India Women Essays - Marriage, Violence Against Women In India

India Women Silenced by their culture large populations of women in India tolerate abuse and subsequent death because they have provided insufficient dowry. In a culture that is male dominated women are raised to be servants to their husbands often arranged to marry a man that they have never met. Women that are beaten or just unhappy must suppress their feelings to keep their husbands blissful or face shame and be turned away by their own families. Indian womens household must pay a dowry for the privilege of marrying a man of status. The dowry often consists of money, merchandise, or gold that is displayed when the couple is married. Women are being mistreated for insufficient dowry money because the grooms family may be greedy and would like more items. If the brides family cannot provide more for the in-laws they will kill her so that he may keep the dowry he already had collected and then marries another that may possess more money or status. The original dowry is determined by the perceive d value of the husbands hand in marriage. If the husband is very desirable then he commands a very high dollar figure, if the offer of money is too low then the grooms family will not accept it because it is an insult. A woman held a PHD and married a man that was a shopkeeper with less education than she possessed. Her father provided a years worth of salary and many gifts. After the couple had been married six months, the in-laws requested a washing machine and other items that the brides family could not afford to give. They taunted the bride and eventually she was found hung from a ceiling fan. The groom was never convicted because he told the police she committed suicide, because she did not love him enough. Since the death took place in his home, they had no way of knowing if it was the truth. The woman was cut off from her relatives and had once asked her father to help her because she did not feel safe with her new husband. The father told her that she should give it time because he was not to intervene to early in the marriage, he wanted her to stay married at the time. (Mandelbaum p.1) Women in India marry within their own social caste which divides people into four major groups the Brahmin, kshatryia, vaishya, and the sudra with some of the lower people being called so the untouchables. The untouchables are called so dirty that even a glass that they have drunk from cleaned, will always be contaminated. Female babies are viewed as a burden to the father, that he must work and save to marry her off and males are always preferred. The birth of a girl is mourned in most families, which contributes to female infanticide in India today. (India dowry p67) The marriages that take place are all arranged and can take place even as children, teenagers, and twenty-year-old businessmen and women that has to yield to the practice in society. Women that do choose their own mates are not exempt from the dowry and often face anger from their parents or being disowned. Parents will often look for the most suitable mate for tier daughter in classified ads, Internet, or marriage bro kers with out prior knowledge each other the bride and groom are married if the dowry is in agreement on both sides. In Hindu laws of Manu a woman is joined to her husband and has to suffer with him and act with tolerance, this religion believes that women are the cause if a marriage fails and that men are absolved from their own actions. If there is any unhappiness in the home of an Indian woman, they look at her as the cause even if the husband is in some cases beating, taunting and allowing his friends to gang rape her. These women have no choice but to stay in inhumane situations because they were raised in a culture that does not give them many rights and teaches them from an early age to be a servant. If an Indian woman needs help there are few places

The Day My Dad Didnt Make it Home from Work - by Marianne Worley, Business Writing Consultant at The Essay Expert

The Day My Dad Didnt Make it Home from Work - by Marianne Worley, Business Writing Consultant at The Essay Expert [Reposted with the permission of the very talented business/marketing writer Marianne Worley, consultant at The Essay Expert. This poignant story was originally posted on her blog, Marketing Matters and Other Stories. I didnt even have to think before asking her if I could post it to The Essay Experts blog on Memorial Day.] The day was Monday, April 21, 2008. My phone rang just after 9pm. I checked the caller ID–it was my brother Nolan. Instinctively, I knew something was wrong, very wrong. My Dad had been in an accident and was being taken to a hospital about 20 miles north of my house. We didn’t know anything more. I quickly got dressed, jumped in my car, and hit the gas pedal. About 5 minutes later, my brother called again. Now Dad was being transported by helicopter to the much larger hospital just a few miles from my house. I got off the freeway and drove back the other way. My brother, sister-in-law, and I arrived at the hospital around the same time. The helicopter was still in flight, so we staked out seats in the busy emergency room to wait, still perplexed about what had happened to our Dad. After my stepmom and sister rushed in, we learned the whole story. My Dad usually came home from work around 5 or 6, so when it started to get dark and he still wasn’t home, my stepmom picked up the phone to make some increasingly frantic calls. My Dad was notorious for sporadically answering cell calls. As a contractor, he was constantly breaking and losing mobile phones. She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer, so she dialed his friends and clients. He had left the job site hours earlier, but no one knew where he was. My stepmom and sister decided to drive to the job site to look for him. They found his empty work truck on the side of the road with the driver’s side door open. They called 911 and nearby friends who could help with the search. There was a small creek parallel to the road with a steep bank covered in thick, muddy vegetation. My athletic sister charged down the hill and found him lying unconscious in the creek, pale and covered with dirt. The paramedics pulled him up on a rescue stretcher and loaded him into the helicopter. This process doesn’t take a few minutes, like it does on TV and in the movies. The rescue actually took more than an hour. The helicopter finally arrived, but still we knew nothing about his condition. We assumed it was a stroke, or something similar. When they finally let us in to see him, we discovered that he had suffered some sort of episode, possibly a seizure, and was experiencing pronounced weakness on one side of his body. It looked like a stroke, but he was stable. So they admitted him and scheduled an MRI for the next morning. The following day, the doctors confirmed that the MRI results showed that it looked like a stroke. We felt relieved. We knew a brain tumor would be a much more deadly diagnosis. But they still wanted to get a new MRI, with contrast, the next day to be sure. On Wednesday, April 23, 2008, our lives changed forever. The new MRI showed that it wasn’t a stroke–it was a brain tumor. They called in a neurosurgeon for a consultation. My education in neurology commenced that day. I carried a notebook at all times. I scribbled down details from the doctors during the day and did online research at night. Over the next 7 months, my Dad had a biopsy and was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Our doctor decided to treat with radiation and chemotherapy, not surgery. I knew that without surgery, the 6-month survival rate was almost zero. When I pressed him, he said he could do the surgery if we got a second opinion from one of the neurosurgeons he recommended. After many phone calls, I got an appointment with one of the top experts in the country at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. The neurosurgeon just needed to see my Dad’s (now enormous) medical file, along with all of his MRI results. We got his opinion, and my Dad had surgery to remove the tumor. Although the surgery was successful, he still needed radiation and chemo to stave off regrowth, which is incredibly common. I researched clinical trials and spoke to doctors at UCLA and UC San Francisco. My Dad didn’t qualify for any trials and his prognosis was grave. By September, the tumor was back, bigger than before. We tried some experimental chemo drugs, but nothing helped. My Dad wasted away before our eyes, until we finally called in hospice care in November. On December 3rd, the hospice nurse told us that the end was near, so we gathered together to say goodbye. We stayed up pretty late, but finally succumbed to our own fatigue and reluctantly went to bed. Just before 4:30am, I awoke suddenly and sat bolt upright. I went downstairs and the nurse told me she had just checked on my Dad–he was still hanging in there. When I went to his bedside, I touched his hands and face. I didn’t think he was breathing, so I woke up my stepmom, who had decided to take a quick nap just minutes before. He was gone. We all gathered around his bed and cried again. A week or so later, my sister Whitney and I, always the Daddy’s-Little-Girl types, decided to get tattoos to celebrate our Dad’s life. She got an elegant â€Å"W† and I got an infinity sign with a â€Å"W† in the middle. Worley forever. My Dad was never called to battle in Vietnam, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t fight a war. So on this Memorial Day, I remember all who have fallen in war, including the continuing war on cancer. ____________________ I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t been touched in some way by cancer. The next time you’re thinking about making a cash donation to a charity, please consider one of the organizations in the fight against cancer, including the American Brain Tumor Association. Thanks for reading this very personal story. I’m sharing it because it shaped who I am today. Many thanks to my fellow blogger The JackB–his post from yesterday inspired me to write this. I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t been touched in some way by cancer. The next time you’re thinking about making a cash donation to a charity, please consider one of the organizations in the fight against cancer, including the American Brain Tumor Association. Category:UncategorizedBy Brenda BernsteinMay 31, 2011 8 Comments Nancy Anderson says: May 31, 2011 at 12:50 pm What a beautiful story. I too lost my dad to cancer and as I read your words, I could feel myself going through the same feelings, thoughts and anguish. God bless your father and your family. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: May 31, 2011 at 1:55 pm Youre very welcome Nancy. This was Mariannes story. My father died 14 years ago after a week-long battle with pneumonia, so Mariannes piece spoke loudly to me. Im so glad it is being appreciated. Log in to Reply Alejandra Leiva says: October 6, 2016 at 10:43 am Hi The Essay Expert, I was wondering how I can submit a question about some words. Here I have one: Do we stand in the snow or on the snow? Log in to Reply Brenda Bernstein says: October 6, 2016 at 11:12 am Hi Alejandra! If you are standing on top of the snow, in snow shoes or skis for instance, you would be standing on the snow. If you are waist-deep in snow you would be standing in the snow. Or if you are in a snowstorm you would be in the snow. I hope that helps! Log in to Reply Alejandra Leiva says: October 6, 2016 at 4:27 pm Awesome that helps a lot! Could you help me with another question? Which of these is correct? Or what do they mean? count with me count on me Brenda Bernstein says: October 22, 2016 at 6:54 am Count on me means you can rely on me. Count with me would mean something like count to 10 with me! The Essay Expert says: May 31, 2011 at 1:55 pm So true Pedro. Even a week-long battle, like the one my father fought, is a battle indeed. Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: May 31, 2011 at 4:40 pm Thank you Jan. Its amazing how many this disease has touched. My heart goes out to you. Log in to Reply