Am I expected to be O.K. with misogyny in the service of "traditional values", or are traditional values beside the point here? A lot of "traditional" values turn out to be wrong.
I for one don't expect anyone to be okay with misogyny, whether it be cultural or not, and I presume all the other Indians here feel the same way.
I do not know of any societies with strong patriarchal norms and very little misogyny, if they do indeed exist.
Patriarchy in cultures is without fail about the control of women. All niceties around protecting them boil down to treating them as property, as chattel. You fundamentally don't have an equal situation when one gender is rendered property of another.
ergo misogyny
I do think much of the misogyny in India stems from their patriarchal values, but misogyny is a social issue rather than a cultural concept. I doubt many Indian women are cool with misogyny...
This is a new distinction (and somewhat confusing) for me. What is the difference between a social issue and a cultural concept?
Society is about the way people act among each other, culture is what is passed on and shared among a group of people.
I really hate to cite wikianswers because it's one of my least favorite sites, but this description is exactly what I am getting at: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_soc...
>"Society" is more about, "How do all these people interact?" "Culture" is more about, "What do they believe, and what do they value?"
As judged by whom?
What makes yours better? That it's you (your culture that is) that has it?
Which brings us to a bigger question: should different cultures with different values on such issues exist in parallel?
E.g I for one take offense ("common sense" to me) with any culture that is so backwards as to have the death penalty.
You clearly meant billions of men. The idea that the women of the world are crying out to be restricted from opportunity, to be rendered a second class status in society, and that it should all be enforced by cultural or religious traditions and authorities through the implied threat of violence, or often actual violence... yeah that's nonsense.
Plenty of women believe this too.
There's a difference between saying a culture is bad because they eat an animal you think it's wrong to eat and that they mistreat an entire sex and if you don't see that, you need to work on your moral system some more.
You have me on that. I'm with you all the way.
Treating women as property of men. Using violence and intimidation against women to maintain the traditional order. The normalization of sexual harassment of women in a culture at large. The institutionalized discrimination against them (try getting a divorce lawyer to take your case as a professional woman in India).
All vastly, dramatically and objectively worse.