Well, that's the gist of the changes in the PanIIT-2008 'Spouses Program'. Here's a pseudonymous reader's comment that alerted me about the small concession by the PanIIT-2008 organizers :
His Grey Eminence said:
I looked today (Oct.14) at the offending 'Especially for Women' section on the PanIIT2008 website, and if I'm not much mistaken, the following things are missing from it:
- Astrology
- Kili jotsyam
- Shilpa Shetty
However, I notice that H. Malini is still supremely Sampoorna, and all spouses are still female-only-please.
Small mercies. But a step in the right direction.
Small mercies, indeed.
So the letters from IITians (two of which were reproduced in this blog), blog posts (here, here, here, here and here) and a news story have had some -- but only some -- effect: PanIIT-2008 organizers have chosen to move from complete idiocy to a partial one.
As the commenter points out, there is still this underlying assumption that all the spouses of PanIIT-2008 delegates are women who need lessons from Hema Malini on what makes a complete woman.
what, No Shilpa Shetty?! How are our women to know the tricks of being "sampoorna" in the 21st century?
ReplyDelete/sarcasm
Maybe Shilpa Shetty just refused to come. If they can create such a fucked up programme, and then actually defend it, I doubt they would change it willingly.
ReplyDeleteah that doesn't explain the killi-josiers and astologers :-)))
ReplyDeleteThis is beyond funny at this point.
abi-- I will be writing to you on this soon.
Abhinandan:
ReplyDeleteRohini Godbole and I sent you an e-mail about the Women in Science and Technology program at IIT Madras on 20th December. It is also linked to the PAN-IIT page. We see not a word on this. About the `attracting women students and faculty to science' panel discussion in the education track of the PAN-IIT , we only saw some cracks. It's more interesting to make cracks about the hapless spouses, isn't it, than to emphasize serious programs?
I guess supposedly serious blogs also go the way of journalism these days!
Neelima Gupte.