Racism and Stereotypes Essay

â€Å"Sport provides a particularly public display of relations of dominance and subordination†¦. The point of sport is to display publicly the processes of challenge and struggle between two sides alleged to begin in equal terms but determined to produce and sustain relations of dominance vis-a-vis one another. Moreover, sport as a meritocracy based on skill quietly reaffirms our national common sense; individuals who work hard and possess the right stuff will always prevail. Turned on its head, this lesson becomes even more insidious: those who are at the top must have risen to the top through fair means and thus deserve their position. In contrast, those not at the top do not possess the requisite talent for such privilege. Even the runner-up is a loser†(Wulfemeyer & Rada, 2005). Sport provides an objective measure to evaluate the performance of a player and/or a team. There are countless statistics for athletes in every sport, which are evaluated on a daily basis. Statistics show how well an athlete performs and how good of an player they truly are. As an athlete, talent is all that should matter and be looked at when making a judgment of whether they are good or not, unfortunately this does not always hold true today. Stereotyping, racism, sexism and all those negative aspects of life, which were thought to have diminished over the years, are still prominent and portrayed through the media to this day. Stereotyping is the process of imposing characteristics on people based on their perceived group membership (Harrison, 2001). Based on stereotypical beliefs, we make social assumptions and make judgments on our knowledge of the perceived traits of those that fit into social categories. Viewing groups in terms of stereotypes is the brain’s way of filling in missing information about individuals we know little about by superimposing perceived traits of the group to which they belong. This is an efficient adaptation of the human mind to allow us to get out of â€Å"getting to know† everyone we encounter. Humans have neither the cognitive capacity, time, nor the desire to process all of the information available to us. We therefore use our cognitive space as efficiently as possible by categorizing and compressing information in an attempt to store more (Rose & Christina, 2006). When stereotypes are based on a wealth of accumulated social and factual knowledge and are not used to make trait assumptions about individual group members, they are generally accurate and pose few problems. It is when stereotypes are based on false, misleading, or limited information that they become problematic. While most stereotyping, even the problematic variety, can be considered harmless it holds potential for quick activation if circumstances and situations present themselves (Harrison Jr. , 2001). Sport and physical activity provide an abundant ground for the development, utilization, and prolongation of stereotypes. Racial stereotypes regarding the abilities of African Americans and Europeans are very much prominent in the realm of sport and physical activity. These stereotypes have been fueled historically by theories developed to explain the perceived performance differences between African Americans and European Americans. Many years of theorizing and hypothesizing about the natural physical abilities of African American athletes have shaped the thinking of entire populations. These seemingly scientific theories and hypotheses have formed the origin of today’s African American athlete stereotype (Armstrong, 2011). The former United Nations’ Secretary General, Kofi Annan was quoted saying â€Å"sport is a universal language that can bring people together, no matter what their origin, background, religious beliefs or economic status† (United Nations, 2005) but this was not always the case. Major barriers have been conquered over the years to bring equality to this nation and validate the former Secretary General’s above statement. One of the biggest issues that was dealt with was racism. This is a topic many like to tiptoe around and believe is nonexistent in American, the so-called melting pot of the world. Ethnic groups are equal if not more dominant in professional sports today in their participation in sport but the same cannot be said for the coverage of the events that they participate in. Research shows that there are still priming racial stereotypes made by sport announcers (Westerfield, Johnson, Hallian). â€Å"African American athletes, once excluded from participating in professional and intercollegiate sports because of institutionalized discrimination, now participate in many sports at a rate that equals or greatly exceeds their representation in the population. This is especially true in the case of intercollegiate and professional football and basketball† (Center for the Study of Sport in Society, 2001). As equality became more evident in sport, especially football and basketball, so did the media coverage of these sports. The development of technologies, such as the television or Internet, allows people all over the world to watch a growing increase in the popularity of sport. Over the years sports coverage has given a larger viewing population to the networks and the sporting entities have used that coverage to increase their revenue. Even though both equality for the minority player and the media were growing at the same time they were not growing together. It was true that blacks were getting more rights to play but they were not being broadcasted out to a larger audience by the media. For years African Americans and the African American community have been underrepresented in television coverage. When African Americans did appear they were often pigeonholed into demeaning, stereotype ridden portrayals, showing them as â€Å"bestial, brutish, buffoonish, comical, criminal, dependant of government entitlements or support, ignorant, lazy, menacing, oversexed, and prone to out-of wedlock births† (Wulfemeyer & Rada, 2005). The question of bias in sports coverage is neither new nor limited to race. To date, several research projects have uncovered bias across race, gender, and ethnicity (Wulfemeyer & Rada, 2005). The presence of bias has not been limited by venue either. Research has found bias across a wide range of sporting events ranging from professional and intercollegiate sports in the United States to international events such as the Olympics. Research has also demonstrated that bias can take many forms, from what is heard from the spoken commentary on-air to what is seen from the game coverage (Wulfemeyer & Rada, 2005). One form of racial bias that researchers have consistently uncovered is the brawn versus brains descriptions directed toward the players. It would seem as though complimenting an athlete for his or her athletic ability and physical attributes would seem positive and encouraging to a player but that is not always the case. Sometimes these seemingly positive comments have an underlying bias that is revealed by the commentary’s views of the players. This image that is made by the media that African Americans are naturally athletic and are blessed with God given talent can portray the negative creation and perception of the lazy athlete who does not have to work hard or at all at his/her craft. Many times it was also portrayed that blacks were more animalistic and farther away from being civilized than the rest of the population as well. These stereotypical expressions were put into the open in 1989 when Jimmy Snyder, an on-air personality for CBS Sports, openly told the public that the success of African American athletes was the result of selective and effective breeding on the part of the slave owners. Announcers negate not just physical and intellectual ability; intellect and character were also commented on, further negating the African American athlete. These stereotypes are not just targeted towards African Americans; they apply and are present for all races. Examples of these stereotypes are things such as blacks don’t feel pain, have no morals, are not team players have animal instincts, etc. Caucasian players can’t jump, they are hickish, and they are too loud or to opinionated and are very naive to everyday life. People of Asian decent are always good at math, cant drive well and are very strict with their children. Native Americans are lazy and sometimes alcoholics, and only live off the casinos. Hispanics are not patriotic, they all drive trucks; they are all-good at yard work and like to have a lot of children. All of these are examples of stereotypes that are out in society today and the list could continue to go on and on. These stereotypes that are portrayed by the media have prominent effect of the sports that athletes choose to participate in, in many cases it probably even effect what position they play. Since media has become such a big part of today’s society and is incorporated into our everyday lives young athletes watch sports on television and listen to what is being said about certain athletes and are likely to base what they want to do on the sport that they best fit into. For example if you are black you best fit in playing either basketball or football, if you are white you best fit in playing baseball or swimming, if you are of some sort of Hispanic decent you should play soccer or maybe even baseball. Even though racism is suppose to be a topic that was squashed long ago it still lives very much through stereotyping and is successfully denying full integration throughout the spectrum of sport. These same stereotypes that are made by the media towards the male roles of sport also apply to females as well. Even though woman around the world now participate in sport they are still not held to the same standard as males. â€Å"When female athletes transgress gender norms and boundaries, even in a â€Å"Post-Title IX† moment, they are still held to antiquated societal standards of emphasized femininity and feminine appearance by the mainstream news media† (Waches, Messner, Dworkin, Cooky, 2010). A great examples of this taking place is the Don Imus controversy in 2007 when he made stereotypical, sexist and offensive comments about the Rutgers University woman’s basketball team. Sexism is the belief or attitude that women are inferior to men, the application of masculine stereotypes to women or the hatred of one gender or sex (Griffin, 1992). â€Å"In collegiate sports, sexism can manifest itself in several ways including inequitable funding dedicated to women’s sports, media coverage of women’s sporting events, women’s college coaching salaries, views on elite female athletes and prejudice and discrimination against lesbians† (Whiteside & Hardin, 2009). Sexist views on female athletes originated in the 1920s, from medical establishment concerns about the masculinizing effects of sport participation on women. From a contemporary standpoint, football, men’s basketball and most male college sports draw more interest and revenue than women’s college sports. This reality provides the foundation for beliefs about female athletic inferiority (Griffin, 1992). Sexism appears most often in women’s basketball, in part, because the game draws the most attention among women’s college sports and because women’s basketball is more similar to a men’s sport than any other college sport. In addition, women’s basketball is not one of the socially approved feminine sports like tennis or golf. Traditionally, prissy sports like tennis, golf and gymnastics are viewed as more feminine and these sports are, coincidentally, inundated with White women. Black women have customarily participated in basketball and track, which have long been considered as masculine sports. Sport controversies can alienate and oppress Black female student-athletes who already confront isolation, media criticism, prejudice and stereotypes. Neglecting race and gender controversies in sport can impact athletic department’s brand name recognition, alumni donations, corporate sponsorships and game attendance. More important, race and gender controversies also can negatively affect minority and female student-athletes’ recruitment, student-athletes’ social development and social justice for all student-athletes. â€Å"Inquires should uncover sociocultural implications that can be used to craft recommendations in instances when race, gender, and sport adversely intersect† (Waches, Messner, Dworkin, Cooky, 2010). It is said that racism is something of the pass and in today’s society it is non-existence but according to Gill (2011) there is a modern type of racism called new racism. New racism is based on the widespread belief that racism no longer exists and civil rights legislation created an equal playing field. New racism includes feeling a way of life is threatened by others and different cultures are assumed to be incompatible. The traits that truly distinguish new racism from historical racism are: racial ambiguity, blaming Blacks for their problems, and the use of the media to facilitate racism. Racial ambiguity refers to putting forth a non-prejudiced explanation for what might be considered as a prejudiced statement. For instance, when Don Imus was asked to explain his comments about the comment he had made about the woman’s Rutger team he stated that his comments were intended to be a joke. Present in new racism, unlike historical racism, is the belief that the problems Blacks experience are not a result of social disadvantage, but rather a result of some predisposed deviance in Black culture (Gill, 2011). It is evident that racism, sexism, prejudice, stereotyping and a lack of equality are still very much present it sport today. Even with all the equality acts and laws that have been passed the playing field has yet to be leveled amongst different races, ethnic groups, and genders. Even though many sports have been intermingled there are still many sports that are dominated by one specific minority and that is not how it should be. The media needs stop putting emphasis and specific aspects of certain people’s life because in doing this they are generalizing a group. Through generalization the media is implying that a certain group of people are all the same and thus should all be expected to act the same way. This brings a very negative aspect to sport. Since sport is such a big part of American culture I believe that the media should really begin to change their ways and stay as unbiased as possible to allow the viewing population to make their own judgments and opinions on people based on their talent, not on what generalized group they have been placed in. References Armstrong L., Ketra (2011). ‘Lifting the Veils and Illuminating the Shadows’: Furthering the Explorations of Race and Ethnicity in Sport Management. Journal of Sport Management 25, 95-106. Gill Jr, L. Emmett (2011). The Rutgers Woman’s Basketball & Don Imus Controversey (RUINUS): White Privlages, New Racism, and the Implications for College Sport Management. Journal of Sport Management 25, 118-130. Griffin, Pat (1992). Changing the Game: Homophobia, Sexism, and Lesbians in Sport. QUEST 4, 251-265. Harrison Jr, Louis (2001). Understanding the Influences of Stereotypes: Implications for the African American in Sport and Physical Activity. QUEST 53, 97-114. Rose, J. Debra, Christina, W. Robert (2006). A multilevel Approach to the Study of Motor Control and Learning (2nd ed). University of North Carolina-Greensboro: Pearson. Wachs L. Faye, Messner Michael, Dworkin L. Sheri, Cooky Cheryl (2010). It’s Not About the Game: Don Imus, Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Media. Sociology of Sport Journal 27, 139-159. Westerfield R. Carl, Johnson L. Darrell, Hallinan J. Christopher. Picturing Success: Photographs and Stereotyping in Men’s Collegiate Basketball. Journal of Sport Behavior 22:1. Whiteside E. Erin, Hardin Marie (2009). The Power of â€Å"Small Stories:† Narratives and Notions of Gender Equality in Conversations About Sport. Sociology of Sport Journal 26, 255-278. Wulfemeyer K. Tim, Rada A. James (2005). Color Coded: Racial Descriptors in Television Coverage of Intercollegiate Sports. Journal o Broadcasting & Electronic Media 49, 65-85.

Finding My Way Back to School Essay Essay Example

Finding My Way Back to School Essay Essay Example Finding My Way Back to School Essay Essay Finding My Way Back to School Essay Essay Essay Topic: A Long Way Gone Finding my way back to school has been a long time coming. I have wanted to attend college before I even finished grade school. At seventeen I married a Military man. I always said, When I move to another base I will start college. We moved to Fort Hood, Texas. Nine years have gone by and at last I have enrolled in a degree plan at Gifford University. What made me wait so long is a laundry list of items. The main issue Eve had was procrastination. I talked myself out of college more times than I can remember. I would say, l dont have the money, time, skills, or the smarts to go to college. After years of doubt I had an awakening, my son was born. My son being born made me want to finish my dreams. I wanted to make our life better. My entire life I have loved to help people and listen to them. I researched colleges and found the Psychology program at Gifford to be beneficial. I want to work with foster children. Getting my degree in Psychology will help me achieve that goal. My life has had to change while attending college. My son is one year old, so he requires most of my time and attention. I have to balance my son and homework. : Ive had to change my movie marathon and reading for fun days, to diaper duty and what pronoun to use. These changes are well worth it when I weigh the outcome. Another change or obstacle Eve had to manage is my husband. My husband works full time and attends college as well. Trying to find a balance is very hard. Im still working on dividing myself between spouse, child, and school. The sacrifices I am making now are for my family and me. I know after graduation all my hard work to start my career, and the sacrifices Ive made will pay off. Returning to school has been easy for the most part. I eve found I need to work on my writing skills. Other then my writing skills for classes, I really enjoy college. I am a mild perfectionist. I try to get great grades and when I do not get great grades, I stress often. I am trying to work on not stressing and still work hard for good grades. Ive been working on strategies for myself. Finding myself in school again; I need a strategy to help me out. I found if I tell people I need quiet time to study for a test they leave me alone. If I tell people I need quiet time just to study, they still bother me. So I send out a text saying, l have a test now, dont other me, and I turn off my phone. So far so good no one has popped up at my home and I am able to write assignments. Another strategy is nap time. I do my discussions when my son Is napping. I study and write assignments when bed time for my son rolls around. Finding my way back to school has been a challenge; I wish It would have happened sooner. Maybe now Is the best time and I am glad I have started this process now. All the challenges and headaches are so worth It. Even If I do not get my dream career, I still can feel proud of myself for completing college. I cant wall t Tort my next chanter AT Tie so

How to Negotiate Your Salary in an Interview

How to Negotiate Your Salary in an Interview In negotiations, the first person to blink usually loses. The same goes for salary negotiations. If you name a number first, you’ll never know how high the hiring manager might have gone to win you. Here are five sneaky ways an interviewer will get you to answer the money question, and how to avoid them.Q: â€Å"What is the salary range you’re expecting?†Your ideal answer: â€Å"I’d like to get a better sense of the requirements before I commit to a number. Just so I can make sure I have a sense of what you need.†Q: â€Å"How much did you make at your last job?†Your ideal answer:  Don’t answer it. Say instead: â€Å"First I want to make sure I understand the ways in which this position’s responsibilities will differ from those of my former position. Let’s discuss the details before we agree on a fair amount.†Q: â€Å"What are you hoping for in terms of salary?†Your ideal answer:  This is basically the sa me as the first question. If they’ve already asked some version of this, try this answer, and keep deflecting: â€Å"I’m sure whatever you’re offering will be commensurate with the going market rate for this position.† This puts the burden of fairness on them.Q: â€Å"In order to make you an offer, I’ll need to know your requirements.†Your ideal answer:  False! Resist! Deflect again! How about: â€Å"Let’s start with what you have budgeted for this position and then we can discuss from there.†Q: â€Å"Why don’t you want to disclose your salary requirements?†Your ideal answer:  This is quite the bold one, and not all that common. At this point, it’s okay to fight fire with fire. Try: â€Å"I’d really like to get a sense of what this position is worth to your company before I make any commitments.†As tough as it is to be tough, it will pay out in the long run. You may feel awkward about taki ng such a hard line, but your interviewer will respect you as someone not to be trifled with. You might even win yourself the offer with your negotiating prowess.

An extended definition of belief Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

An extended definition of belief - Essay Example Langston Hughes mentioned that he was asked to declare his belief publicly as a Christian at the age of 12 by his church. According to Hughes, 12 years is not a matured age for a person to declare his belief publicly (Hughes, p.224). Even adults or old people are sometimes confused while talking about their beliefs. A person’s belief is normally strengthened by what he has been taught during his childhood by others. For example, a Christian child may get education about Jesus from churches during his childhood. Same way, a Muslim child may get more knowledge about Prophet Mohammad during his childhood. It should be noted that the Muslim child may not get proper education about Jesus or the Christian child may not get proper education about Mohammad during their childhood. Thus, a particular belief is cultivated in the minds of people during their childhood. Another interesting fact about belief is that it is highly subjective. Different communities exist in most of the religio ns because of the subjectivity of belief. These communities are interpreting the same information in different ways. For example, the beliefs of Pentecostal communities in Christian religion are different than the beliefs of Catholics even though both relying Holy Bible and Jesus for shaping their beliefs. Same way, Shias and Sunnis in Muslim religion have different beliefs even though both believe in Holy Quran and Prophet Mohammad. In short, belief is highly subjective and it depends on the intellectual abilities and wisdom of the believers. Joel Engardio, belief is all about tolerance. In his opinion, â€Å"people we don’t understand become less scary when we get to know them as real people. We don’t have to be each other’s cup of tea, but tolerance lets a variety of kettles peacefully share the stove† (Engardio, p.229). Nobody can claim that his belief is superior to the belief of others. Neither the Christians, nor the Muslims or Jews claim that what they are teaching is the truth. As mentioned earlier, different people interpret Bible and Quran in different manner and hence different types of beliefs are prevailing in this word even among the same religions. According to Albert Einstein, Nothing is absolute and everything is relative in this world. Even that principle may not be true in the case of religious beliefs. In other words, nobody can claim that their belief is better than the beliefs of others. Under such circumstances, it is better to respect the beliefs of others rather than ridiculing it. Belief is just like how two blind people explain the shape of an elephant after touching different parts of the elephant’s body. The blind person who touches the ear of the elephant may describe the shape of elephant as flat whereas the blind person who touches the tail of the elephant may describe its shape as thin rod. Even though both are right, the ultimate truth is entirely different from the explanations of these two people. Belief is also just like that. The definitions of God by the Muslims and Christians would be right. However, none of these definitions may be perfect. Under such circumstances it is better to respect these definitions or beliefs rather than ridiculing it. John Allen Paulos mentioned that people believe in God even if they are aware of the illogic and gaping holes in the arguments for God. He has mentioned that even though he don’t believe in God, he believes in love (Paulos p.237). Paulos’s arguments seem to be little bit contradictory. All religions

Describe and discuss what, in your opinion, are the main difficulties Essay

Describe and discuss what, in your opinion, are the main difficulties facing Records Managers attempting to manage the electronic records of an organisation - Essay Example Unless these challenges are addressed, valuable government information may be lost forever (Bearman 1990; Cox 2000; Dearstyne 2002; Veatch 2002; and Kurtz 2004). Electronic records management or ERM that is mainly managing and preserving access to digital records is not and never will be easy; but it is not an impossible task. ERM provides a digital environment for capturing electronic documents and applying standard records management practices. Supporting the medium to long term information management needs of the business, it manages a corporate filing structure, document classification within the filing structure and formal retention and disposition scheduling. This is based on an approved disposition and review schedule of the organization (eGovernment 2001). The following three events noted by Kurtz (2004) speak of the value of maintaining sensible ERM practice today. They point to neglect of preserving information and ignoring the impact of technology. First, in March 2002, the FBI's handling of the investigative records of the Timothy McVeigh case was attributed to outmoded computer systems and systemic information management problems that created a last-minute delay in the execution of McVeigh. According to the report, thousands of pages of FBI investigation reports were not turned over to McVeigh's lawyers before the trial due in part to antiquated computer systems that could not locate and retrieve the needed information. Timothy James McVeigh was an American convicted of eleven federal offenses and ultimately executed as a result of his role in the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing. He is commonly referred to as the Oklahoma City bomber. The bombing, which claimed 168 lives, was the deadliest act of terrorism in U.S. history until the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, and remains the deadliest incident of domestic terrorism in U.S. history (Cole 1996). Second, on September 11, 2001, the tragic events at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon highlighted the importance of having continuity of operations plans in the event of a disaster. In both places, business operations were affected because critical information was destroyed. Without such plans, agency information assets and future business operations and services are at risk (Kurtz 2004). Third, numerous allegations have been made concerning the Departments of Interior and Treasury destroying Indian trust account records related to a class action lawsuit filed against the Government. The plaintiffs allege that the Government has mismanaged and lost information on individual Indian trust accounts that will deprive the plaintiffs of billions of dollars in royalties (Kurtz 2004). This paper looks into the main difficulties facing records managers attempting to manage the electronic records of an organisation. They include old ways of operation, patchy compliance to laws, absence of corporate control, the dysfunctional ways archivists look at records, resistance of archivists to changes, governments and universities ignoring ERM, leadership void, lack of guiding principles, diminished role of archivists and records managers in information policy, and lack of competency of archivists and records mangers. In this paper, the terms "archivists" and "records managers" are used interchangeably. DIFFICULTIES Old ways of Operation. Prior to

Strategic Planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 2

Strategic Planning - Essay Example Tesco has been successful in expanding the growth of its business through entering into joint venture with other large retail companies all over the world. (Leahy, 2007: 41) As of 2008, the company was able to establish a total of 12 international businesses which serves the market of Hungary, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, Central Europe, Czech Republic, Poland, and the United States among others. (Leahy, 2007: 42 – 43; Couch, 2006; Wilson, 2005) In early part of 2007, the company entered into a joint venture with Tin Cao who owns a little more than 50 Hymall-branded hypermarkets. (Hawkes, 2008; China Daily, 2008; Baijia, 2007) Tesco’s joint venture in China is known as the ‘Happy Shopper Hymall.’ The company was able to increase its sales by 13% to  £7.6 billion in 2006. (Times Online, 2006) In line with the success behind Tesco China, its top management believes that the said strategic move will enable the company to serve a more lucrative market in Shanghai, China. With regards to Tesco’s current expansion in the Chinese market, the researcher will seek to identify and evaluate the key stakeholders of the joint venture between Tesco and Tin Cao. Eventually, the impact of the joint venture agreement in terms of its competitive position in the chinese market will be discussed thoroughly. Based on the past retailing experiences of Tesco in the UK market, the researcher will make use of the PESTLE as well as the opportunities and threat analysis model as part of determining and examining the potential external factors that could significantly affect the business expansion of Tesco in China. Prior to the conclusion, the identified value adding activities that may contribute to the success of Tesco in China will be highlighted. Aside from the employee of Tesco Group, Tin Cao owned Hymall-branded hypermarkets and

A Study of Trends in Indian Partition Literature Essay Example for Free

A Study of Trends in Indian Partition Literature Essay The Partition of India was the geographical division of colonial India into two bordering nation states of India and Pakistan based on religious demographics.1 It was proposed as an unsavoury but necessary accompaniment to the Independence of India from the British Empire. However, it was not only a diplomatic and administrative exercise but rather had a long-lasting psychological impact on the human population of these areas. Though Bapu2 was firmly against this idea, it was reluctantly accepted by Nehru and Jinnah as the only solution to the growing communal divide between the Muslim and Hindu communities. 3 However, what the political class had never predicted was the unprecedented amount of bloodshed, violence and widespread civil unrest that followed in its wake. Even years after this event, the perpetrators and the victims are still baffled as to the cause of this â€Å"madness†4 that gripped civilized society. In the aftermath, historians pretended to ignore it terming it unfortunate but somewhat inevitable while literature tried to come to terms with its bestiality and future implications. The authorial response of the first generation was severely limited however due to a level of emotional attachment and involvement in the subject matter. They lacked perspective and varied in two ways: either they were very brief and lacked empathy or tended to be voyeuristic in nature. The official responses attempted to historicise Partition through statistics, facts and figures while literature, to the contrary attempted to give voice to subaltern perspectives personalising victim narratives. Despite such a movement, it was not until the 70’s that it was realised that hardly any attention was paid to the experiences of women during Partition. There was a deep reluctance to address the gender atrocities committed during Partition and it manifested itself through the invisibilisation of women voices. Although it had been clear from the start that the worst sufferers of Partition violence had been women5, a stoic silence upon the tragic reality had been maintained. Many of these women had led forgotten lives and their trauma suppressed in an attempt to forget the onslaught upon their bodies and minds. Therefore, renewed efforts began to document and portray the forgotten stories of such women. But it was a complex problem in many ways. Partition had had a multifaceted impact on the women of India and Pakistan that not only defined their coming lives but also impacted the future generations as psycho-somatic memories and construction of familial structures post-Partition.6 Literature took the initiative of this task: there were two major strains of women oriented Partition narratives that emerged in the period thus. One school of thought dealt with Partition as a backdrop to the â€Å"larger narrative†. In such stories, the lives of the main characters were highlighted and their lives were allegorised to represent the trauma of the nation itself. The stories of their existence were represented dually: as human beings involved in personal dramas and as social creatures part of a larger mainframe. Their places within the higher superstructure and as creatures dominated by the larger contexts were analysed by writers. A startling example of this was â€Å"The Clear Light Of Day† by Anita Desai which never referred to Partition in specific incidents but rather subtle, broken reflections into the people whose day-to-day lives were affected by the growing communal tension and changing socio-political equations. It refers to the ties of family, friendship, kinship and love that were abruptly ruptured by the literal division of the nation. There were novels such as â€Å"Ice-Candy Man† by Bapsi Sidhwa that looks at Partition from the ‘outside’. The narrator Lenny is imbued with unique qualities that were highly unconventional for the times. She was a child, hence she had a limited worldview, a Parsee, hence not religiously biased and neither a participant, physically disabled, therefore able to sympathise with the suffering of others and, a girl therefore her narration is unapologetically gender-conscious. What she learns, is all by association. The story is a sharp attack on official discourses that denied the suffering of millions of people. Lenny’s story is not only her own but a mirroring of girl-children everywhere that were faced with questions with identity, sexuality, community and nation as a whole and how they shaped individual lives. A child is brutally honest and spares nobody and nothing. She has no inbuilt prejudices so she can speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. As a result of such experimental tales, women felt ready to finally speak up. But, their attempts were met with more resistance than expected. They were themselves reluctant to speak about they went through; it was too painful but combined with societal pressures, their mouths had been almost sealed shut from fear. For daring to break this unspoken taboo, some of them faced severe consequences and were even disowned by their own families for besmirching the family name. But such actions often took a huge toll on their mental and physical health and though they had survived, they hadn’t healed. As a result of mass migration, women were abruptly uprooted from their homes to move to a strange and unfamiliar place. They had to build their lives and homes anew, sometimes with no support system. Many of these women were so bereaved at losing their home and hearth, that they could never recover from this sense of loss. Women in traditional society had since ancient days been tasked with looking after the home. Since they were not allowed to venture outside their domain7, the home had been almost personified for them. It was a living breathing space. The only place which they could rightfully stake claim to and which was a source of comfort and solace for them. They were so tangibly attached to their land that family was synonymous with home and her identity came to be defined by her place in the home. Hence when forced to migrate, their sense of unsettlement and upheaval was immense. They could never return to their past lives and change was not so easy for these women who had never been given the opportunity to trespass their comfort zones. Some stories that movingly illustrated the dilemmas of such women are â€Å"Jadein† by Ismat Chughtai, â€Å"Sikka Badal Gaya† by Krishna Sobti Sahni and â€Å"The Thirst Of Rivers† by Joginder Paul . These women had to undergo the process of relocating their selves. Many women like Bebe from â€Å"The Thirst†¦Ã¢â‚¬  refused to leave their homes assured of its protection from evils outside. However, their families were broken up with some members choosing to stay back and some leaving for a new land. Due to differences in opinion, family members become estranged and refused to talk to each other or had problems meeting each other due to large geographical distances. Often, migrants did not have enough money to travel back and forth and permits were hard to come by. Due to mutual hostilities, communication across borders was sketchy at best. Hence, many a times, a natural void between families occurred. All the while, the matriarch of the family remained a silent witness to events. The family ties that she had spent all her life building up and nurturing were breaking up right before her eyes and she was helpless, unable to act or intervene. Who would listen to her? Partition had served to further communal tension and hardening religious identities than perhaps any event in the history of India or Pakistan. People who had lived together for several millennia with tranquillity were suddenly made conscious of their differences from each other. They who had been friends earlier were suddenly staunch enemies and women bore the brunt of these realizations. In â€Å"Peshawar Express†8, one such incident is narrated when at Wazirabad station, where Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities had celebrated Baisakhi together for ages becomes a site of base humiliation and gruesome celebration; the women of the Hindu and Sikhs communities were paraded around naked as if they were nothing but objects of gratification for the general public. These women had become mere shells, their souls long dead. In Kamleshwar’s â€Å"Kitne Pakistan†, the author ruminates upon the fruitlessness of Partition and the breaking of bonds of families, love and friendships due to its occurrence. It is the story of a Muslim girl, Bano who falls in love with a Hindu boy, Mangal but is not able to marry him because of religious dogmas. She is told that she will cause communal riots. There is a hidden implication in this viewpoint that seems to say that the cause of every mishappening must be a woman somehow. Rules for men and women in traditional dogmatic societies are different It is ironic that men are not chastised for forcibly marrying a man of the other religion but they will not allow their daughters to choose her spouse on her own and he may never belong to another religion. There is rampant hypocrisy and hollowness in societal mores regarding women. Bano is married off to Muneer who unable to provide for his family with his own hard work resorts to selling his own wife’s body to earn money. The shamefulness of this situation is beyond imagination. These are not falsifications as advocated by fundamental religious leaders but a retelling of many women’s lives. Another kind of psychological trauma that many women underwent was the loss of a child. Many women were forced to leave their children by their husband and children during flight. Children became a burden during this time. They had to be cared for especially with crucial funds required by the family going for their supplies. Also, escapees with children were more vulnerable to attacks by rioters since they not only had to look after themselves but look after their child as well. There are real life cases documented by Urvashi Bhutalia in her book, â€Å"The Other Side Of Silence† wherein women of Muslim as well as Hindu communities were forced to desert their infants that could raise an alarm in the rioters by making noise. Sikh men told tales of killing their children, asking the author, if they should be saving themselves or their daughters? Clearly, man’s inherent selfishness had come to the fore where no one mattered more than the self. Many children were abducted during the widespread chaos to be sold off as domestic help or prostituted in the streets. Women who lost their children during this time were incessantly plagued by guilt and grief. One such woman was Kulsum from â€Å"Pali†9 who lost her child and along with him, her mental balance as well. She was blanketed completely by her grief and only the return of her child restored her sanity. But meanwhile, Zenab who had taken care of her son, Dilip when she found him lost had developed a motherly bond with him and cannot bear parting with him. She knows that she has no biological claim over him but what the mind knows, the heart does not. Eventually, she has to reconcile herself with the reality of her situation. But her life will forever be shadowed by this sadness. Women who were forced by circumstances to give up their child were forever haunted by their own actions and decisions. They were always in search of redemption and peace and could not reconcile themselves to the loss of their offspring. One example of this can be seen in â€Å"The Abandoned Child†10. Infant as well as toddler girls were left by the roadside or killed by their families to avoid making them a target. The life story of one such girl is narrated in â€Å"Where Did She Belong† by Suraiya Quasim wherein the protagonist Munni is not sure of her religious or national identity. She is pushed into prostitution by her so-called ‘saviour’11 , who only wants to use her for economic gain. She is deceived by two of her customers who pretend to love her, but leave her bereft when Partition happens. Nobody asks for her or enquires as to her whereabouts. She is deceived by everyone in her life, ultimately. There were also cases of women who were injured and deceived by members of their own community. People who had been their well-wishers and whom they trusted implicitly, took advantage of their vulnerability and preyed on their bodies. Ayesha’s12 story is the ultimate tragedy of such a ‘lady’13. In guise of protecting her and reuniting Ayesha with her daughter, Nurul takes her with him to Pakistan but betrays her trust by prostituting her instead. She is cursed to a life of assault, on her body and her mind. Her saviour turns out to her destructor. She dies a life of desolation, her own brethren refusing to come to her aid and never seeing her child again. Afroz too in â€Å"I Am Game†14 falls weak due to her instincts of providing and caring for daughter. Seeing no option left for herself and her child, she agrees to prostitution. This depicts to us the sad state of affairs during Partition, when uncertainty and insecurity reigned supreme. Man, woman or children, all had to protect themselves on their own and women for the sake of their families were forced into professions of exploitation to earn their keep. Besides these atrocities, women were also subjected to particularly vulgar sexual attacks. Writers like Ashis Nandy, Veena Das, and Mushirul Hasan describe the bizarre and horrific nature of sexual violence afflicted on women. It was pornographic in its varied forms. Their bodies were mutilated, disfigured, slogans15 branded on them like they were animals, their wombs sliced open and their foetuses savagely butchered. Women were reduced to spoils of war who were never allowed to unburden themselves or be free. They were reduced to a part of the multitude, just one of many. Many victims had been traumatised to an extent that they lost themselves to insanity. They could not cope with their reality. Many underwent derealisation16 wherein after the superficial wounds had mended, they started to deny that anything had ever happened to them. It became something of a nightmare, horrific but fantastical. Literature becomes a cathartic medium for many such women, a chance to narrate their tale. Such memoirs also provided a base for Partition scholars to analyse the feminine subject in social and historical contexts of that time period. Partition has often been termed as the dark underbelly17 of Independence but what it really exposed was the base attitudes of patriarchal Indian society, be it any religion. It revealed how women were equated with the community they belonged to. Though the violence was inter-religious in nature, the modes of inflicting violence were one and the same. All ethics were forgotten in the frenzy of religious vendetta. Revenge was used as an excuse to inflict wounds. They were the contested sites between two opposing factions and were devoid of any agency. One example may be an incident in â€Å"The City Of Sorrow†18 , where a man is forced to strip his sister naked by someone of the other religion. When given a chance to retaliate, he forces his tormentor to strip his own wife naked. Hence, the revenge is complete but ironically, in both cases, the women were the innocent parties who became the medium of exacting justice. They were expected to uphold familial and communal honour and were sacrificed at the altar of â€Å"izzat†19 if they were in danger of being captured by the enemy. The concept of honour was internalised20 hence any stain on it was beyond tolerance by patriarchal society. Therefore, to insult and hurt communal sentiments, it was natural that in order to debase the enemy and shed him of his honour, women of his community were targeted systematically. There were also women who had been indoctrinated to such an extent by religious propaganda that they committed suicide, misled into thinking that they were fulfilling their duty as women. This tradition dates back to the time of ancient Rajputs whose women committed Johar21 to sustain their honour. Hence, it has been a concept propagated throughout the history of religions, Hinduism especially. Bhishma Sahni in â€Å"Tamas† and Jyotirmoyee in â€Å"The River Churning† present such incidents where women of Hindu and Sikh communities drown themselves in wells in order to â€Å"save†22 themselves. Women of the family were the most precious possessions and were to be protected at all costs. However, when they presented an obstacle in the escape of their family, they were brutally â€Å"martyred†23 without compunctions by the family itself. The men of the family did it all in order to save themselves first and to prevent dealing with the hassle of looking after these women. Such people had no conscience in them. This is demonstrated in Shauna Singh Baldwin’s novel â€Å"What The Body Remembers† where the daughter-in-law of a Sikh family, Kusum is mercilessly killed by her father-in-law and furthermore chopped into pieces to prevent her from being â€Å"contaminated†24 by Muslims. Her womb is also removed as a symbolic gesture to signify her being pure25. We can therefore read into the implied fear and repulsion of a child born of an inter-religious union. Hence, Kusum is a victim of her own family’s moral code. Such incidents are not hyperbolic in nature but rather fictionalized accounts of reality. Women who were misfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the â€Å"other†26 and raped by them could never again return to their roots. They were dirtied and treated as untouchable because they had lost their chastity to the enemy. In â€Å"The River Churning†, the protagonist, Sutara is treated as a lower caste untouchable would be27. Though never raped, even staying in a Muslim household had damned her. She had become polluted like Sita. Like Sita, she became a victim of â€Å"social morality†.28 If women had become pregnant somehow, it was even worse for them. They were miscarried forcibly and if the child was born somehow, he or she was never accepted as a part of the family. Women themselves had to come to terms with their reality. They had to learn to let go of their self-loathing which often took root in their minds. They had to live with a child who was a constant reminder of their suffering. Yet, women learned to let go and forgive but their families could not move past this situation. The woman was given the choice of either abandoning her children or her family. Therefore, she was kept trapped in overlapping identities of woman, mother and daughter. There was no time to consider the interests of the self. The children of such women were often physically, mentally and verbally abused all throughout their lives. They were the victims of religious hatred. It left deep scars on their psyche that could never be repaired. They were often castigated for having lived and their mothers looked at with contempt for not having died in order to preserve themselves. Women often started hating their own selves when faced with a constant stream of disgust and repulsion. It is said that â€Å"Rape is the only crime where the victim is held guilty† and these women were the prime examples of this adage. They were made to feel guilty, demeaned and dehumanized to such an extent that they often felt that dying would perhaps have been a better option. Women were at the highest risk of being abducted during migration across borders. These women stranded on the wrong side were forcibly converted and married off to their abductors. They were raped repeatedly or sold off as entertainment. Women were objectified as commodities and their bodies became alien to their own selves. They were not their own persons but mere belongings. Anis Kidwai in her novel, â€Å"Azaadi Ki Chaon Mein† writes starkly about these girls who were nothing but stuff to be shared among the men who were, but slaves of their lust. In his short story, Open It!, Saadat Hasan Manto further elaborates upon the savagery doled out to these women. The main protagonist, Sakina had been ravaged to such an extent that she had lost her personality and her sanity. She was alive only physically, but emotionally and mentally dead. She knew nothing but what she had been forced to go through again and again. Her senses had been so wrecked that she only expects men to want one thing from her i.e. her body. This story presents a horrifying picture to the reader who is compelled to question if Sakina will ever recover from her trauma. Other women were forcibly married off to their abductors and underwent alienation of the self. They were conflicted as to their identities. On one hand, they felt abhorrence for their abductors. On the other hand, such marriages often bore children which caused these women to war with their motherly instincts. Ultimately losing all hope of rescue or restoration, these women had resigned to their life but, again, they were expected to return at the behest of the respective governments of the two countries. Women had become mere tools of diplomatic manoeuvring between the hostile governments who were under immense political pressure to retrieve the population of women that had been left behind or abducted during Partition. One such woman’s tale is narrated in â€Å"Exile†29 where the woman narrator is forcibly married to her abductor, Gurpal, a man who regards her as nothing more than a maid that he brought to serve his mother (Badi Ma). What is even more poignant is the fact that Badi Ma, a woman herself is not able to empathise with her Bahu30 or show kindness towards her. She is merely there to serve their needs, like a tool. Ironically, Gurpal who is clearly devoted towards his mother evidently has no guilt about ill-treating a woman of another community. We can see here the oppressive influence of patriarchal society that does not allow for women to exercise an opinion of their own. The narrator has never been able to accept Gurpal as her husband. In nine years she has never able to understand why her brother, whom she dearly loves has not come to rescue her. She feels lonely and abandoned by her loved ones. She longs for her home and wants her life to end at last so she can be at peace. When the soldiers arrive to rescue her, she knows that she cannot return since she will not be accepted back as a ‘mother’. And she cannot leave her children. Hence she hides from the soldiers. Her apprehension of the other option can be justified by reading â€Å"Lajwanti†31 whose tragedy is shrouded by complete silence. She was treated abominably by her husband, Sunderlal who asserts his domination over her body and mind by beating her like an animal. She bore it all as part of her wifely duties clearly adhering to traditional norms of domesticity. But when she is abducted during Partition chaos, her husband, perhaps, feeling remorse for how he had treated her, became a campaigner for the rights of abductee women. He advocates their rehabilitation and reacceptance into society but when his wife, Lajo is restored to him, he distances himself from her and sets her on the pedestal of a goddess. She feels alienated, lonely and longs for her old life where she could at least interact with her husband. In the present, her husband wants her to forget her sufferings and not to speak of them. But can the past really be forgotten as easily as he wanted it to be? Many women who had built new lives for themselves post-Partition often came face to face with their pasts when their lost loved ones returned back to them. In this situation, what was the woman to do? Should she abandon her present life to return to her past happiness? This is obviously a problem to which there is no clear-cut solution. But it was often expected of women to move on from their pasts and not look back but even they are living, breathing human beings with feelings and emotions. These may be unwanted but cannot be so easily banished from the mind. Women end up feeling conflicted all throughout their lives. One text that accurately depicts one such situation is â€Å"A Visitor From Pakistan†32 where the protagonist Saraswati is trapped between her first husband, Baldev whom she had thought dead; and her husband at present, Sunderdas who had saved her and her parents during the riots. Her own mother chastises her for even talking to Baldev so then who will understand her predicament? She is blamed for something that she is not even responsible for. Partition left a long-lasting impact on the women who witnessed and suffered through it. They passed on the lessons they learned to their daughters hoping for a better future for them. It is an important part of women’s history and it should be analysed carefully to change the conservative thought processes of Indian society to avoid women from becoming subjects of patriarchal oppression and break the repetitive patterns of history. END NOTES : 1. India and Pakistan were divided along the Radcliffe Line with Muslim majority areas seceded to Pakistan and Hindu-Sikh majority areas to India. 2. Mahatma Gandhi was deemed the â€Å"Father Of The Nation† and hence affectionately called Bapu by the general populace. 3. J.L. Nehru and M.A. Jinnah were leaders of the Congress party and Muslim League respectively. They were not agreeable to sharing power in the united govt. of sovereign India and hence the only option was to divide the country with both parties ruling over their majority vote areas. 4. The metaphor of madness was used by many Partition writers like Saadat Hasan Manto in â€Å"Toba Tek Singh† to describe the religious hatred that changed normal people into rioters, rapists and murderers. 5. J.L. Nehru stated this in The International Women’s Conference in 1947 alluding to the extreme violence perpetrated upon women in North India. 6. Ideas postulated by Carl Jung and supported by Freudian theories. 7. Women were kept under purdah and not allowed to meet with people outside the family. Women lived in separate quarters of the house called the ‘antahpur’ which was solely in their control. 8. written by Krishan Chander 9. written by Bhishma Sahni 10. written by Gurmukh Singh Musafir 11. Ironic since Munni’s saviour is herself a victim of circumstances and Munni is just a way to earn more money. 12. â€Å"A Grave Turned Inside Out† by Ibrahim Jalees 13. Ayesha was the lady of a noble family but debased to the level of a common prostitute. Shows that societal hierarchies were suspended during Partition. 14. written by Sultan Jamil Nasim 15. The slogans Hindustan Zindabad and Pakistan Zindabad were carved onto their bodies as validating gestures of the victimiser’s own national identity. 16. Derealisation is a psychological condition where the subject deludes himself/herself into thinking that their present reality is illusory and unreal and that reality is different. 17. Independence was achieved after a long struggle, so there was jubilation among the people but at the same time, this happiness was marred by the grief of Partition and its aftermath. 18. written by Intizar Hussain 19. Izzat is one of the basic concepts of Hindu womanhood where a woman’s honour is defined by her chastity and any outrage of her modesty stains her honour as well as her family’s. The family’s honour is an extension of the woman’s honour. 20. Internalisation is the process of integration of certain values as part of the self-identification. It becomes a part of one’s self-image. 21. Johar is the ancient Rajput tradition of women jumping into huge fire-pits to save their honour from the enemy’s army if defeat seemed imminent. 22. Women jumped into wells to protect themselves from rape and mutilation. Dying chaste was preferred to living a life of humiliation. Hence, they were saved in the eyes of society. 23. Women who committed suicide were venerated because they were believed to have died for a noble cause. Hence, their deaths received social sanction and appreciation. 24. If women were raped, their bodies no longer remained solely of their religion. And, hence, inter-religious taboos were applied to such women. Hence chopping of the bodies signified that no one of the other side had had sex with her or would be able to. 25. The womb was removed to signify that it did not carry a Muslim bastard child and her ability to do so is removed from her. 26. During conflict, the opposing faction is alienated and presented as someone strange and unfamiliar to the minds of the mob. This requires dehumanization of the people from the other side so that they do not evoke emotions of sympathy. 27. The taboos associated with untouchability are not allowing them to eat and drink from the same vessels and prevent from touching them. 28. Sita was banished from Ayodhya because even though she was pure, the people of Ram’s kingdom did not believe her. Doubts were cast on her character since she had lived in Ravana’s Lanka for a long time. 29. Written by Jamila Hashmi 30. When a bahu arrives in her marital household, she is bedecked with jewels, dressed in finery and serenaded by shehnai. She is full of happiness and hope. Here, the narrator is exactly opposed to this situation and yet, ironically she has become the bahu of a family. 31. written by Rajinder Singh Bedi 32. written by Ramlal BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. â€Å"Partition In Fiction: Gendered Perspectives†, Isabella Bruschi, New Delhi, Atlantic Publishers Distributors (P) Ltd.,2010 2. In The Heat Of Fratricide: The Literature Of India’s Partition Burning Freshly (A Review Article)†,Jason Francisco 3. â€Å"Stories About The Partition Of India†, Vol. 1.,Ed. By Alok Bhalla, Delhi,Harper Collins, 1994 4. Re-Membering Woman: Partition,Gender And Reorientations, â€Å"Narrating Partition:Texts, Interpretations And Ideas†, Sukrita Paul Kumar, Indialog Publications,2004