TV Can Be A Good Thing!

“TV Is Good For You” By Joel Waldfogel (Slate)

Central Argument: TV is helping women in rural India by making them aware of their freedoms, rights, and by bringing them out of a backward mindset.

I have lived in rural India and witnessed, as well as experienced women being mistreated not just by their husbands, but their families as well. Seeing other women – on TV shows, in movies, or on shows like Oprah – who have faced the same issues and overcome them empowers these rural women to act on protecting themselves. These women learn small things like having a voice in the household, to bigger things like being able to work, to more serious issues like standing up against Domestic Violence.

In many households in India, even all over the world, men claim the title of the “Head of the Family.” Though that aspect of women’s rights and equality is a different ball-game altogether. However, in many Indian households, including mine, the men believe the women are their property and responsibility. They take no notice of the women’s rights as individuals. Instead women are treated like children; their decisions being made for them with them having no say in anything related to the house or their lives. The women uncomplainingly accept this because it’s how their parents raised them along with seeing their own mothers ill treated by their husbands. Watching TV shows where women run the household, and go outside unsupervised gives oppressed women the courage to do so themselves. It’s a classic case of change in behavior by modeling. (Psychology class)

In Hindi class, I’m presently reading a short passage on how the man in the household is sick of paying for his children’s education. How he says they’re not worth it as they are girls, and can’t go on to work. He says the child is at fault for being a girl, and blames the mother for having three girls and no boys. Women are blamed for things that are out of their hands. They are punished and abused for being born as females. When women see educated, working women they aspire to be the same, and the younger girls work their way to a level where they are capable enough with some qualifications to try to find work. In the passage spoken of, the daughter applies and gets a job proving her worth to her father. TV not only helps women come out of their shells, they help men accept the change in their women and slowly learn to appreciate the advantages of having an extra income whether by a male or female.

When they are raised, many women in India are told that their husbands are equal to God (Patee-parmeshwar), and they must worship them and acknowledge their demands and punishments. This is why many women feel their husbands are right in raising their hand on them because they feel they deserve it for disappointing/angering their “God.” My mom was one such victim of violence from her husband, and so were my brother and I. It wasn’t just violence. It was threats, emotional blackmail, depriving access to money (even if it was earned by her), depriving her transportation to go to work, and numerous manners of harassing her. Watching Oprah helped my mom stand up for herself and ask her husband for a divorce. She put away her worries about bringing her kids up with a broken family to save them from the violence they were facing. The only reason she really stayed all those years was for her kids. Oprah, and people on her show, made my mom realize it was better even for the kids (to protect them) for her to move out.

These were some examples of how women are treated in many rural Indian households, and how TV can help them. Better yet, how TV has helped them. One TV show helped me, and I’m sure there are various others that can and may help other women and children in different parts of India.