Public Forums - A Waste of Time?

[r_kk]

I stand by what I said earlier!! Religions by themselves are all held sacred all right, but what eventually governs society at large is the intepretation.
!

Just blaming the effect as bad and considering the cause as good is difficult to accept. I can write with examples from life God type characters, prophets, messiahs and from so-called holy books to express my views but I don't want to deviate from the subject of current thread.

Many of the modern (so-called) women argue against the various old tools used by society to suppress them, but at the same time, they praise some of the latest/modern exploitation tools like beauty contexts, fashion shows, dresses, jewels, beauty (!!!) tips, TV serials and food recipes. Why women are spending lot of their energy in discussing these issues?

Even here, many hubbers prefers to choose film stars as their icons and showing more interest in discussing about them rather than choosing subjects on real achievers/ pioneers/activists (like “Metha Patkar” or “Captain Lakshmi Sehgal” or “Kalpana Chawla”) in scientific/political/economical/social fields.

Some times I just don’t understand the reasons behind overwhelming responses (some are on cheeks and eyes) of female hubbers on a thread about young/handsome hero of a unreleased movie and not even a single response from any female hubbers on a thread, which provides life long hard struggle of an old lady (real beautiful women), who had brought land to thousands of landless people. It is nothing wrong or bad in appreciating a co-hubber/friend or talking about entertainments or food recipes but I couldn't understand the reason behind giving more importance to these kind of subjects than real issues.

What is real freedom? Who has to be blamed for the present status? society or men or women themsevles?

Can any female hubbers explain about their understanding/ expectation of feminism or women rights or the real needs of current/ future women in a well balanced society?

[pavalamani pragasam]

r_kk I too want to know where my tribe is heading to. What are their real goals, what are their concepts of pleasure/satisfaction/fulfilment.

[nirosha sen]

Rk - I can well understand your consternation at the tone of the other threads! For someone with a more serious temperament such as yourself, I reckon some of the other discussions would indeed sound frivolous!!

But, is there any real reason to put others with more differing views in a straight-jacket which you are obviously doing???? Freedom to jest or merely to release some tension from the more disconcerting aspects of life, is no excuse to be disparaged!

I call it a sense of humour and youth when one is not only able to discuss the more serious issues of this world, but also to be able to laugh at oneself as well as with others on the more mundane ones!!

As for beauty tips, fashion shows, etc, I honestly don't see why one should not show any interest. Isn't that part and parcel of an interest in personal grooming????!!!!


I do have a question though. Who is this wonderful elderly lady who has worked tirelessly to settle the homeless???? Please share it with us! I'm sure all of us would love to read more of her good work!

[r_kk]

Please share it with us! I'm sure all of us would love to read more of her good work!

Please read it in "Unsung Hero/heroines" thread.... (posted long back...)

Regarding fashion shows, beauty contests , the term of beauty and etc... etc my opinions differ with most of the women. Let me wait for some more time to see how other female hubbers react to the core questions I had raised...

[Do you know when Indian women started looking beautiful to the western eyes and consequently got titles? (after opening up Indian econmy or before)]

[a.ratchasi]

Just blaming the effect as bad and considering the cause as good is difficult to accept. I can write with examples from life God type characters, prophets, messiahs and from so-called holy books to express my views but I don't want to deviate from the subject of current thread.

Thank you. I appreciate that you do not intend to digress the topic.

Many of the modern (so-called) women argue against the various old tools used by society to suppress them, but at the same time, they praise some of the latest/modern exploitation tools like beauty contexts, fashion shows, dresses, jewels, beauty (!!!) tips, TV serials and food recipes. Why women are spending lot of their energy in discussing these issues?.]

The same reason why men watch sports, extreme games, meddle with their cars, power tools, booze and what not.

Even here, many hubbers prefers to choose film stars as their icons and showing more interest in discussing about them rather than choosing subjects on real achievers/ pioneers/activists (like “Metha Patkar” or “Captain Lakshmi Sehgal” or “Kalpana Chawla”) in scientific/political/economical/social fields.?.

Primitive..very primitive...
Do you know what any of the female hubbers here are? Before you went on disparaging the lady hubbers here, you could have at least observed the rappo between the hubbers, which you did not I dare say. Btw, the ladies here are not elementary level schoolers to get excited over lady achievers alone.

Some times I just don’t understand the reasons behind overwhelming responses (some are on cheeks and eyes) of female hubbers on a thread about young/handsome hero of a unreleased movie and not even a single response from any female hubbers on a thread, which provides life long hard struggle of an old lady (real beautiful women), who had brought land to thousands of landless people. It is nothing wrong or bad in appreciating a co-hubber/friend or talking about entertainments or food recipes but I couldn't understand the reason behind giving more importance to these kind of subjects than real issues.?

Don't try too hard to understand what you dont and never will.
You are being such a spoiltsport.

What is real freedom? Who has to be blamed for the present status? society or men or women themsevles?

Can any female hubbers explain about their understanding/ expectation of feminism or women rights or the real needs of current/ future women in a well balanced society?

Finally, a sensible address!
Can you as a male hubber tell me how you came to such a chauvinistic conclusion? Whatever I say wont satisfy you or the likeminded as long as you are in the same prejudiced frame of mind. You could have just put forth the last paragraph (minus the word highlighted/underlined) and I would have gladly posted how I feel about the issues concerning and how I want it to be. Not forgetting what I am doing in my capacity as a lady in my day to day life.

Unfortunately, you had to bring down the lady hubbers in a not so nice manner and yet expect one and all to answer your queries?

If you think this is a feminist outburst, so be it.

[NM]

What is real freedom?
Freedom to me is to think and do what i please...

Who has to be blamed for the present status? society or men or women themsevles? guess it's a combination of society, men and women too...

I admire Mother Teresa, Mother Mangalam (in malaysia), Katherine Hepburn, Ang Suu Kyi, Indira Gandhi, Maggie Thatcher, Evita Peron, Nancy Reagan, Princess Diana, my mom , my grandma....

I believe each of them has a quality that I love and admire and if I have at least 10% of the qualities of each of the above people, I would at least achieve perhaps 10% of what I am supposed to do in this world. Being a male or a female is not important, but being a person, respected, humble, couragious, loving, sincere, strong, helpful, respectful, visionary means a lot to me.
That's my view and this is not about feminisme etc but abt being a real person and doing things for the soul......

[r_kk]

Hi a_r,
My outlook may be different and may look primitive, mundane... I am not saying that my perspective in this issue as correct. Whatever I had written is just my views, which I gained from various phases of life (as an active members of some movements). When I wrote my post I was expecting such replies (calling me as male chauvinistic or out of date) but I don't want to hide my rough views under nice mask.

I am eager to know where I stand. I am ready to correct my views, if I proove to be standing at the wrong side...

Can you now explain about women rights in your point of view?

[a.ratchasi]

r_kk, women rights?

*Not to be told how to think

*Not to be told what one should do

*Not to be judged when matters are handled differently

*To be able able to do what one wants to do-minus the veil

*To eliminate the need to prove oneself to detractors. There's no need for anybody to prove anything to anybody.

*Not to be seen as cause of everthing and subjugated likewise.

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I am not asking the society to help women to achieve these but this should be a wake up call for women. And a woman becomes no lesser woman by watching serials and involving in mindless banters as much a man remains a man irregardless of what he does.

[r_kk]

Hi a_r,
Your views are refreshing and ideal ones...

When I sit back and cooly look at my previous post, I have noticed that the sentences I had used out of my anger, is not proper. Now I feel that I should have written in different way without making generalized comments and direct attack on hubbers with different views...

Here everyone whether the women or man, they should have their own freedom to choose what they want to be, to choose their own interests....

I have so many practical issues about womenrights, commercialization ... etc etc... I will come up with those issues later....

[hehehewalrus]

My 2 paise on this topic(and many other topics of this nature)

I dont know what percentage of the hub really comes here for intellectual betterment. For one thing, this is a completely cosmopolitan forum where each fellow stays 10000 miles apart from the next postor and as such has different motives for visiting this forum. The common motives are

1. homesickness due to being away from home and working with culturally distinct colleagues,
2. too much idle time on ones hands and inability to play games in office,
3. finding likeminded people(this is a highly laughable reason for how can two guys 10000 miles apart be like minded?),
4. doing some spindoctoring, brainwashing, damage control, mudslinging etc, which requires tremendous willpower and self-belief - who takes these posts seriously - even on some weighty intellectual topics? The only threads of ANY Practical value here are the TV serial updates, other than that, rest of the topics are just a jumble of individual opinions and thoughts criss crossing each other. Of course, jokes and wisecracks are good here since you can just take your brains off and enjoy them

Beauty contests, Dowry, Sanskrit vs Tamil .....baaaaaaah, 1000s of books have been written on them - apart from the 4-5 people who participate in those threads, nobody even bothers to glance at it! Even if someone recommends an authoritative volume on some subject, heck, I dont even have the time to read my 60 page training booklet on Visual Basic cover-to-cover, how the hell will I get the time to go through a 700 page volume??

For instance a topic like "Role of women".....
1. Nobody is going to arrive at a consensus as to how women should be treated/illtreated.
2. Ten people will utilise the opportunity to jump in and prove how badly women were treated in 794 BC
3. Fifteen people will jump in with band aid and prove that women were well treated in 794 BC.
4. Moderator will lock the thread
5. People will carry over the hostilities to the next thread.

To waste one's time and brain cells in thinking of IMPROVEMENT Topics and propagating them in the hope that they will be taken seriously is sheer foolishness in a forum frequented by housewives, bored software engineers and completely confused ABCD kids who cant distinguish a dosa from a chappathi. People come here to give their brains a rest, not to make them explode

Understand the strengths of the medium before you communicate the message. Already I see lot of hubbers personal problems/information being carelessly divulged and there is tremendous scope for misuse and hurts in future, I really pity the mods and unfortunate hubbers.

In case you still think you can make a difference, remember - it takes only 3 posts to push your post to the previous page and then it becomes as useful as yesterday's newspaper

Understand the weaknesses of the medium before you communicate the message! Understand the weaknesses of the medium before you communicate the message!