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Lack Of Female Participation In Discussion

Randip Singh

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I am member of almost all sikh sites and i have seen that participation of punjabi sikh women in discussions is very low.On the other hand participation of western converted sikh women is quite good compared to their population.

Is there something in sikhism that punjabi sikh women are not interested in sikhism while western women are attracted to it.

comments appreciated

Strange really considering that women have played a Central and key role in Sikhism......from Bebe Nanaki to Mai Bhago women have alwys been the vanguar of Sikhism......
 

kds1980

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Apr 3, 2005
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I don't know why, but I have a feeling that women's communicative assertions is viewed suspiciously by men. Men's tendency to rule and have the final say, increases women's vunerability to attacks thus driving them away.

Men cannot (no way) treat women like boys. They are a part of us, without them we cannot survive but we have neglected to keep ourselves informed about how to treat a woman. Equality is another thing.

Most of us here don't even know how to talk to a woman. Look at the remarks you guys leave behind. It's like a bitter pill to swallow.

Sorry boys, this time, I am siding the women. Bring the women in, let them have their own threads, and don't go messing up their small haven with an outpour of 'powerful words'. There's nothing powerful about such words. Instead they only reflect the state of our mind.

Kds Ji,

Thanks for bring up this topic, I'm sure we're all learning to allow our minds to open up a bit.


~ Santokh ~

Dear begum ji

could you please tell what remarks are written in this thread against women.In fact i have never seeen anybody insulting women on SPN.
 

kds1980

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Strange really considering that women have played a Central and key role in Sikhism......from Bebe Nanaki to Mai Bhago women have alwys been the vanguar of Sikhism......

I agree with you women always played a key role in sikhism.Infact women are backbone
of any religion.But at present it is not a hidden fact that punjabi sikh women are not much in religion.
 

Astroboy

ਨਾਮ ਤੇਰੇ ਕੀ ਜੋਤਿ ਲਗਾਈ (Previously namjap)
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Some things are better left unsaid because women and men view the same conversation differently.
I'll leave it to the women to voice themselves.

Why am I playing arbitrator ? I did so because it was 2 women against 8 men. There has to be some kind of fairness. Being a male, my instincts might interfere in the fairness.

kds Ji,

Here's a link :Men and Women Communicate Differently
 
Apr 4, 2007
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But at present it is not a hidden fact that punjabi sikh women are not much in religion.

why do you say this? when i was in india, i was happy to see that women outnumbered men in most of the gurdwaras i visited. everywhere i went i saw men with short hair and shaved faces, and women with hair that had obviously never been touched with scissors. it's women who RAISE the men, how would it be possible for the women to be less religious than the boys they bring up?

i'm sorry, but i find this comment insulting.
 

kds1980

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why do you say this? when i was in india, i was happy to see that women outnumbered men in most of the gurdwaras i visited. everywhere i went i saw men with short hair and shaved faces, and women with hair that had obviously never been touched with scissors. it's women who RAISE the men, how would it be possible for the women to be less religious than the boys they bring up?

i'm sorry, but i find this comment insulting.

Kelly ji

please don't get angry.i advise you to go through following blogspot and read articles and comments.You will get glimpse of what is happening

http://findingawife.blogspot.com/
 

kds1980

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Apr 3, 2005
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Some things are better left unsaid because women and men view the same conversation differently.
I'll leave it to the women to voice themselves.

Why am I playing arbitrator ? I did so because it was 2 women against 8 men. There has to be some kind of fairness. Being a male, my instincts might interfere in the fairness.

kds Ji,

Here's a link :Men and Women Communicate Differently

Dear begum ji

8 vs 2, no competetion is going on here .just a disscusion is taking place.Infact 2 women here are western one i already appreciated them for their good and valuable participation in sikh forums.
 

TGill

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Jul 31, 2007
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it's women who RAISE the men, how would it be possible for the women to be less religious than the boys they bring up?

I think this is what pretty much sums up the whole point, women can't be less religious than men in any which way.

As far as participation of women on online portals is concerned, I think women are much more evolved in their sensitivity that they know the fact that this boisterous fighting of men ego on net is actually a useless exercise in nutshell.:)

And whereever they are really required to make a point they make it with much more lucidity.:idea:
 

TGill

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Jul 31, 2007
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Dera KDS ji
The blogI think just represents one persons experience and does not represent a trend.
I have seen a hindu women marrying a Khalsa guy and they have 3 children who are proper sikhs in outer appearance, but that does not mean a trend.
 

kds1980

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Dera KDS ji
The blogI think just represents one persons experience and does not represent a trend.
I have seen a hindu women marrying a Khalsa guy and they have 3 children who are proper sikhs in outer appearance, but that does not mean a trend.

Dear tgill

you are quite impatient i just said that read all articles and COMMENTS with cool mind.It will take much time and then reply
 

TGill

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Jul 31, 2007
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oops, Oh ok :)

You actually got me there, need to work on it. Though my mind was not hot at all. Even now it is thinking in a very weird way:

- Even if we think for just a min that this trend in women exist, now as men more or less try to win over women's love and that is a natural instinct (talking about 80% of lesser mortals), so in order to do so and be acceptable to women more and more men will fall prey to this trend and ultimately the number of religious men will be lesser than women. So women win in any case over men.

Kelly ji please don't mind at any point, I am just trying to enunciate a hypothesis.

Thank KDS ji, Impatience !! got to knock it out :)
 
Apr 4, 2007
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interesting blog, but to me, rather than showing any lack of gursikh women, it only solidifies what i have known for some time now... there exists a dangerous double standard in our community when it comes to men looking for wives.

if he only wanted a gursikh wife, i'm sure he could meet someone through the gurdwara or through his family. but he's also looking for love and attraction and the perfect housewife. and as shown by the most recent post (the guy who goes all the way to california to meet with a patit girl only to be shocked that she would want her kids to have cut hair too...), guys want girls who look good, who their parents accept (very likely on caste basis), etc, then are angry when said women who are NOT chosen for their love for sikhi are not as religious as the guy.

here's the deal: gursikh women do not look like bollywood starlets. we're not necessarily of the right "caste" or even the right nationality for your parents to like us. we don't have perfectly groomed eyebrows and lots of makeup. we have hair on our legs and arms and even our faces. we aren't found in bars or nightclubs.

if men truely want gursikh girls, they need to start looking for the right traits in the right places. if they want bollywood knockouts who cook and clean and iron and make babies... they need to be ready to accept that these girls aren't necessarily going to meet the religious requirements.

guys need to decide which is more important to them and stop whining about how a girl with cut hair wants to cut the hair of the kids, well of course she does, why should anyone be surprised at this?
 

kds1980

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Apr 3, 2005
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if he only wanted a gursikh wife, i'm sure he could meet someone through the gurdwara or through his family. but he's also looking for love and attraction and the perfect housewife. and as shown by the most recent post (the guy who goes all the way to california to meet with a patit girl only to be shocked that she would want her kids to have cut hair too...), guys want girls who look good, who their parents accept (very likely on caste basis), etc, then are angry when said women who are NOT chosen for their love for sikhi are not as religious as the guy.

Kelly ji it looked like you too read that blog imapatiently.The guy who started the blog
is now engaged his most recent post is about his friend.and the most interesting thing about that blog is comments of different sikhs from different countries.Anyway the problem that blog mentioned is not limited to blogs .This problem is being discussed in many many sikh sites sometimes it looks to me that it is now a central issue of sikh sites.

here's the deal: gursikh women do not look like bollywood starlets. we're not necessarily of the right "caste" or even the right nationality for your parents to like us. we don't have perfectly groomed eyebrows and lots of makeup. we have hair on our legs and arms and even our faces. we aren't found in bars or nightclubs.

Agreed if a gursikh male reject sikh women because she does not do waxing ,or trims her hair then he has no right to complain.But the fact is that gursikh women are not creating these types of blogs.I can show you several topics about this problem on sikh sites that were discussed.but gursikh women or their brother or fathers are not starting these types
of topics on sikh sites
In past 20 years marriage of sikh women with hindu men is very common
The worst thing is that these women just give up sikhi after marriage and raise their children as hindu's.when i started doing internet i was shocked to read about sikh girls running with muslim boys and converting to islam in uk problem.i even search muslim , hindu sites but i have never seen these types of topics there then why only this problem is disscussed in sikh religion
Please remember without fire there is no smoke
 
Apr 4, 2007
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Kelly ji it looked like you too read that blog imapatiently.The guy who started the blog
is now engaged his most recent post is about his friend.and the most interesting thing about that blog is comments of different sikhs from different countries.Anyway the problem that blog mentioned is not limited to blogs .This problem is being discussed in many many sikh sites sometimes it looks to me that it is now a central issue of sikh sites.



Agreed if a gursikh male reject sikh women because she does not do waxing ,or trims her hair then he has no right to complain.But the fact is that gursikh women are not creating these types of blogs.I can show you several topics about this problem on sikh sites that were discussed.but gursikh women or their brother or fathers are not starting these types
of topics on sikh sites
In past 20 years marriage of sikh women with hindu men is very common
The worst thing is that these women just give up sikhi after marriage and raise their children as hindu's.when i started doing internet i was shocked to read about sikh girls running with muslim boys and converting to islam in uk problem.i even search muslim , hindu sites but i have never seen these types of topics there then why only this problem is disscussed in sikh religion
Please remember without fire there is no smoke


yes i read about his engagement, that's great, i'm glad his search is finally over. one less blog for guys to hold up as a beacon to "prove" that there are no good sikh women out there. :)

your post only proves to me that sikh women probably have better things to do than discuss their marriage problems in online forums. :) it doesn't mean they don't face the same issues, trust me.

in real life, i've seen more sikh women having trouble finding proper turbaned sikh men to marry than the other way around. in fact, i often see men with turban and full beard with wives/fiances who trim their hair and do their eyebrows, etc. a female friend of mine was told by the elders of her gurdwara that she should wait until after marriage to take amrit, or she'd never find a husband. men don't want to marry amritdhari women. thankfully she is a strong girl and ignored their advice... but yes, she finds that there are not many men who are interested in gursikh girls out there.

there's a definite double standard with regards to men's expectation of beauty, etc. sikhi tells us that god created us in a beautiful way, that we don't need to go in for these "beauty" treatments, we don't wear excessive jewlery, we don't pierce our ears, we don't remove our hair... but society tells us that we MUST do these things to be beautiful, and the majority of so-called sikh men expect us to follow this false standard of beauty. then they complain when we're not religious enough? how is that fair?

and where are all of these gursikh guys coming from? don't you think they must have religious mothers? if they were raised right, shouldn't they also have religious sisters and cousins? how is it possible there are so many more "religious" guys than girls?

ok, maybe the 750 girls to every 1000 guys in punjab and delhi due to female foetacide and infantacide is a major contributor to the problem... but i think that's another topic altogether. :)
 

spnadmin

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This thread is so wonderful to read in the middle of a kind of hard day. Thought about a lot of things. Laughed a lot too.
 

kds1980

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your post only proves to me that sikh women probably have better things to do than discuss their marriage problems in online forums. it doesn't mean they don't face the same issues, trust me.

Trust me kelly ji i am really fed up this issue on sikh sites.as i finished writing my earlier post
and opened another forum a sikh woman's marriage with muslim i was discussed.And it is not only sites i do have discussion with my elders on religious issue's and they also agree that majority of young sikh girls are not much in religion.

in real life, i've seen more sikh women having trouble finding proper turbaned sikh men to marry than the other way around. in fact, i often see men with turban and full beard with wives/fiances who trim their hair and do their eyebrows, etc. a female friend of mine was told by the elders of her gurdwara that she should wait until after marriage to take amrit, or she'd never find a husband. men don't want to marry amritdhari women. thankfully she is a strong girl and ignored their advice... but yes, she finds that there are not many men who are interested in gursikh girls out there.

there's a definite double standard with regards to men's expectation of beauty, etc. sikhi tells us that god created us in a beautiful way, that we don't need to go in for these "beauty" treatments, we don't wear excessive jewlery, we don't pierce our ears, we don't remove our hair... but society tells us that we MUST do these things to be beautiful, and the majority of so-called sikh men expect us to follow this false standard of beauty. then they complain when we're not religious enough? how is that fair?

No debate totally agree with you double standard do exists

and where are all of these gursikh guys coming from? don't you think they must have religious mothers? if they were raised right, shouldn't they also have religious sisters and cousins? how is it possible there are so many more "religious" guys than girls?

mothers ,aunties, grandmothers are religious.but present younger generation of sikh girls not much in religion and present generation of sikh men are also not very religious.but still you will find many turbaned sikh men in cities.
 

deepsingh87

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Jun 3, 2007
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This thread is so wonderful to read in the middle of a kind of hard day. Thought about a lot of things. Laughed a lot too.


Some parts of this thread are quite amusing. I never really met a women who liked to talk about religious topics but once I met a white lady who said "the bible" in the same sentence 8 times. For some reason I think Indian women are the least interested in religion.
 
Apr 4, 2007
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mothers ,aunties, grandmothers are religious.but present younger generation of sikh girls not much in religion and present generation of sikh men are also not very religious.but still you will find many turbaned sikh men in cities.


makes me wonder if these young turbaned sikh men are also not very religious, but just wearing turban for cultural identity? i know this is not uncommon in india.

in the US, i'd say only religious sikhs keep their turbans. maybe that's better, at least we can find them easily. :)
 

Sherab

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Mar 26, 2007
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Sorry, under-age non married white sikh here, as you all know.

It's interesting to add that, because i am religious, it gets my girlfriend (and her family) re-interested in their religion. I think they are to sued to seeing other indian sikhs, that they think its a common thing, and not to many really investigate because of the culture. But as soon as a white sikh walks in, suddenly they think "whats going on here?" and investigate.

Anyways, i think most sikh girls think it is a culture thing their PARENTS do, that they are FORCED to go to Gurdwara, etc. But i think letting them know some one other then indians are going to Gurdwaras, and practicing sikhi.

I think Sikhism needs this "new breath" of a young-white sikh generation, to let them know that they do not need to be american-ized and that america really DOES in general, appreciate diversity.

Maybe they just don't see that yet?
 

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