u/eaglewings025

In the last few days, I saw a few of angry posts by dark skinned girls, and in few central india subreddits, how the fair-skinned girls undermined the systematic colorism exists. I really want to exactly my experience because, these conversations are always undermined by feminist solidarity, while our individual experiences are deeply painful.

First, the talks about colorism always get reduced to how male attention and male gaze is towards fair skinned women. But I want to divert from that. While that has very blatant representation, life is not cinema, and while many boys and men are deeply colorist, they have also not mistreated me, as a dark skin woman, as another woman and institutions and systems have done. The idea of femininity, who gets elevation, power and status changes based on color a woman is born with.

The first thing a person does when they see a dark color in a woman is, they try to assort them into caste and class. While its true that many people across caste have different skin colors, the general idea is that if you are dark, either you are poor or lower caste. This is where all the prejudice begin.

1. I was maybe 12 years old, when I saw these older fair girls rushing to pamper young children in school. You know they do this 'cutie', 'sweetie', 'ah, you are pretty', 'cho chweet'. These idiots literally pick a fair girl playing next to a dark skinned girl, and do all this shit. They literally don't care another child is nearby and watching their interaction.

2. In the class, the fair, rich girl is always the teacher's pet.

3. I joined a classical dance class, and I was basically into leaving it. All the girls there were their upper caste, or the elite rich girls, and they basically didn't want to see me learn dance with them, eventhough my parents paid them the fee.

4. Only fair skinned girls are selected for dances. Literally, a bunch of us would raise our hands, and the teacher would just select the girl who doesn't know dance, who had not even moved her body once in life, and select her for the dance. I personally, heard one of these women, literally say that they dont want X, because she is not 'it'. X was like an younger sister to me, who was very very passionate about dance, and was hoping she would get selected. The pain I had seen on her face, I would never forget it.

5. All feminine activities only belonged to fair skinned women. Group songs front row was fair skinned girls, a photo shoot and it would be fair skinned girl representing the event, school, group dance front row was fair skinned girls, oddly I never saw a non-UC girls in classical singing and dance, because they obviously bully them. So, what do fair skinned girls get? Dress up as a male, and be partners to these girls so they can pretend princess, while we go through gender dysphoria.

6. The worst part is, in my own wedding video, the dumbf*ck of a photographer took long shots of a fair skinned relative, instead of my own family.

7. Even in education, while I was scoring well, the first thing when I become proactive is to think that I am a dumb girl who cant even pronounce few english words. I have to make sure they understand I am not to be underestimated.

8. I wont go in depth with male-desire being completely oriented on fair skinned girls. Because usually we see it as a collective response and feel disgusted, but in personal interactions Tamil guys had only been warm, if they were not assholes.

9. Some of these girls gets too many shallow attention, they keep dark girls as friends to elevate their own social status, and the disrespect and disdain they have for dark girls or even average looking girls are very very irritating. One of my friends, who did treat me like that, literally hit on my boyfriend at that time, as though she has to make a move of dominance to show her power, which is piss poor, since its just male lust and validation.

10. In job searches, in daily interactions, in workplace, what a fair skinned woman would be forgiven, laughed at, helped and not demanded, would be cruelly extracted from me.

11. The sexual fetisization by the same men, once they realize they lost their youth to fair skin chasing, was somewhere dehumanizing.

While that all being said, I found the best place to be a dark skinned woman is TamilNadu. Despite its media problem, I grew up with dark skinned girls, my friends were beautiful and dark skinned. They loved me, cherished me, and we desired dark skinned men together, and loved, and played and saw each of us with dignity. This is not to say all fair skinned women were bad. There were fair skinned girls in school, who were from lower caste, and had even worse problems. Or fair skinned girls, who didnt care for any of this and treated us as their sisters. They existed, but the skin issue is not merely issue of desirability. Its actually who is considered to be feminine, and respected, and courted with respect, and given equal opportunities based on skill, and privilege to pass through institutions and life. Please share your experiences too.

I will begin with my own mother. My mother is a casteist. She won't discriminate, because she still wants to use the labor of lower caste people, and like the belonging and love, but when it comes to marriage, she threatened to kill herself and me, if I did loved someone from another caste.

To preface, in school days, I liked a boy. Like is a softer word. Its almost like Pariyerum Perumal movie, where you are so young and still discovering the feelings, and dont know what to do. Well, whatever it was, my mother saw that something is happening, took me aside and told, 'I hope you know I will fucking kill you and myself if you stray away.'

Over the years, I observed the below behaviour in certain land-owning community girls, and women.

1. They dont easily become friends with girls from lower-caste, even if they stay in the same school and college and share rooms.

2. These girls will first ask another girls' caste directly or indirectly, and find profound sense of sisterhood when they meet their own caste girls. Somehow these girls will become suddenly friends thick and close, and tight knit.

3. There were casteist-girls who lusted over good looking boys only if they are from their own caste. They openly say, because these boys belonged to their caste, that somehow they are now 'family'.

4. Most of the adult women will not even let you inside their house, if they don't know your caste.

5. I had been friends with some of these girls, and when they invite to their house, it would be fucking brutal with the way they investigate my caste.

6. These women also have MAJOR INCENTIVES to uphold caste. They inherit a bloody lot of land and wealth, and extremely big community and its networking.

7. There are certain women from my own community, who think it is beneath their level to go out and work, and that they are inherently superior to women and men from lower caste, because of their birth, and they flaunt their wealth, coming in cars, wearing neck full of jewels, not even talking to anyone. They only look for wealthy groom for their daughters.

8. Finally, the so called anxiety - 'Maanatha vaangiratha.', 'Naalu peru moonjile epdi muzhikrathu', 'Thala muzhigiruvom', 'pombala pullaya pethu vayithula neruppa katti irukom', are all casteist-anxiety. My own mother watched me be molested by her brother and other relatives, and just moved on. They don't care about these girls. They only care about caste protection.

Mainstream feminism will never address this. They want to only lament on, 'how women are oppressed inside the kitchen'. They dont want to address the ac-rooms, the gold jewels, the acres of land inheritance, and cars, and caste-mafia, and how these are all connected to inheritance, the inheritance that directly comes from unfair advantage through caste. They will use western feminism slogans like, 'Men want children from women, but if women wanted security from wealth, then that's materialistic'. As though that wealth is self-earned by men. These mainstream feminists do not even use Ambedkar's name.

I wrote this in profound anger, after finding another post that softened how girls are 'conditioned' by patriarchy. Yes, some are. Some are genuinely good people. I have been friends with them. There are kind people among them, who truly dont want this segregation. But, most of them I saw were of the above kind. And I am fucking tired of seeing endless self-pity from feminists who never, ever, address the caste system. Even now, they will come and say men are worse casteists. They are that self-victimizers.

I will begin with my own mother. My mother is a casteist. She won't discriminate, because she still wants to use the labor of lower caste people, and like the belonging and love, but when it comes to marriage, she threatened to kill herself and me, if I did loved someone from another caste.

To preface, in school days, I liked a boy. Like is a softer word. Its almost like Pariyerum Perumal movie, where you are so young and still discovering the feelings, and dont know what to do. Well, whatever it was, my mother saw that something is happening, took me aside and told, 'I hope you know I will fucking kill you and myself if you stray away.'

Over the years, I observed the below behaviour in certain land-owning community girls, and women.

1. They dont easily become friends with girls from lower-caste, even if they stay in the same school and college and share rooms.

2. These girls will first ask another girls' caste directly or indirectly, and find profound sense of sisterhood when they meet their own caste girls. Somehow these girls will become suddenly friends thick and close, and tight knit.

3. There were casteist-girls who lusted over good looking boys only if they are from their own caste. They openly say, because these boys belonged to their caste, that somehow they are now 'family'.

4. Most of the adult women will not even let you inside their house, if they don't know your caste.

5. I had been friends with some of these girls, and when they invite to their house, it would be fucking brutal with the way they investigate my caste.

6. These women also have MAJOR INCENTIVES to uphold caste. They inherit a bloody lot of land and wealth, and extremely big community and its networking.

7. There are certain women from my own community, who think it is beneath their level to go out and work, and that they are inherently superior to women and men from lower caste, because of their birth, and they flaunt their wealth, coming in cars, wearing neck full of jewels, not even talking to anyone. They only look for wealthy groom for their daughters.

8. Finally, the so called anxiety - 'Maanatha vaangiratha.', 'Naalu peru moonjile epdi muzhikrathu', 'Thala muzhigiruvom', 'pombala pullaya pethu vayithula neruppa katti irukom', are all casteist-anxiety. My own mother watched me be molested by her brother and other relatives, and just moved on. They don't care about these girls. They only care about caste protection.

Mainstream feminism will never address this. They want to only lament on, 'how women are oppressed inside the kitchen'. They dont want to address the ac-rooms, the gold jewels, the acres of land inheritance, and cars, and caste-mafia, and how these are all connected to inheritance, the inheritance that directly comes from unfair advantage through caste. They will use western feminism slogans like, 'Men want children from women, but if women wanted security from wealth, then that's materialistic'. As though that wealth is self-earned by men. These mainstream feminists do not even use Ambedkar's name.

I wrote this in extreme anger, after finding another post that softened how girls are 'conditioned' by patriarchy. Yes, some are. Some are genuinely good people. I have been friends with them. There are kind people among them, who truly dont want this segregation. But, most of them I saw were of the above kind. And I am fucking tired of seeing endless self-pity from feminists who never, ever, address the caste system. Even now, they will come and say men are worse casteists. They are that self-victimizers.

To preface, I myself enjoyed the book. So, I want to say I am not an exception to this, but rather how reading books written by Western authors, interpreted through Western lens, slowly begin to 'COLONISE' ourselves, while our material realities can never match theirs.

Since its been some time I have read the book, I will merely state the things that immediately caught my attention when I read the book.

1. Women hunting wealthy groom, who are rentier class. These class of men do not work, but rent their land to poor peasants and get money. We are introduced to a set of women, whose primary goal is to lock one of these men. Why? To share the resources that is obtained through the labor of other people, not earned through labor.

2. Which is strategic, and I dont want to point them out as evil. There is an opportunity and they use it. But the book criticizes, Elizabeth's mother, who is very open and pragmatic about it, even though it looks ugly, while elevating the Bennett sisters for wanting love, to legitimize the hunting of rich groom as something romantic. Strangely, they are not looking for love with men of non-rentier class, and if they did, the story makes sure to not let the heroines suffer by being married to these men or in the end, these men still end up with unearned wealth.

3. In Sense and Sensibility, they move to Barton Cottage, which the women weep about. The description of this cottage is something, that I, as a middle class in current India can never dream to own.

4. These women constantly discuss about exchanging servants, as a status move. They pity people who dont have servants. An older woman feels sorry for them for not having able to afford one. Like those servant women are not human. They are almost talked like they were chattels, without any interiority in them.

5. Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility is a COLONIAL OFFICER FROM INDIA. When I read this, I felt the pit of my stomach boil. But then, western media asks you to shut up about this, and think of the romance of the rich women, which I did. Those women didn't do anything to us, did they? But their entire lives revolved around securing marriage to a colonial exploiter like Brandon, and we are supposed to swoon for this man?

6. There is also an explicit mention of plantation based wealth accumulation in Mansfield Park.

7. The biggest tragedy of these women are not that they didn't merely inherit the wealth. That they have to do labor. That they have to become governnesses, or maids, or work like peasants in field. Which is far away from the life I lived as a woman in 21st century.

The interesting part of this is, how Western liberal media has convinced Western women to think they are all Elizabeth, and Jane, and Marianne, while in real 19th centuries, those women would have been among the 98% of women who did hard labor as peasants, maids who disappear in the worlds of Marianne and Janes, as interior less objects.

So, far I have read probably 250 books. Mostly western English books, because of the ease of being able to read in kindle, and my own increased interests in fantasy, fiction, literature, and many things that gave me entertainment, comfort, being seen and what not.

To be fair, English books are very good at psychological behaviors, abusive environment, a general commentary on social and political situations, world building in fantasies, mystery and thrillers. Reading some of these books made me felt seen, especially coming from a very abusive background. In that way, it gave language where loneliness existed, agency and an other side view of what life could be, the extent to stretches of imagination, creativity, and what not.

But, every single time, when someone asks what books did you enjoy the most, or what had affected you the most, the books I go to are, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, every book of Khaled Hosseinis. And many, who knew the amount of books I read, would ask, 'You read 250 books, and you choose that." I would say, yes, those are the book, that actually touched my heart, and soul.

But I knew I enjoyed a lot of books. I have list of authors I appreciate for the craft, detail, the world building, the fantasy, the mystery. In fact, if I had to stretch, if its not for classics, or Khaled Hosseini, I would absolutely recommend Gillian Flynn, Lisa Jewell, or many other authors who touch dysfunctional families, abuse, but nothing else. I was actually ASOIAF fan, but I do not actually recommend it as something that's moving.

What I realized is, all these contemporary books have the urge and necessity to stand out, because of market pressure. While standing out itself isn't wrong, after all Frankenstein still stands out, most of it are extremely detached from human vulnerability, joy, pain, hurt, disappointment, suffering, meaning, and witnessing. Its built on stoic, power games, individual agency, capacity, ability, the journey is more driven towards fulfillment without exposure to the ache and pain, and loss. Some books do. Some rare books certainly do, like Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma, where feelings are messy, wrong, but humane, which gets immensely criticized for not being stoic and criticizing in nature of the environment itself.

This was not the case for classics, like John Steinbeck where the characters weep, cry, make mistake, suffer, lose, and still try to connect to humanity. Or Khaled Hosseini, who builds his characters around loss, meaning, pain, and struggle. The major difference is how western world psychologically intellectualizes everything, tries to always balance human feelings without it becoming intense, or wrong, and majorly focuses on novelty of experience, shock value, agency that declares vulnerability as a mistake and doesn't fully let people feel things. They regulate feelings, like it should be measured, controlled, and composed, as though expression of it itself is weakness.

I am not going to lie, I even hated books that made me cry, because I assumed they play with feelings, like Khaled Hosseini, or the Bell Jar. But, its real in ways, as an Indian I feel emotionally related as a human.

At this point, I am going to go into cultures that are more expressive, starting from our own country. I do have good experience reading the western books, and there is a lot to enjoy and learn, but the lack of connection with most basic human vulnerability has made me more detached from my own human experience, and I want something more. I felt like I consumed a lot, and lived less.