THG 19: Nepal in the Global Anti-feminist Crusade
A look at how the emerging narrative of masculine victimhood in Nepal fits with the global trend.
Andrew Tate has been in the news lately after his Twitter spat with Greta Thunberg and his subsequent trip to the Romanian prison. Latest update has it that he has failed to walk free from there despite a plethora of fake news about his release.
Even if you were new to the whole affair, this pithy piece in the Guradian by Martha Gill explains it superbly beginning with the title: Andrew Tate isn’t Feminism’s Bastard Child. He’s Sexism’s Last Gasp.
Giving the global context to the movement that Tate now leads, Gill writes:
Does misogynistic anger among young men in the west correlate to their new economic and social status? Is Tate equality’s bastard child? It’s a theory.
Just one problem. Take a look at the world’s more entrenched patriarchies – those countries where men still unequivocally hold the whip hand – and you’ll find just as many angry young men flocking to misogynist ideologues at the merest glimmerings of feminist progress. Except they’ll be angrier. And there will be more of them.
Take South Korea, where women are still paid a third less than men, giving it the worst gender pay gap in the rich world, and where a culture of harassment includes hidden cameras in female lavatories. Feeble government efforts to address this in the mid-2010s were enough to spark a huge anti-feminist movement among the country’s young men. In a 2019 survey, 60% of men in their 20s said discrimination against women was not a serious problem, while two-thirds thought unfairness to men was the big issue. The country’s anti-feminist leader, Yoon Suk-yeol, was propelled to victory last year on the votes of young men. He had promised to enhance punishments for “false accusations” of sexual harassment and blamed feminism for low birthrates.
This brings me back to Nepal where a thousand Tates, not all of them men, are crusading—according to a phony and corrosively dangerous narrative building up right now—to safeguard the menfolk of the country from being destroyed by a host of teenage girls by first seducing them and then accusing them of rape.
In a country, where heinous crimes like rape and murder go unpunished for decades, it would be funny to see the ‘all men are doomed because of false persecution’ narrative blooming in Tiktok, Facebook and Youtube if it were not so tragic and cruel thing to do.
Incidentally, two portals carried a piece each about the women’s issues yesterday even though I had submitted them almost a week apart.
One deals with the toxic mix of misinformation, poor judgment, inherent misogyny, misplaced male victimhood and extreme commercialization in Nepal’s folk music scene where pervertly prodigious childeren are (ab)used to sing sensational songs around the themes of sexual violence:
'दस लाख' दोहोरी- विषाक्त पितृसत्ताको खेती
पछिल्लो भिडिओमा उनले भनेअनुसार गीत विवाद आएपछिका दिनमा कक्षामा आएर स्कुलका प्रिन्सिपलले भने- गाउन त राम्रो गाएको हो तर बुझ्नेले नराम्रो बुझ्यो। दोहोरीमा जे पनि हुन्छ नानी, केही पनि हुँदैन, नआत्तिऊ!
मेरो विचारमा ती प्रिन्सिपल साक्षर होलान्, शिक्षित छैनन्, कम्तीमा शिक्षाको अर्थ किताब घोक्नमा सीमित नगर्ने हो भने।
गीतमा एक ठाउँमा ‘होश गर अठार पुग्नै बाँकी छ’ भनिएको छ, माथिको मुख्य विवादित टुक्का त भइहाल्यो। समग्रमा गीतको सार नाबालिग केटीले वयस्क केटालाई फसाउन खोजेको भन्ने छ।
समाजमा मानिसहरू त्यही भाष्य प्रयोग गरेर बलात्कार र उत्पीडनमा पर्ने नाबालिगदेखि बालिगसम्म महिलाहरूका आरोपलाई लत्याउन धुरिएका छन्। कतिसम्म भने, देशको नाबालिग बलात्कारसम्बन्धी कानुन नै पुरूषद्वेषी भयो, त्यसलाई खारेज गर्नुपर्यो भनेर चर्को पैरवी भइरहेको छ। झन्डै बेहोसी भन्न मिल्ने मानसिक अवस्थामा नाबालिगले गाएका गीत हेरेर तीसौं लाख मानिसले त्यस खाले भाष्यलाई समाजमा स्वीकृति दिलाउन प्रयास गरिरहेका छन्।
त्यो पृष्ठभूमिमा ती प्रिन्सिपलले त्यो दोहोरीमा राम्रो के बुझे? बालबालिकाहरले वयस्कसित दोहोरी गाएर यौन हिंसाजस्तो दुःसाध्य विषयलाई सामान्यीकरण गरेको, यौन हिंसाका पीडितहरूलाई पुरूष फसाउँदै लाखौं असुली गर्ने व्यक्तिमा चित्रण गरेको कुरा राम्रो हो?
त्यस्तो बुझाइ भएका ती प्रिन्सिपलले आफ्ना स्कुलका बालबालिकाहरूलाई यौन हिंसा र त्यसबाट बच्ने उपायहरूबारे कस्तो शिक्षा दिन्छन् होला?
The other deals with the painfully prolonged struggle of a small group of women to secure justice for a woman who was kidnapped and murdered to appropriate her valuable property almost a decade ago:
निर्मलालाई न्याय : रविको अग्निपरीक्षा
गृहमन्त्री बन्नेबित्तिकै राष्ट्रिय स्वतन्त्र पार्टीका अध्यक्ष रवि लामिछानेले महेन्द्रनगरकी निर्मला पन्तको हत्यासम्बन्धी फाइल खोल्न निर्देशन दिएको भन्ने समाचार आयो । त्यसको केही सातापछि काठमाडौंको माइतीघरमा नेपालगन्जकी निर्मला कुर्मीका हत्याराहरूमाथि कारबाहीको माग गर्दै महिला अभियन्ताहरूको धर्ना सुरु भयो । त्यसलगत्तै लामिछानेले उनीहरूलाई ‘प्रदर्शन छाडेर अनुसन्धानमा सहयोग गर्न’ अनुरोध गरेको भन्ने समाचार आयो ।
मेरो विचारमा दुवै पीडितको हकमा जे गर्नुपर्ने थियो लामिछानेले ठ्याक्कै उल्टो गरे ।
As I am giving final touch to my upcoming book, THG recommendations may get shorter and more sparse. Here is a glimpse of the Nepali book in English translation:
