In the wake of reports of mass molestation in Bangalore during New Year’s Eve celebrations, I tweeted an article saying how the reaction of the Indian men twitterati, starting the hastag #NotAllMen AND getting it to trend, was typical of Subcontinental men.
“#NotAllMen has trended in India all day.” That epitomizes what is partly WRONG with us men in the Subcontinent. https://t.co/dWyNMbKfK6
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 4, 2017
I came across my Nepalese equivalent of the typical subcontinental (social media?) man less than a week later.
It came about when I tweeted an article about the remand in custody, by the police, of a conductor and a driver of a public vehicle for verbally abusing and harassing girl passengers.
This is great news! This needs to happen EVERY SINGLE TIME a girl or a woman is harassed in public places. https://t.co/04mJkhbmNd
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 9, 2017
The Nepalese man responded saying that boys and men “does not deserve to be harassed.”
“Knowing” him — I had had discussions with him in the past when he had shown, firstly, to have issues with my arguments and, secondly, to struggle with logic — AND noticing both the assumption he made and the fallacy in his logic, I tried to shed light on them BOTH to help him understand them, but to no avail. (For images of some of the series of exchanges I had with him immediately following that tweet, click here, here, here, here, and here.)
It was clear that he just didn’t understand what I was saying and yet kept insisting on an answer to his question. So, I made a series of tweets to explain everything starting with the following.
.@bagale77 I already answered ur Q saying there’s a problem with LOGIC (see image below). Inherent assumption in your Q is also as issue. pic.twitter.com/cQSgADfIxp
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
(To which he responded saying that I had gotten his original tweet “wrong”.)
.@bagale77 That NO ONE should be harassed by anyone, any time, anywhere, under any circumstance, is a GIVEN, is obvious!
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
(To which he responded saying, “that’s the spirit. appreciate u.” Obviously, he missed the significance of what I said!)
.@bagale77 BUT ur bringing up the issue of harassment of boys & men when d issue of harassment of girls & women were the topic showed that + pic.twitter.com/De7rMwfeu5
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
.@bagale77 + in addition to the issue with logic, It showed that u either don’t know or appreciate the number of orders of magnitude +
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
.@bagale77 + in difference between d kind/nature, level&duration of harassment faced by girls & women, including d places & circumstances +
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
.@bagale77 + in which they face them, & those faced by boys & men.
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
(He didn’t respond to the tweets above. I suspect because, most likely, he didn’t understand them.)
Then I went on to make a statement about harassment of females in general.
.@bagale77 #Nepal has about 14 million girls & women. ALL of them experience/fear (sexual) harassment of one kind or another EVERYWHERE +
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
(Bizarrely, but not surprisingly, he misinterpreted the above tweet. He WRONGLY thought that I was saying the girls in the public vehicle had ACTUALLY been sexually harassed. When I asked for evidence, he responded saying, “Your logic did.“)
@bagale77 + pretty much EVERYDAY, ALL of their lives. +
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
(Even an informal, non-scientific, online poll conducted by Code for Nepal recently discovered 98% of girls and women respondents to have been victims of harassment in public transportation.)
Next, I addressed the assumption in his original tweet starting with a question.
.@bagale77 + #Nepal also has abt 14 mil. boys & men. How many of them experience/fear d same level, kind&duration of (sexual) harassment? +
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
(He didn’t respond to that either. My guess is that he did NOT understand the question. Regardless, I had already provided, indirectly, the answer to the question in an earlier tweet, to which he hadn’t responded either.)
.@bagale77 + That is NOT 2 say that they don’t, which relates to the issue of logic with your question.
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
.@bagale77 So, LOGICAL & APPROPRITE to bring up harassment of boys & men as a serious issue when discussing harassment of girls & women?
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
(Of course not, but again, he didn’t respond to the question, and so I am left to assume that he did NOT understand the tweet.)
.@bagale77 Let me spell it out for u: That boys & men r NOT harassed DOES NOT logically follow from the statement that girls & women r. +
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
.@bagale77 + So, u DON’T need to point out that boys & men ARE HARASSED too! If u do, u display a lack of understanding of the statement. +
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
(He misunderstood the above tweet too. Firstly, he WRONGLY thought I had misread the article: he pointed out that girls were harassed and the boys faced the consequences. Secondly, in another tweet, not only did he (again) WRONGLY think I had accused him of saying that boys were harassed, he reinforced his original tweet saying “no one should be harassed.”)
.@bagale77 + Similarly, back 2 color of object, if it’s NOT white, it doesn’t logically follow that it must be black, d “opposite” color! pic.twitter.com/lEcIipRQeb
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) January 11, 2017
To give another example, when activists in the US say #BlackLivesMatter, it does NOT logically follow that white lives don’t matter.
When highlighting or raising issues affecting females in the country —- in newspaper articles, on social media, for instance — I have noticed a tendency, on the parts of Nepalese boys and men, to refocus and redirect the attention to themselves, not much different from Subcontinental men in general, not much different from the way the Indian men on Twitter did when women and girls were expressing outrage over the new year eve mass molestation incident in Bangalore earlier this month.
What do you think?
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Additional Relevant References (added after the publication of the post):
E-samata (February, 2017). नेपाली मिडियामा लैङ्गिकहिंसा सम्बन्धी समाचार निकै कम छापिन्छन् (Low level of reportage of gender-based violence in Nepali Media). “नेपाली मिडियामा महिला हिंसाका समाचार सामग्रीहरू कति र कसरी प्रस्तुत गरिएका छन् भन्ने विषयमा अस्मिता प्रकाशनले हालै गरेको नेपाली मिडियामा लैङ्गिक हिंसासम्बन्धी समाचार सञ्चार अनुगमन प्रतिवेदनले नेपालका मिडियाले महिला हिंसाको प्रकाशन र प्रशारण सन्तोषजनक ढंगले नगरिरहेको पाएको छ ।” The article also reports on the data.
Kantipur (February, 2017). पैसा र पारपाचुके. See below for a tweet of mine containing a Facebook critique of the article.
A detailed critique (by @AmritaLamsal) of a poorly written article by someone who can’t see beyond his patriarchy-shaped nose! #GenderIssues pic.twitter.com/K4Wvxeq6sz
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) February 27, 2017
No surprise that we can see the following kind of promotions in Kathmandu!
Sadly, many might/probably see this as just a harmless joke. #GenderIssues #Kathmandu #Nepal pic.twitter.com/uBs8aKsTp3
— Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) February 27, 2017
#NotAllMen explained so so much better than what I could have accomplished had I even attempted: Think It’s #NotAllMen? These 4 Facts Prove You’re Just Plain Wrong. [Added on Nov. 6, 2017.]