Catalog Bride Syndrome

The last email I read on the Internet discussion group, RajivMalhotraDiscussion, before I left the group for various reasons, prompted me to write this article. Rajiv Malhotra had started a thread, “Are Hindus Today Fit For Hinduism?” and one of the respondents, Geeta Bhatt, psychoanalyzed the Hindus and had this to say (reproduced verbatim – specific phrases italicized):

“I would, however like to add the following observation from a totally different angel - parenting style of India.

A son or a male in India is on one end of the spectrum not allowed to make any decisions or take care of himself in any form or shape. Women are trained to serve the man, from drawing hot water for his bath to laying out his clothes that he would wear to work, to standing like a servant by the dinning table while he eats, but eats what his wife or mother serves him. At the other end of the same spectrum his ego is strokes and pampered at every turn. The inflated empty ego of such a man, is capable of throwing tantrum at home, and exercise a phantom display of power over the women, but in the world of men, he is ineffective, subservient and incapable of speaking his mind or be the leader.

The highly skilled, intelligent,  gifted Indian men when step in to the multinational corporations, they lack the basic skills of taking care of themselves, and appear weak and ineffective in front of others. On the other hand, Indian women of the same category who were taught to be quietly assertive, and be in charge of their homes and husband, fair much better in some situations, and thrive in a white men's world where their opinions and views are respected.

This is just another way of looking at how we are raising our boys, and it's in the kindergarten that one forms the fundamental sense of self worth.  Slavery of the psyche can be changed by teaching boys that they are not ' god's gift', and preserving their empty sense of 'worth' is an old game. The rules have changed and they need to wake up. (June 28, 2012)” 

I do not believe these are Rajiv Malhotra’s views. However, his list is highly moderated and even a well-informed, and well-referenced argument that contradicts his point of view is censored (along with a dismissive note that the member is getting pedantic or even worse “dropping names”), and Malhotra does not hesitate (it is his prerogative though) to edit out other members’ posts or interject his own comments (instead of allowing a member to express himself uninterrupted and then responding without ad hominem attacks). So, it was surprising that this email went through without a murmur. I decided to comment on it since this is a classic example of what Malhotra calls “anxiety from below” in his important work Being Different – An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism. Let us now return to Bhatt’s comments. The gist of her arguments is:

•  Indian men are incapable of taking care of themselves and cannot assert themselves in front of white men whereas Indian women somehow can
• Earning the recognition of white man is a mark of success

The first point is baseless, and if anything, is contradicted by facts. Indian men, hailing from such remote places as Moradabad and Kota, not only rise to the top of Wall Street firms and McKinsey but they are also overwhelmingly represented in Silicon Valley innovations. Many of these men went to IIT after cracking IIT-JEE, which is not only the toughest exam in the world but also one which requires a candidate to sacrifice everything else (including grades in class 12) to prepare for IIT-JEE, and only those with the highest self-worth and self-confidence can achieve that. Their children sweep Geo Bee, Spelling Bee, Math and Science Olympiads, and emerge at the top of selection list in almost all leading American universities. In places like Cupertino, unable to compete with Indian kids, whites move out of the neighborhood. This is hardly a symptom of the lack of self-esteem as Bhatt alleges. If these men are unworthy, it is indeed surprising that a FaceBook or LinkedIn should hire Indian boys, hailing from small towns and middle class families, and educated in Indian engineering colleges at phenomenal salaries. If they cannot hold their ground in front of white men then it is surprising that virtually every multi-national consulting firm should setup shops in India, hire Indian men in overwhelming numbers, and deploy them abroad. There is little evidence that Indian women fare better than their male counterparts.

So, what motivated Bhatt’s email? Not facts for sure. It can be best understood in the context of what I call “Catalog Bride Syndrome.” As Malhotra aptly points out in his book, the west suffers from “anxiety from above” and many societies that have been victims of western colonizing exhibit “anxiety from below.” This is often characterized by a compulsive desire to first assume that the western norms are ideal and then to evaluate other societies according to these norms. A westerner is keen, subconsciously or otherwise, on imposing his norms on other societies and these societies in turn are anxious to proclaim their conformance and subservience.

There is yet another characteristic too. The west is inherently a parasitic, selfish and exploitative culture deriving its justification from the Christian notion of Chosen People. It has not only selfishly exploited other societies by colonizing them in the past but continues to do so by other means today - the Swiss secret banking system which encourages stooges of the west to loot ordinary people’s money in developing nations and hide them away in secret bank accounts being an example. This exploitative tendency extends itself to other walks of life too and manifests itself in the form of western male attitude towards the feminine.

A western woman has to play by the rules of the game to fit in. Marriages are hardly sacred in western societies where one leases a spouse just the way one leases a car. Just as one might test drive many cars and eventually lease one for a few years, most westerners date many partners and since their marriages often end in divorces, it is as if they had just leased a partner for the duration of their short-lived marriage. The western model is highly exploitative of women (and children too), treats her as a trophy to be coveted, and does not breed trust. Recent researches in human sexology indicate that nearly 70 percent of western women report faking orgasm and one of the reasons is “insecure avoidance” in which a woman fakes orgasm to avoid difficult discussions with her male partner and to overcome her own sexual insecurities. Another research by the Harvard psychiatrist Harrison Pope which relies upon a computerized measure of body image perception called somatomorphic matrix reveals that an average American, French, or Austrian male believes that he needs an additional 28 lbs of lean muscle to be attractive to the opposite sex (Blakeslee, Sandra and Blakeslee, Matthew: The Body has a Mind of Its Own – How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better, p. 43.). These are symptoms of a latent western male insecurity and discomfort with sexuality. 

This western male insecurity and latent discomfort with sexuality is the reason why they import catalog brides from societies that have repeatedly been assailed by western consumerism, armies, and propaganda, and have started losing their own culture and self worth. A section of white men perceive such catalog brides as more amenable than white women (who are perceived as “high-maintenance” and hence only desirable as sexual mates in one-night stands and not as spouses). So, it is no surprise that insecurity characterizes such relationships, though the reason for this is unlikely to be genetic and may have to be traced back to the western memes.

Catalog brides, often hailing from such countries as China or the Philippines, display anxiety from below. Sometimes, these women marry men old enough to be their fathers for purely material benefits such as getting a green card. Others are victims of western propaganda who experience “anxiety from below” and seek to redeem themselves by marrying an American white spouse. These white men too, in marrying a woman much younger than they are, are coveting a trophy wife and know well that it is their status as a white American that enabled them to get the woman in the first place. However, neither party would admit to it. Instead they rationalize their behavior by portraying themselves as special and blaming others.

Bhatt’s mail is not only devoid of facts but also laden with logical fallacies. Pretending that the proverbial Indian woman who “stands like a servant by the dining table while her husband eats, but eats whatever is leftover” really exists one can be quite certain that she would not have the wherewithal to acquire the skills needed to go abroad, stand in front of the white men Bhatt considers the gold standard, and impress them in the corporate setting with her assertiveness. On the other hand, those women who land such job profiles would have had the best of education, pursued career from a very tender age, and hence wouldn’t have waited by the dinner table. 

One can be reasonably certain that Bhatt is not reporting from her personal experience and that she is repeating a stereotype someone else created. Like many other stereotypes about Indians, i.e, sati or the burning of widows, this too is not a report of a current social reality. The stereotype takes a real or imaginary social behavior from a bygone era, projects it on to contemporary times, and creates the illusion of reality. However, one could very well point out that in the bygone days, unlike the Indian woman, the American white woman actually waited by the dining table and cooked dinner for the family and falsely project it on contemporary American society. However, nobody does it. Why? The reason is that such social stereotypes as the subjugated Indian woman-repressive Indian man is created by the angst-ridden white male who seeks catalog brides and internalized by the likes of Bhatt who display signs of “anxiety from below.”

Fortunately, an overwhelming majority of Indian men and women do not (yet) display such anxiety. They do not seek recognition from white men. They are confident of the skills they bring to the table. Remember that a majority of Indian colleges lack any infrastructure whatsoever unlike American colleges. Despite this limitation, Indians have not the slightest doubt that they would thrive in competition with Americans. They usually do – be it in emerging highly successful in the masters programs or PhD in American universities or successfully competing with their American counterparts in the corporate world. However, a small minority of Indians display Catalog Bride Syndrome. The reason for this is likely to be memetic. They often hail from urban, west-aping families, have been alienated from their own cultures during their stints in convent schools and the parasitic humanities departments of urban Indian colleges (especially from New Delhi or Calcutta), and suffer from low self-esteem. They usually redeem their self-worth by seeking recognition from a white person. One such behavior manifests itself in the form of a compulsive urge to seek and if possible marry a white person.

I do not at all imply that every inter-racial marriage is motivated by this syndrome. I am aware of marriages between self-respecting Indians and white Americans which are entirely motivated by love (though I must clarify that I do not at all imply that such marriages are superior to the traditional Hindu arranged marriage). In such cases, I have also noticed that the married couple hold Indian culture in high regard and do not attempt to falsely stereotype it. However, any stereotyping attempt that privileges one sex (while mischaracterizing the other sex) from a culture and implicitly presents the white man (and never the white woman) as the gold standard should be seen for what it is: Catalog Bride Syndrome.

Imagine what would be the reaction if someone were to create a stereotype of black men lacking assertiveness in front of white men which black women, after a servile waiting beside the black man’s dining table, impressively display in front of white man. Anyone who made that false statement would be correctly called a racist (or a house-slave) and the one who criticizes it appreciated. Why should it be any different when the black man in the above example is replaced by an Indian man?