open letter to Arvind Kejriwal on his all men cabinet

@akshay okay. snow let's just ask them fir an answer in friendly tone.

This is not about including reservations.
The veg/non-veg analogy that @vidyut mentioned reminded me this. I am a vegetarian and have been to a lot of non-vegetarian restaurants. The restaurant which is supposedly best of it's kind serves extremely bad vegetarian food. It is not that they don't know how to cook vegetarian food well or that they won't serve vegetarians at all, it is just that they are not doing it well enough. They prepare their preferred food items very well and the rest not so much. Just keeping that option open is not good enough.

Similarly, I am not saying that men wouldn't understand issues women face in the society, but they can be ignorant of many day-to-day issues that we face. Unavailability of clean public toilets is the first thing that pops into my mind. I am sure men understand that women have needs, but I don't see much facilities in our favour. Oops, I forgot, we have the open nature to answer our nature's calling.

@vishnuprakash proposal is used after we have a draft. During initial stage we can just use comments. @akshay can you propose a draft statement that is acceptable to you. Then others can propose changes and we can build a final statement from that.

It's a fairly common sense argument that a cabinet of 6 men cannot deliver the same representation to women that a gender balanced cabinet can. I have no idea why the AAP would not have already thought of this. That lack of foresight is worrying to say the least. The discussion should not be about reservation, rather AAP should have built there cabinet by finding the strongest resources including men and women in the process. I suspect they have not taken that approach. Aside to this, and at the risk of sounding pedantic, I really worry that the word "Aadmi" is central to their name..

@praveenarimbrathod I now doubt if I, a male, can propose a draft about this issue. I pass.

I would like to see a selection process based on merit than genital.

Hi KK

I am not denying your worry. But, I may request you to operationalisze merit in existing society, polity and political actions from a feminist perspective. This will give more clarity on the nuances of merit in the system and how it defines our thoughts and actions.

Thanks

@jemshidkk are you saying we have no descrimination based on genitals in our country? and women don't get proper representation because they lack merit?

@truptirajeshkini, @nandajavarma can you propose a draft letter that express our concern and may be that is not as strongly worded as @vidyut 's letter so @akshay can also agree.

I don't intend dictate the thoughts and actions of men/women in the world. Every man/woman is an independent being with a thinking mind and volition. When I talk to fellow beings, what I can do is to state facts and decision has to come from each individual. It a a man intend to dictate the decisions of others, he is simply a fascist, a dictator, isn't it?

On a very precise note, every human being on earth are not equal. People have different kind of skills and competence of varying levels.

A job produces result, when the person doing the job has the necessary skill set and competence to do the job. If I want to produce something of value to me, I should recruit the best person capable of doing the job. If I reject (discriminate) a competent person based on his gender or cast, it is me going to make a loss.

If we look at elections, how many women candidates were there. May be, most of the women prefer to stay away from politics. Who am I to dictate, what an adult woman should do?

umm.... It would be interesting to note that most women politicians had a raw deal when it comes to public life. I have heard and witnessed both in real and news-reel life that women politicians get a raw deal.

See for e.g. Renuka Chowdary - There has been a long and vicious campaign against her forever. This I am digging am out from 2011 but I remember stories being told about her when I was little (about 10-15 years previous to that)

https://indiarun.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/hasan-ali-stayed-with-renuka-chaudhary/

Then see the Nagma episode

http://www.ndtv.com/elections-news/congress-candidate-nagma-slaps-man-who-allegedly-groped-her-at-public-meeting-555421

Even Jaya Pradha was not treated well in most of the political parties as well :-

See http://www.andhraheadlines.com/news/national/140922/jayaprada-insulted-by-party-leaders-it-seems

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2567843/Amar-Singh-hits-former-friend-Mulayam-Jaya-Prada.html

Even somebody motherly as Mrs. Sheila Dixit was treated badly to the extent that people played 'Sheila Ki Jawani' on her birthday.

Now one can take all of these are as separate incidents which have no relationship with each other or you can say that we do take women for granted and take whatever chances we can to abuse her anyway we can.

Also see http://ibnlive.in.com/news/tmc-leader-sparks-controversy-says-cpm-women-cadre-tear-off-their-blouses-make-false-molestation-cases/522702-37-64.html

Also see for general women stats while travelling.

http://skift.com/2013/06/24/the-top-safest-asian-countries-for-female-travelers/

So the question here is who to blame, the women themselves or we the men ?

I think this discussion will definitely veer off track if we do not make a distinction between two things - 1) the generalized discrimination women face in society, and 2) the fact that there is no woman in Delhi 2015 cabinet.

I also think that it is counter productive to label everything that a man does as "sexist". To be honest I am worried that extermism in feminism will lead to more situations like that of Dr Matt Taylor.

I like to assume people are innocent till they are proved guilty (of sexism).

@praveenarimbrathod @akshay @vidyut @nandajavarma @truptirajeshkini .. hey! @Pirate Kamayani is a feminist and an activist! Im sure she must be able to propose a draft.. shouldnt be a big deal for her.. You can find her on facebook.. I'd ask her myself but im not on facebook anymore.. You guys should try asking her.. and yes , shes not active here anymore.. her name is Kamayini Bali Mahabal ... this is her - https://www.facebook.com/kamayani ..

Personally I don't think the arguments of merit wash here. Did the AAP really pick their cabinet based on the merit of the individuals considering candidates from a broad cross section of the population (both male and female)? I highly doubt they did.

I don't think they're is any suggestion that the AAP should have less able women in their cabinet just for the sake of it - I think the main thrust is why are they're none? Did they even consider it?

I find it highly unlikely that they would not be able to find great talent from a pool of people that consists of nearly 50% of the population.

@jemshidkk are you saying that we don't descriminate people based on identity and everyone get equal opportunities? Are you denying existence of female foeticide? Do you think girls have the same freedoms in families, schools and in society as men? Or are you saying women are inferior to men? When the game is rigged in favor of men in entire society, I don't think male dominance is based on any merit.

I'll try a draft, please suggest amendments in terms of modification, addition or removal only.

In our society women are discriminated based in gender. This includes extreme forms like female foeticide, honour killings and restrictions on their free movement, except for a few cities they can't freely move after 6 in most places, there is no adequate clean public toilets, the list can go on. We need to make an end to this discrimination if we want to be fair in giving half of the population equal opportunities. This will be possible only by conscious interventions and giving more voice to women in policy making and governance. We have a representative democracy and any party or government that cares for fairness for all sections of society should include as diverse voices in their decision making as possible. This will enrich their decision making by considering diverse experiences. In this light we are concerned that there is no women in Delhi cabinet led by Arvind Kejriwal.

-- this is a starting point, contribute.

I'm expanding the draft based on points taken from https://aamjanata.com/indias-capital-becomes-bastion-male-power/

In our society discrimination against women based on gender is ubiquitous. This is manifested in not just extreme forms like female foeticide or honour killings, but also daily life situations like restriction on their free movement especially after twilight, having none or inadequate public toilets, the list goes on. We need to eliminate this routine systematized discrimination if we want to be fair and give both halves of the population equal opportunities. This will be possible only by conscious interventions and giving more voice to women in policy making and governance. We have a representative democracy and any party or government that cares for fairness for all sections of society should include as diverse voices in their decision making as possible. This will enrich their decision making by considering diverse experiences, for, no matter how sensible and empathetic a person is, there are some things one can experience only if they are a woman. In this light we are concerned by and strongly condemn the fact that there is no women in Delhi cabinet led by Arvind Kejriwal. We request the AAP leadership to keep in mind that nobody is above critique, consider this issue more seriously and be answerable to the public about what made you choose a cabinet with no woman even though woman empowerment was a major point in your manifesto - arrogance or lack of belief in equality?

At the same time, can someone tell me what is the factual or logical inaccuracy in this statement:

The reason why cabinets are much smaller than legislatures. Latter is about representation, while former is a team that a CM has confidence in that it can deliver the plans for the state. Then the cabinet/executive is directly answerable to the legislature thus making the voice of people via representative system (of MLAs/MPs) of highest importance.
It is a comment by someone on https://aamjanata.com/difference-team-selection-handouts/

@akshay when the entire society is systematically suppressing women. It is no wonder only men come up when you look at the so called "merit" or even trust. There has to be a conscious effort to break the bias against women. Including women in decision making process is a conscious intervention to break the bias. Those who argue for "merit" seems to accept the bias against women as natural. Is it just a coincidence that 50% of the population is abscent in the cabinet? Is it an exception? Does every other organization in society has more or less equal women participation? Anyone looking carefully can see this not an exception but systematic exclusion of women because we are historically a patriarchal society.

Here's another open letter http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/a-question-for-kejriwal/article6940713.ece

@akshay since there are no more suggestions, can you propose the new draft on initial members group?