ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants
Isaac Newton

I grew up in India, and Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister of the country all through my childhood, right through my teens, except for a brief spell of three years. A powerful image this (despite all my misgivings about her rule), that the highest seat of power in the land was held by a woman. Even more powerful as I sit here in New York, many years later, and am constantly reminded by the media that America is ‘not ready’ for a female President as yet, and this, now, in the early twenty-first century. The rest of South Asia has had its share of female leaders as well - from Bandaranaike and Kumaratunga to Benazir Bhutto to Khaleda Zia. Even Sonia Gandhi has been taken into the fold; she led the Congress Party of India to victory in the 2004 national elections. There is, of course, the flip side of the coin (and with South Asia there is always that flip side) that all these South Asian female leaders have been relatives of male leaders before them (but then one laughingly thinks that one could say that about George W. Bush as well!). Despite this, despite the accident of origin — these women are powerful symbols to both women and men: to women that the heights are reachable, and to men that for women to hold power is natural.

Within my family, women were generally empowered (and I mean empowered in the sense of Maslow's use of the term ‘self-actualization’ — that is being the most that one can be, using all one's talents and capacities to their fullest potential, which is then more than being mother and wife); we did, however, have the odd aunt who was a stay-at-home wife. My great-grandfather's sister was one of India's first women doctors — going to medical school after her children were born. She established a nursing home and an ashram for the rehabilitation of prostitutes (all this in the 1920s) and was later awarded a Padma Shree. My grandmother had been a working mother, and so had my own mother, both teachers. In a house full of books, my grandmother had been undisputed intellectual authority, she finished the London Times cryptic faster than anyone else, and was the most agile of thinkers. My aunts were mathematics professors, doctors and painters.

So with a female Prime Minister and the positive female paradigms within my own family, there was never any question about anything being beyond my reach. Taking control of my life, making decisions, expressing opinions were natural. These were not issues I ever wondered about, or questioned. Growing up, the concept of a ‘glass ceiling’ for women was not within my vocabulary.

Several weeks ago, a most interesting thing happened to me on a cab ride home. As I rode up Amsterdam Avenue late at night, I interrupted my cell phone conversation with a friend to give the Nuyorican taxi driver detailed instructions regarding turns so that he would then be able to drop me off on the west side of Broadway. I noticed as we approached my apartment that he did not turn where I had asked him to, leaving me instead on the wrong side of Broadway. When I asked him why he had not done as I had asked, he turned to me and said, “I don't take orders from women. And the women from your country are really good at giving orders!”

There is this image of urban, educated Indian women as being strong, proud and powerful. How to account for the fact that Indian women take to power so naturally? And to me, this is the important difference — that South Asian women leaders are generally accepted with grace. An explanation often put forward is that the divine feminine of the Hindu Goddess (Kali and Durga, the most powerful manifestations of which, in truth incorporated into the Hinduism of the Aryans from pre-existing Dravidian religions), the equivalent of which is missing in the Abrahamic religions, has had a powerful impact on the sub-continental psyche. In western traditions there is often the denial of sexuality and creative agency to women, whereas in Hinduism the creative force or shakti is itself feminine. I'm an atheist myself, but it is not difficult to accept the idea that images have a power that translates into the general character of a nation. There are historical role models like the Rani of Jhansi who fiercely resisted the British, both politically and in person, riding into battle on horseback. There is the association of India itself with Bharat Mata (Mother India), a character from a novel by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, adopted as a nationalist symbol. Indira Gandhi herself was called mataji (mother). And these associations with the goddess and mother make female leadership a most normal thing in the minds of the population, so that women in power are not masculinized or resented, but take their seats with grace.

It is said of India: everything one says about it is true, so is its opposite. Despite feminine political leadership, the fact remains that large numbers of women are marginalized and deprived of even the most basic education. Historically, there was the practice of sati, now long abolished — where wives immolated themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres, as if life without one's husband was worth nothing at all. Arranged marriages, dowry, dowry deaths and female infanticide are all practices that continue to this day. In traditional households, or within the less literate or poorer families, women often have little social freedom. And even in the quotidian aspects of life, deference to men is the norm — for example, it is a common practice for women from these families (which despite the economic surges of the last fifteen years make up a large percentage of Indian households) to wait for their husbands to eat before they let themselves begin their meal. And I have often seen couples walking down the street in India, wife trailing several feet behind her husband, as if not his equal.

Where does all this leave us as South Asian women in New York, here now in the twenty-first century in all our different chosen professions — from the arts and sciences to business and politics? I suggest that we take the best from our history — fabulous role models, female Prime Ministers, goddesses — and use them as a platform from which we help rewrite the story at home and abroad.

The day the US is ready for a female President will be as wonderful as the day when an Indian village woman says to her husband that she is not waiting for him to finish eating before she helps herself, or walks down the street at his side, proud and full of grace.

15^th June, 2004.

Each quarter, Anita Itty writes on topics of leadership, identity, business & culture for SAWLF. Ms. Itty received an MBA from Columbia University and is the 2003-2004 winner of the First Words South Asian Literary Prize. Ms. Itty lives in New York City where she is currently working on a novel.

To contact Anita Itty, email: aiaddress-sawlf@yahoo.com

Recent contributions from Anita Itty: 

Pattern on Pattern, in Red, September 15, 2005
La Vita Nuova, April 15, 2005
The Elephant in the Room, January 15, 2005
The Wall and the Books, September 15, 2004