There were options to take before a father murdered his own daughter . He had a sword so he could have swung it at her attackers and go down fighting . Or handed her the sword and let her at very least take out a few on her way to death
But to simply kill your women instead of fighting for them shows a total disregard for their importance . I wonder would they have given up so quickly on their sons

You can bet your bottom dollar they wouldn't have.

I was trying to post an article from Caitlin Moran, those of you who have access to the Times its on there
It's called Men the thing you don't know about women. To anyone not understanding the indignation on here, she explains it so well.

I really like men, but those who don't get it ,hurry up please because it's exhausting.

Not really - the British govt wanted to wash their hands of an issue, so arbitrarily decided that this was the way forward. We did the same to Palestine and Israel.

The analogy with Palestine and Isreal doesn't hold up. Here I will agree the British did an appallingly unjust thing.

There are articles further up this thread I suggest you read if your interested, if all you want to do is blame the naughty British then by all means feel free, it doesn't mean your right or that scholars who have studied this from an Indian, Pakistan and British point of view would agree with you.

You mean men in the third world not the western world, and Sikh men and Muslim men, not Christian men.

You have to put yourself in their shoes at the time, their culture, their attitudes, their religion etc and try to understand the nuances of the situation - you can't look at it through modern western eyes.

On the Indian sub-continent they used to bury lepers alive until the British banned the practice. Their wives used to throw themselves on their husband's funeral pyre until the British banned that as well, though it still occasionally happens, I think the last one was about 10 years ago.

Indian women would kill themselves by burning if their men lost in battle rather than be taken by the other side (where throwing themselves on the funeral pyre came from, I think). You have to look at it from their historical perspective.

Anyway, Anita seemed proud of her Uncle at the end of the programme so that is all that should matter.

I hope men will now be praised for allowing female Samurai.

I don't pay to read the rich man's news so I can't read what one of his female lackeys is writing. I see the beginning witters on about the usual nonsense though.

But don't worry, there's a headline at the bottom left of the page where a 17 year old boy hangs himself because of a false rape allegation, so that should cheer you up.

So lets get this straight - you're saying that the women would have died anyway through gang rape, torture, mutilation, being set on fire etc, which may have lasted hours or days but the Sikh men were still wrong for giving them a quick death.

The men should have died for their daughters, even though you view men as the enemy within. Any 'normal' father (weak, easily manipulated mangina) would lay down his life for his daughter (but men are the enemy within). Obviously the problem is that the women died and the men didn't, if the men die no one gives a damn because that's their job (I hope no man would die for any woman nowadays).

And all this happened in a non western culture, but of course men in the west whether white, non-white, Christian or indeed Muslim and Sikh get the blame for it in 2015 - thanks.

There hadn't been centuries of peaceful coexistence, just the opposite! India was warring kingdoms prior to Britidh rule and the traditional divide and conquer tactics were used during British rule

And this week it's in the news about a Hindu mob attacking al Muslim family and beating two members to death, because the temple announced a rumour that they were eating beef!

These things happened before and after partition and rape is still used as a form of punishment and social control.

BIB - Wow. You draw an astonishing conclusions from what I said. I said a father should fight for his child. As should a mother. I'd hope as a man in the west you would be as angry as a woman in the west - or as a non-gender specific alien living on Mars - that one segment of society would be regarded as chattels to be disposed of by another as they see fit. There are parts of the world today where women are executed or imprisoned for being raped, where they exist only to serve their fathers, husbands or brothers. If you replaced 'women' with a racial group, we would be sanctioning those countries - we might even be dropping bombs on them - but because it's 'women', we sigh and say we have to respect religious and cultural differences. How does that not make you angry?!

I didn't mention the warring kingdoms which was why the British were so successful in ruling India in the first place, I did mention that Muslim and Hindus managed to live intermingled peacefully for many years, until 1942 where various Indian politicians chose to make it an issue, and hence it lead to partition.
If peaceful intermingling had not happened there would not have been the need for mass migration on partition.

Yes sadly peaceful co existence doesn't seem to be happening .


You last sentence horrifies me, not even a sadly, no mention that it shouldn't?

No how about looking at it from a human beings point of view, all those things you mention are horrific, how does it stop what the grandfather doing what he did being equally horrific and wrong?

My point being and continues to be, he didn't have the right to do what he did, if she wanted to immolate herself on his sword, fair enough, if she had asked him , fair enough, he chose to kill her, it wasn't his choice to make.

Yes she was proud of her uncle, good but in this conversation irrelevant.

We were discussing the various religions co-existing, which, by and large, is what I understand to be the case until the twentieth century when they became politicised in the jockeying for power in the lead up to independence.

Yes absolutely, I am not what one could call a rampant feminist, mostly it doesn't occur to me that men and women should be treated differently. I happen to work in a profession where men and women are equally respected and valued for the most part, so when someone treats a woman as a second class citizen it jars, it surprises me and I can't understand why it isn't jarring and upsetting others of either sex.

I know many, many men for whom it is like breathing to not treat women as inferior, one has to ask why other men don't even see what they are doing?

And religion, social conditioning, non of these are anyway an adequate excuse.

Wow - agenda? much!

I read these sorts of posts all the time on GD. I normally ignore them to be honest. They appear to me to be the rantings of a male of the species, who for the first time in history, does not have all the cards and no longer holds all the power and doesn't like it. The 'poor beleagured male act' comes across to me as the lament of those not playing with a full deck. Why they should feel that giving women parity with men puts them down, I have no idea.

Questions
I don't pay to read the rich man's news so I can't read what one of his female lackeys is writing[/
Why do you see fit to call an educated, intelligent woman who has become a successful writer and journalist a lackey? Is it too hard to believe that women have minds and opinions of their own?

I hope men will now be praised for allowing female Samurai
Why do you think men should be praised for allowing women to fulfil their own destinys. Why is the right of men to choose whether women are or not allowed to become what they wish,?

Nobody is saying it is men's duty to lay down their lives for women or anyone else. The fact that historically they have chosen to fight for everything is moot but I don't think it has often been done at a woman's bidding. Men choose to do this for whatever reason.

The issue here is that it is deemed a man's right to choose the fate of "his women folk". He may dress it up as a sacrifice he is making for their own good but what gives him the right to be making those decisions for them? Then when you add in the concept of honour, so that the thinking is that the purity and demeanour of my wife, mother, sister, daughter reflects on me, I find it hard to believe that beheading you daughter is done for her good and not to preserve some notion that male honour is at stake.

ETA - As far as I am concerned race and creed are immaterial. It is as likely Christians will think this way as any other religious s or racial group. The common thread is ignorance, lack of education and flaccid intellect that can breed in any society.

Unless I'm misremembering (which is entirely possible), the horror story of the beheadings was told by a man unrelated to Anita. When her Grandfather's wife and children died, I believe he was elsewhere in the country, so not involved in their deaths. She was indignant that no one in her family knew he had had a daughter as well as a son, from which we could infer some criticism of him (and the times), but she seemed mollified that he had made a pilgrimage to record and honour his first family's existence - and included Mahindra(?) - before remarrying.

3 cheers for An Throp, though remind me never to argue against you

Abso-bloody-lutely!

This is the way I remember it too.

I love the fact that Mahindra ignored even by her family, though not her father, is remembered 60 years later by people half a world away.

Yes, it's brilliant and heart-breaking at the same time

Hear Hear . Well said

Allowing... It does seem to assume that it is men's right to decide what women do.

My attitude is that other people may have cultural attitudes and rituals, but they tend to be man-made rather than human-made. I'd like to see all humans with equal status and rights.

That docu-drama seemed to me to be relevant to Anita's family tree story - and Anita's attitude. The Samurai women had heard of atrocities carried out against women by the opposing army, but chose to die fighting, They chose that more in spite of their fellow male Samurai's wishes than because of their wishes.

The Samurai women had their own weapons which minimised their size and strength disadvantages and trained from a young age to a high level of fighting ability.

applauds!

'Totally responsible'? The only possible blame is the Labour government rushed things too fast but it would have been difficult to hold things back once independence had been promised.