Thanks for the story!

But she wrote some ‘fun’, user-friendly books too. Try “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.” It’s the “autobiography” of her girlfriend/partner, only it’s authored by Gertrude Stein herself.

Incidentally, I’m enjoying your blog. You make med school in IC seem like a riot!

I think Leena mentioned this in a previous comment but the whole concept of locking up the perpetrators as superimposed on a patriarchal society is actually pretty revolutionary for 1905. Even TODAY we see that educating about gender equality [so that preconceived societal notions re: gender roles can die away making a safer society for all] we tell girls to stay home and be safe.

I think it’s always important to consider the CONTEXT in which these and other stories are written by female authors. This is a Muslim woman who just learned English writing in Calcutta in the time of the British Raj. COME ON. Give some credit, yo! Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky etc were all allowed to pursue their writing as a career. They were allowed to talk about it and live their lives proudly as writers. Jane Austen had to write her books in secret 10-15 minute windows when no one was looking. Gertrude Stein wrote a whole book on how women had never yet had a legitimate place in society to pursue writing. We can’t discount the context of gender roles of that period when we consider these works.

This is why there is no need for anyone to bother about bride burning, honor killing, wife battering, rape. Vedic women should accept it with a smile, because they can come back as man in their next life, and get their revenge by raping and oppressing women themselves. It feels good, no?

This is why any attempt to be feminist is not only discrimination against Hindus, but is an Abrahamic conspiracy against Vedic tolerance.

Beware Hindus of Uppity Women! They work for anti-nationals.

Hail Mogambo!

For a slightly different take on your fantasy, you might try the short story “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” by James Tiptree, Jr. (the pen name of Alice Sheldon) which features three male astronauts ending up on a future earth populated only by women.

As I’ve mentioned before, in my view feminism makes sense in a worldview where a person has one life to live. In a system where the philosophy advocates rebirth with the notion that you could be reborn as a person of the opposite sex, all arguments of patriarchy/feminism etc fall apart.

I think that if a person bears in mind that they have probably been someone of the opposite sex in previous lives, then it should help them to see “the big picture” and at least attempt to have some kind of empathy and consideration for the other party (with the corresponding lack of hypocrisy and double-standards, hopefully). However, I expect that those of a more self-centred, arrogant and generally short-sighted disposition would not be interested in thinking this way, unfortunately.

Also, being aware that the man/woman is fundamentally one’s fellow human being first and foremost and identifying with them on that level (whilst of course being aware that there are some overlying psychological and physical differences too, but this shouldn’t be the overriding viewpoint), rather than purely thinking of them as “the other”, would be a constructive attitude to have.

I don’t believe in Matriarchy any more than I believe than Patriarchy, as both involve the domination of one gender by the other. Neither is the right way forward, in my opinion; ideally, it should be both genders supporting each other and working in partnership, equally. Each party’s mutual humanity should be the main concern and point of reference, with the corresponding empathy, respect, and human rights.

A society dominated by females, I think, could only be marginally superior to one dominated by males. A feminist society would be one where all genders could participate without fear of discrimination/oppresion based on their differences.