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Women doctors have made amazing strides in the field, where only half a century earlier, it was almost exclusively dominated by men. Yet while the doors have opened to women doctors in most aspects, there is one notable exception: motherhood.
My favorite story of women breaking into this, male-dominated field is the one of Agnodice, who disguised herself as a man so that she could study medicine in ancient Greece. Many girls want to grow up to be both well-regarded doctors and wonderful mothers, but it seems that for the most part, they can’t have their cake and eat it too. Men can enter whatever field they want with little consequence, women must make sacrifices. I acknowledge that this seems to be changing, but the pace is still painfully slow.
To paraphrase a professor of mine, the world is still cruel to women. They are encouraged to pursue their career and focus on it with razor sharp focus, while their biological clocks tick away, independent of any aspirations they may develop down the road to start a family. Once the residency and fellowship parade is over (as the case were for aspiring doctors), and a woman is ready to start a family, it may already be too late. I’m all for women being driven and seizing life by the horns, but sometimes the cost is pretty great.
And then, there is me and those like me, who are from immigrant families who insist upon marriage and having at least the first child before age 30. If I am lucky, I will enter medical school at 24, take four years, and enter whatever specialty I can. Depending on what specialty that is, the years devoted to residencies and fellowships may be as low as 3 or as high as 6-7. People can say “Rebel! Blaze your own trail, do what you need to do to get what you want.” Yet in cultures where filial piety is prized and expected, it is far harder to go against the grain, even when your own wishes may be at stake. How does one reconcile cultural and societal obligations with the rigors of medical school/further training?
From what I can gather (and please correct me if I’m wrong) but several residencies tend to not look kindly on women who are pregnant or who have very young children. Each specialty requires a certain number of years of training. It makes sense, of course, that the more high-stakes residencies (for example neurosurgery) would probably require more time to train physicians in that field. Obviously I’d want my neurosurgeon (heaven forbid that I need one) to have had rigorous training. Yet there are 194 certified women neurosurgeons, out of something like 3000 neurosurgeons in total in the U.S. The difference between those numbers is alarming. It’s enough to discourage most women from even entertaining the idea of going down that road, but I’m not like most women. Many women seem to end up vying for the more “family-friendly” positions like family physician or pediatrician, or at least ones that finish up training quickly.
I am not one of those people, I’m aiming for one of the neuro residencies (neurosurgery if I can help it).* I love the complicated nature of the field, and yes, I love the potentially maddening level of stress that’s involved. It’s a field I greatly respect and I want to be a part of, but could potentially be turned away because I want to devote the same kind of attention to my family.
I went to a seminar being conducted at SUNY Downstate, giving advice for medical students as to when they should get married and start families. Literally, the window of opportunity was a few months at best for both, where the birth of a child could potentially set students back a year. Clearly under these restrictions, days-long, traditional Indian weddings are out the window. If I were to get pregnant year 3 or 4, that could be potentially problematic, whereas the first two years were a bit better (but by no means ideal). Heaven forbid you wanted to take care of your child until they were at least more communicative or mobile, and when their fear of strangers was under control (Piagetian child psychology sets this at around 2 years of age). Then perhaps the babysitter could be introduced, if you don’t mind having a babysitter or nanny (I do mind). Children are for many people, a vital part of their lives, and they have the right to get as much time early on with their parents as they can. Yet as far as I can tell, the policy seems to be to leave everything to after you start practicing. That’s great for some people, but others are (still) bound by age-old traditions and (sometimes antiquated though biologically sound) cultural expectations regarding marriage and childbirth.
Hopefully, the domination by men that still seems to be inherent will continue to be addressed, and will encourage more women to live their lives a bit more easily while pursuing their dreams. If any women doctors come across this, I’d love to hear your perspective, given that mine is pretty limited.
*This is all contingent on my getting into medical school. I’m not going to crow about medicine without putting in that little point in there, I’m not in medical school yet. Hopefully I will be soon, gotta take it one step at a time. Even contemplating residencies is a long way off, but it can’t hurt to start contemplating a little now! 
This is a follow-up to my last Shaadi.com post.
So I should probably start out by saying that I created an account. I will admit it. I have an account on Shaadi.com.
Ok, cue the laughter…all right that’s enough.
Oh, and no you can’t see it.
You may be wondering, “After all that whining in your last post, why did you cave in and create an account on Shaadi.com?”
First, a refresher for my non-Indian readers:
Malayalees refers to people from the South Indian state of Kerala. Nairs refers to a caste among Malayalee Hindus, probably most similar to the general “kshatriya” caste.
Well it’s not like I’m wading knee-deep in Nair guys who fit my parents’ stringent criteria (as well as my own). I don’t have the time to go to many of these Malayalee events and conventions anymore (yes so that means I probably won’t be making it out to the KHNA convention in LA this year…sigh). Sure, Nair guys make up probably the largest chunk of the Hindu Malayalees in the United States, but among all Indians in the United States, we are a rarity. I think if I just left it to chance, I’d probably only end up finding someone who fits the bill by the age of…50? 60?
If I learned anything from my Human Bonding class in college, it is this: the largest pool of potential partners you will ever encounter is in college, after that, social networking/dating sites or other dating/meet-and-greet events are your next best bet (depressing, yes, but true). Well…that and people tend to be attracted to people who look most like themselves, but that’s another story altogether.
So I guess to answer the question in my last post…Shaadi.com may be a legitimate possibility.
However, I think Shaadi.com and a lot of other Indian dating/matrimonial sites seem to cater more to those in India than Indians that have either moved abroad or were born abroad. The vast majority of people who have profiles on Shaadi.com are from India. While, yes, I’m Indian, ultimately I’m a product of the United States. Yes, I took Carnatic music classes and classical dance classes, yes I like Indian culture, and yes I ultimately want to end up with an Indian guy. Yet I was born in the United States, and my outlook has been colored by my experiences growing up in the United States. Perhaps that’s why, for many Indians born abroad, Shaadi.com and similar sites seem ludicrous. I’m not even sure there are any websites geared towards NRI’s (non-resident Indians) or people of Indian origin that has the same popularity (or for that matter, as smooth an operating system) as Shaadi.com.
It would be even better to have a site for Malayalee NRIs/people of Indian origin, but that might be asking too much. If I had an ounce of computer programming ability, I would have started a site myself. Unfortunately, I’m as computer-challenged as they come. Anyone want to help me out? 
So I’m hoping something comes out of my first foray into the (big and scary) world of online dating/matrimonial sites. It’s a crap shoot, but at least I’m keeping my options open.
There are days when I wake up and I think, wouldn’t it be nice to not be single, find a guy, fall in love, marry, and settle down (or as will probably happen in the arranged marriage scenario…marry, fall in love, and settle down)?
Yet most days, I wake up and think that a world where I didn’t have to deal with the Y chromosome in that way isn’t an entirely bad alternative either. Unfortunately that’s not an option.
Every year, Valentine’s Day isn’t so much a dagger to my heart as it is a splinter in my side. Valentine’s Day…bah humbug. Here’s how I see it (at least from my albeit biased perspective).
I wasn’t really raised to look forward to Valentine’s Day. I guess that’s the price of living in a family that is geared towards arranged marriage. So I never found the holiday particularly exciting for a long time. Valentine’s Day, for the longest time, was something I celebrated in elementary school, where we would exchange cards because the teacher told us to do so. It was probably when I got to college that I started to take notice of the holiday.
Yet seeing the stores now with all the pink and red, the streamers, the heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, and the sappy cards makes me want to retch a little. Everyone who has a significant other is just dripping with diabetes-inducing, sugary sweetness in every syllable of conversation and every action, especially those in the early stages of a relationship. Even those who have been dating or married for years will take that day, if not that whole week, and inject it with as much romance (perceived or valid) that they can muster. For those who are single, there is always a sense of gloom that descends during Valentine’s Day, and the days leading up to it.
Valentine’s Day, like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July, is another holiday gone rogue and commercialized. Everyone, in their celebration of the holiday, tries to live up to the idea of Valentine’s Day, not so much the idea of their own, unique romance with their significant other.
That being said, allow me one sappy, possibly cliché moment when I say that everyday should be Valentine’s Day for couples. If two people in a relationship need a holiday to remind them to be loving and romantic…I’m not sure what to say to them.
I will (grudgingly) admit that this could be partly a case of sour grapes. I have been single for every Valentine’s Day for my whole life. However, I will also admit that the holiday itself has gotten so incredibly commercialized to the point of tears. Do we really need to buy special Valentine’s Day, brand-name things to feel some sense of purpose? I don’t think so. Do we absolutely need to buy the other person something expensive or take them out to the best restaurants or romantic spots to celebrate? It would be nice, but I’d be just as happy at home. There seems to be so much pressure on both people in a relationship to do something amazing on Valentine’s Day, it doesn’t need to be that way.
But this year (as in recent years) I won’t be sad during Valentine’s Day. I will be celebrating Singles Awareness Day (S.A.D.). Sure I want a relationship, but being single is much more fun. Really, I swear it’s true. Keep in mind, being single for me means (for the most part) keeping the marriage proposals away, at least for the time being. Can’t exactly dive into a dating scene that is still ambiguous, vague, and sometimes a little taboo by Indian standards.
Being in a relationship, at least in the early stages, means having to be with that person all the time. I don’t mean that you’re forced into spending every waking moment with them, it just ends up that way. Blame a combination of neurotransmitters and hormones that produce good, old-fashioned infatuation. In some (slightly unhealthy) scenarios, relationships can overwhelm your life and supplant other things like studying, other relationships (family and friends), and work in terms of importance.
Yet being single means keeping your options wide open, being unfettered, and being able to keep all your other relationships intact. What this translates to is a) having a license to be flirty (to be used as much or as little as needed), b) having more time to bitch about how it sucks to be single to all your friends while not-so-secretly enjoying your independence. You don’t have to include your significant other in all of your activities, or cloister yourself away with only him or her. You can just do what you need to do, see who you need to see, and not answer to anyone.
Sometimes when someone is in a relationship, they forget how to exist on their own two feet. As a couple, you become a unit. Person A becomes inextricably linked with person B, to the point that sometimes they’re treated as one and the same. Independence is important, and sometimes it’s something that you have to relearn when you are single. You can’t form healthy relationships without some sense of self apart from your significant other. We do crave relationships and forming bonds with other people, but ultimately we have to know how to live and think independently.
Being single, most importantly, also means having time to do soul-searching, to figure out what exactly you want out of a relationship. I think that a lot of people (myself included) shortchange ourselves this little luxury while we, instead, moan about how we’re single. If we don’t really know what we want out of a relationship, can we ever have a successful one?
So yes, I do want to have my Valentine’s Day one day. I want it to be thoughtful and I want it to be romantic, but I don’t want it limited to one frigid day in February. Until I can find someone who can be like that every day of the year, I will fill my days with my other relationships with my family and my friends. I will allow myself to grow and mature as a person. I will be single, and I will be happy.
Happy S.A.D.! :p
Ok I’m not saying all Indian marriages, I’m saying the really obscure, off-beat ones. I happened to watch the Colbert Report, where a marriage between two girls and frogs in Puducherry, India (Pondicherry) was highlighted in the “Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger” segment. The way the monologue was structured, though, seemed to generalize this sort of thing to all of India.
Note: 99.99% of Indians don’t get married to animals or inanimate objects. Likewise for men marrying underage girls.
Other news agencies also have a penchant for highlighting the strange and unusual marriages that take place in India, mostly in remote villages. Generally there is some sort of rationale behind it, whether to prevent disease or bring favorable weather, but it’s still such an incredibly rare occurrence. Why do news agencies portray it as though these events only seem to happen in India? We’re really not that weird, especially in the context of the global collection of off-beat weddings that take place everyday.
I like the Colbert Report, and yes I know it’s supposed to be satirical and funny, but shame on you Stephen Colbert for helping further more ridiculous stereotypes about India and Indian culture.
Let me set the stage for you:
The girl is a graduate student on her way to applying to medical school next year. She is not in a relationship at this point, and there seems to be no one that has expressed any real interest that would keep mom and dad placated…i.e. Malayalee and Nair. Therefore, the aforementioned parents want to put an ad up for the girl to be married within the next two years, something a la Shaadi.com. The general connotation of Shaadi.com and matrimonial ads of the sort is that of ridicule and considered a “last ditch attempt” by most. Others, however, have found great people (her parents included) through these methods. What is the girl to do?
End scene.
Arranged marriage has tried to evolve to meet the times, no doubt. Back in the day, couples would be arranged perhaps within the village, but at least within a certain area. Marriages were alliances of families, not just the bonding of two people. It was about preserving one’s identity across generations. In Kerala, for example, cultural and religious practices even differed across the state. Those closer to Tamil Nadu have a culture that melded Malayalee with Tamil rituals. Those closer to the Malabar coast have their own. This is clearly evidenced with my parents, one of whom is from Palakkad, one of whom is from Ernakulam. That union was viewed as almost radical, I mean, a girl from Ernakulam marrying a boy from Palakkad? Insane! That too, they met through an advertisement.
Now it’s my turn.
Being born and raised in the United States my whole life brings about its own set of challenges. I am cynical, which may or may not be a function of my being raised here. I tend to be suspicious of people at first before warming up to them as I get to know them. It seems like my parents were much more open to ads than I am and many of my peers. I tend to think (not entirely erroneously) that half the ads on sites such as Shaadi.com are not made by the person who is being advertised (I’m not including sites like eHarmony and Chemistry because they’re a bit different). “Shaadi” for my non-Indian readers, means “marriage” in Hindi. A quick browse through some of the profiles seems like most were written by their parents, rather than the guys themselves, and that strikes me as duplicitous. Maybe the guys asked for their parents to put the ad in, but if they can’t even invest that much in finding a spouse, I’m not sure I’d want to even deal with them. Part of me still wants to see if I can find someone on my own, who my parents would like as well. Shaadi.com seems like a last resort, if I look at it that way.
Yet there are definitely benefits to this system. At least on Indian matrimonial sites, if you’re so inclined, you can search by region, religion, and caste, which theoretically makes life easier. The same can be said for newspaper matrimonial ads. While my parents are probably more vested in my ending up with a Malayalee, Nair guy, it can’t hurt to have that option available if I want to search for one myself. Like other dating sites (I think) there are the options of looking for profiles with photos and without photos (and praying the photos that are up are not heavily Photoshopped). What’s convenient about Indian matrimonial sites is that you can indicate whether you are vegetarian or nonvegetarian, drink or not, smoke or not, and other things. Me, I’m a pescatarian…yes it’s a word, and you’d be surprised at how things like diet can shape a relationship (there was a New York Times article on it a few months back). I myself am pretty lenient, but I’m just saying…it’s a factor to consider.
Nonetheless, it’s important to get to meet and know the person, regardless of how one found the other. Sometimes that’s a bit harder when the person you met on Shaadi.com lives in India and you live in the States. Even if you both live in the States, getting from New York to say Texas, is easier said than done. Yet the argument can be made that, if there is a legitimate connection between two people, distance shouldn’t matter, right? Still, for me, face-to-face contact is the best way for me to judge a person’s character. Denying me that makes things very difficult. Also (on a slightly lighter note) having my brother play “that brother-in-law to-be” a la Nick Portokalos in “My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding” would be very difficult if the guy’s not around too often before the wedding. It’s an inevitable, right of passage.
So for me at least, the jury is still out on the possibility of me utilizing a site like Shaadi.com, or just plain old matrimonial ads. I’m hoping I won’t have to, that I’ll find someone the “old-fashioned way” but I guess there could be someone special that may be found through an ad. I just hope his picture isn’t John Abraham’s when he actually looks like Mohanlal.
Here is where I make my shameless plug for my brother’s blog, but he has a great post on the subject:
http://ssk001.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/love-and-relationships/
So why am I of all people posting about this? Little old me, from a conservative Indian background with little to no real experience. What could I possibly know about the subject?
I really don’t know much of anything, even now. What I know, if anything at all, is based on a shred of experience and years of observation. So take what I have to say with a grain of salt.
Scientists have started to study love, or rather bonding, seeing it as an important driving force for the development of human social ties. I myself took a class in college on the subject, and found it very interesting…needless to say, I could have done better in the class though so it speaks volumes of my intuitive understanding of the subject. Here’s what I took away from the class:
1. Infatuation is very easy to identify if you know the signs (sometimes it takes another person to see the signs in you, since you may be too busy being infatuated).
2. People are attracted to people who look most similar to themselves.
3. It’s about having some common ground, biologically and otherwise.
4. Sex is a powerful bonding agent.
Not really a whole lot about love though…so what is love?
Love can be the best or the worst four-letter word in the English language (granted I’m taking love in the romantic sense of the word). It has changed some lives and fractured others. Love is a sneaky person, sometimes people think he’s there, when really it’s infatuation or lust, closely-related (and sometimes devious) cousins. Yet when you find love, the feeling has been compared to ecstasy (the state of mind, not the psychotropic drug…though who knows). Love can sometimes be as elusive as, say, the lottery…but does it really have to be?
Hinduism deals with love mostly in the spiritual sense, and any other kind of love is seen as a derivative of the ultimate divine love: the love for God. They may go a little far when they deem all other love as a perversion of divine love, but that’s their take on it. Ultimately, though, love is supposed to be a pure, emotional state of mind. Love does not equate with lust, but more often than not, the two are inseparable with lust often leading to love.
Does love really exist anymore? Given the divorce rates that I’ve seen in recent years (something like 50%), it’s easy to question whether love and commitment has all but disappeared. People seem to be rushing headlong into relationships that are either not stable or not viable, because they’re mistaking a bond based more on lust and infatuation as love, more often than not. More people “hook up” than date, but what’s dating even defined as anymore? Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I’m still a sucker for just good old-fashioned romance. Nonetheless, times have changed, jobs have changed, and people just don’t seem to have time to budget out for a “date.” Granted, I’m basing this on what I’ve seen in college, and to a degree in grad school, but I think it’s fair to say that at the very least, people just don’t have time…period. Does that affect the quality of a relationship? I don’t know…maybe other people have better insight on this than I do.
Are we just too cynical to love, nowadays? Or conversely, are we not guarded enough? Where does that all arise? Maybe part of it is the mainstream media, with its portrayals of love always working out in the end. On the other hand, when love does not work out, it is always a sordid and sad affair. It’s almost as if we’ve forgotten how to love and our structuring our own understanding based on the scripted relationships in our favorite movies and shows. I myself can’t disentangle my own understanding of love without, somewhere, citing “Friends,” or, “Never Been Kissed,” or anything similar. Maybe it’s just me?
I’ve been raised to go the arranged marriage route, where you don’t marry the one with whom you fall in love with, but grow to love the one you marry (to paraphrase a line from “Born Confused”). I’m trying to stick with that, but I get the feeling that while I’ll end up marrying someone my parents are happy with, I’ll have already fallen in love with that person well before the wedding. But if I’m asked to define love in my own words, here’s what I’d say. Love is that which everyone aspires to, but few get to taste in all its sweet glory. Love is a pair of arms wrapped firmly around you, holding you close, not willing to let go. It’s the bliss of being unaware of anything else except for that one person. Love is comfort. Love is disregard for the petty details, the little quirks, which ultimately get consumed and loved as well. At the end of the day, love is a connection of two souls, less of two bodies.
I’ll end this one with two quotes about love that I absolutely love myself:
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” –Mother Teresa
“When you are in Love you can’t fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams.” –Dr. Seuss
