part in making the genders equal.
Our first stop was the "ladies auxiliary" wing of a community business association. During the compulsory preliminary tea, we sat on dainty damask settees, and were surrounded by a group of elegantly made-up matrons, genteelly rearranging their silk saris.
Within the first five minutes, our self-nominated social vanguards assumed that I was the wife of the speaker (some 30 years my senior, incidentally). And this, despite the fact that my assistant had told them that morning that the speaker would be accompanied by Esquiver, [job title].
I guess they all figured he couldn't make it.
Anyway, Mr. AAM gave a fantastic two-hour presentation packed with strong arguments, vivid data, and excellent demonstrations. Everyone stayed focused and attentive, and concepts such as "househusbands" -- he honestly had to explain the term -- drew audible little gasps of delight. I looked around the room at the rapt faces, and thought: this is a real "Helen Keller" moment for them...aw, heck, maybe I should stay. Fight the good fight, etc.
And then he finished, and was packing up the laptop. The woman on my left looked through me and addressed the woman on my right:
"It's all very good, but at the end of the day, I feel that men must be manly and strong and women must be gentle and soft. Or else --" and here she gave a tinkling, patrician laugh, "what's the difference?"
"Oh, I quite agree," said the woman to my right, in cultured tones. "The main problem facing Indian women today is that they have lost their femininity."
Me, I might've selected any number of other problems -- say, the number of dowry-related fatal "stove accidents." Or, y'know, the way that rape charges are dropped if the rapist agrees to marry his victim (they pretty much have to be, as India doesn't recognize marital rape). But, what the heck, "loss of femininity," sure. I'm getting on a plane in eight weeks anyway.
We tried another venue the next morning, a college lecture hall, where Mr. AAM gave his talk in reassuringly familiar surroundings, save for the large mirrored disco ball hanging directly above the podium. I saw Mr. AAM, his eyes atwinkle, stare at it and begin to form a question. I caught his glance and discreetly but firmly shook my head no.
It's a role I've pretty much accepted on these trips -- my primary function is to model culturally appropriate behavior for my wards, who metaphorically cling to me like a life raft: do I eat this, or wear it? In either case, how? What the heck do I do with this candle? Is this person speaking English?
I always seat myself so the speaker can see me but few other people can, and I exaggeratedly mouth a rephrase of what the audience member has asked. It seems to take most American ears a minimum of about two weeks to be able to parse Indian English, and even experienced presenters can really panic before that point. Mr. AAM seemed to be particularly on my wavelength, so it made it easier to guide him, in the midst of a lengthy audience question, from what sounded even to my ears kinda like "we must bend the cat" to "we must bell the cat" (after an initially unsuccessful silent "B-E-L-L," I added a sort of Monty Pythonesque "Goood-a-night-a-ding-ding-ding" mime, which did the trick, though it caused him to fumble the chalk).
And when we were discussing the results of an interactive "gender communication quiz" ("True or false? In public settings, men talk more than women do"), and the twelve men in our group of about a hundred participants kept standing up to speak, the better to drown out the women who merely raised their hands, and speechified at extraordinary length on how the answer was obviously "false," and Mr. AAM began shooting me looks of helplessness, I was able to pantomime to him that a tea break was in order. At which point, the men all hopped up and cut in front of the women in line to get their tea and cookies. During the break, Mr. AAM also got to witness what I experience an average of five times per day, and which I figure is alone responsible for a ten-point rise in my blood pressure. One of the male seminar participants strode over to Mr. AAM while he was chatting informally with one of the women, and launched abruptly into his own and very separate conversation, cutting off and ignoring the woman (who dutifully slunk away), and fully expecting to divert Mr. AAM's attention. 'Cause, y'know, he had an important insight to offer about gender equality.
After lunch, Mr. AAM spoke to a group of teachers about gender equality in the classroom. He played a video of an instructor interacting with a small class, and asked the audience to rate how equally they thought the male and female students were treated. Nearly everyone -- including me -- agreed the man on the tape was unbiased in distributing his attention and encouragement. Next, Mr. AAM walked our group through a simple coding system to record the frequency and type of feedback teachers give students. We all drew a schematic of the students on the tape, and watched it again, this time coding the instructor's behavior. As I was marking down the 19th instance of the teacher eliciting further comment from a male student (vs. an average of four for the women), I looked around at everyone scribbling furiously, not taking their eyes off the screen. Fantastic! I thought. Nothing beats good ol'fashioned grubby empiricism. And then I glanced at the coding sheet of the woman sitting next to me. She was working very hard, watching the tape carefully, and assiduously marking down exactly the same type and frequency of codes next to each and every student. 'Cause, you know, we had succeeded in convincing her of the importance of the topic, and she wanted to do her part in making the genders equal.
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