To all the folks saying it doesn’t matter if @hinduoncampus is run by women, what matters is the work…wake up. Look around. Look at all the work that Hindu women do to support our community, from family to scholarship to leadership.
The ways that women do this work is very different than men. We often lead from behind. We support our men and women equally. We do a ton of the invisible work that goes unrecognized. We see engage in landscapes that are unique to living as women. Hindu women are incredible.
So why does our community have a reputation of being patriarchal? Because Hindu men will prop each other up with a level of enthusiasm that you simply don’t see in their support of our women. They’ll talk about Devi or Shakti and erase the actual brilliance of specific women.
They’ll fill their podcasts and whatnot with members of their boys’ club and once in a while invite a woman. The men can be utterly unqualified to speak but they are experts. Women are held to higher standards if given any platform. (Note: I’m not looking for an invitation here.
Hindu women take a ton of public abuse from inside and outside our community and yet you don’t often find a lot of Hindu men standing up in support of our women in the ways they’d defend each other. If they support our work or reputations, it’s usually behind the scenes or tacit.
And this isn’t just Hindu men in India or first gen immigrants. Some second gen HA men, too. The boys club is painfully obvious. When Hindu women are celebrated, it’s an exception. “Tag your fav female handles.” (Which is great, but it indicates there isn’t parity.)
So when @hinduoncampus shares that they’re run by women, it does matter. It matters to Hindu women. It is incredibly disheartening out here for us on a daily basis.
Let us at least have this.
Let us at least have this.
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