Thursday, October 9, 2008

Th Strange Choice!

We witnessed a lot of hype over Hillary Clinton’s nomination to run for the post of Presidential candidate from the Democrat Party in the US recently. It is indeed an achievement for any human being whatsoever to rise to the position of being a semi-finalist in the race to be the world’s most powerful person. And for this alone, she should get a lot of respect from the public in general. But to claim that she was a messiah for women kind and that she was a solitary female representative in a male world is ludicrous at the least. Yes she is a woman, but then dare we forget she is the wife of Bill Clinton who was America’s President not so long ago, and in fact still remains among the most popular ones ever.

Now late us take the case of another woman leader in a different part of the world. The name is Mayawati Naina Kumari, presently the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. She was born in the lowest rung of society, and is now the leader of India’s largest and perhaps most influential sate. Here I’m not trying to be an advocate of caste politics or dalit-socialism, but I’m only trying to gauge the mind of the so-called feminists who have put personalities like Hillary Clinton now and others like Indira Gandhi and Isabella Peron in the pasta s feminist icons. Mayawati had an economically impoverished childhood, and is not conventionally pretty looking a quality often required for women to reach the top in patriarchal societies. And yet presently she is the most powerful person in one of the most backward-patriarchal parts of the globe. I’m not suggesting that Mayawati is a morally superior personality, but if seen purely as a female symbol surely none can have better credentials. Perhaps her not being dressed elegantly could be a reason for this lack of appeal to the modern working women who then look for falser idols. Indira Gandhi’s suave English and Hillary Clinton’s Caucasian American look better fit into these stereotypes of so-called ‘breaking the glass barrier’ and all that.
But the truth is that if I had been a feminist, Mayawati would definitely have been my idol. She has consistently managed to kick men around successfully starting without a base point to launch her campaigns. Indeed without seemingly powerful intimate relationships of blood or flesh.

5 comments:

Butterfly said...

Had you been a feminist,would you have admired Pratibha Patil too?

Thinking Steps said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thinking Steps said...

Rightly said by Butterfly above.Infact you would have even admired Sheila Dikshit.You should just for once, read/hear her speeches or rather try hearing her answers when she is questioned by the agitated BJP.Or may be just pick up HT and read an artical just 5 days ago where she is having a dialogue with Vijay Malhotra(candidate for CM from BJP).Mayawati may has managed to be CM of UP( please,let me remind you UP is the most corrupt state in India,shaking hands with Bihar),but you should try and get information on her background too.
The artical is almost impressive but again Aritro,you forget to get a clear point of the topic.Its not at all clear if its about Mayawati,if at all it is,the information is incomplete,or it is about your feministic perspective??Either ways you are not clear because if it was the lattar then you fogot to mention many other female icons of power and politics(if again,its only restricted to politics).You are a good writer by the way.

ChAsMeBadDoOr said...

i agree with "thinking steps" to the core.. even i was confused to some extent ,wether u were potraying the feminist perspective or mayawati's lead role in the male's wolrd...

but again i liked ur post..

arpita

Dhrubo said...

But then Mayawati piggybacked on Kashi Ram for the greater part of her political career. I am, for one, a Clinton admirer; but if all of us were feminists, would we have chosen a leader who was powerful and a women and not given any attention to the way they achieved their status?

Well written.