It’s that time of the year again in Nepal, the time when The Hidden Treasure picks (on April 11 this year) the most beautiful woman in the country: Miss Nepal! ๐ ๐
Back in June 2017, I tweeted two charts showing the breakdown of the beauty pageant contestants, winners and their judges by ethnicity using information available on the Miss Nepal web site and Wikipedia.
Breakdown of #MissNepal contestants, #winners & #judges 1994-2017 using only the available information. #BeautyPageant #Ethnicity #Nepal pic.twitter.com/HVhGVK521P
โ Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) June 8, 2017
A Twitter user had an amusing response to it. He tweeted, “Let’s not fight for reservation in beauty pageant. Shall we? Wonder why they exist in the first place?”
Not understanding what he was getting at — how and why he connected the pie charts to reservation (affirmative action) — I tweeted saying I had “no clue” what he was taking about. (Incidentally, I am aware of the fact that I can’t hide his Twitter handle in the tweet embeds while I have redacted them in the images shared.)
.@kdulal “Let’s not fight for reservation in beauty pageant. Shall we?”
I have no clue what u r talking about…unless that was a joke!
โ Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) June 10, 2017
But then, instead of a straight forward response to my question, he tweeted, “You should have some clue at least since you put the graph in the first place” indicating, at least to me, that he had no clue that I had no clue what he was getting at.
In response, I reiterated that I really didn’t “have a clue.”
i really don’t have a clue & am NOT joking. All I did was share 2 charts abt ethnic composition of those involved in #MissNepal pageants. +
โ Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) June 11, 2017
+ I would love for you to explain how that constitutes a “fight for #reservation [#AffirmativeAction]” in beauty pageants in #Nepal!
โ Dorje Gurung (@Dorje_sDooing) June 11, 2017
To which another user chimed in saying, “It’d be really funny if someone fought for reservation in a BP. I don’t think the OP posted the charts for that tho, worth discussing why.”
It’d be really funny if someone fought for reservation in a BP ๐. I don’t think the OP posted the charts for that tho, worth discussing why.
โ เคฐเฅเคชเค Rupak (@risalrupak) June 11, 2017
@kdulal didn’t even acknowledge @risalrupak’s tweet!
Anyway, I took the conversation private, Direct Messaging him with a few questions, which led to more exchanges.
After a few more exchanges following that he did concede, “I do not understand your point for why you divided according to caste in the first place.” Sadly though, at no point did he display any understanding of his mistake in the assumptions he made about my “intention” behind creating the chart or about “what the charts showed.”
A day after the exchanges ended, he messaged an apology, which was commendable since I have discovered Nepali men (no different from many other men around the world) struggle to admit their mistake and apologize! He also appears to view the charts differently (see highlighted bit).
Of course, I wasn’t hurt! More than anything, I was really surprised that someone who completed his further studies in Canada and lives in that country struggled so much to see the charts I produced for what they were: just presentation of information available in the public domain in a different format!
I have, however, received, also on social media, similarly surprising reactions from mostly Nepali men (again!) to a chart I produced showing the breakdown by ethnicity of a number of bodies in the country.
