The last few months have shown many reports of domestic violence, character assassination of women, and misogynoir within celebrity culture and our everyday society. Yet, an eerily, intimately known, generational theme of gender inequality continues to persist in our seemingly more egalitarian world. And we are at a critical juncture where we must reflect as individuals, as a generation, and as a global community in order to create real change.

But before we can even do this, it’s important to identify the terrifying trends that increasingly occur within our real world – and the harmful discussions perpetuated in the online world. Namely, this includes addressing harmful phenomena like misogynoir (ingrained prejudice against Black women) when harmful instances of misogyny occur like domestic violence, and applying the concept to how South Asian, namely, Punjabi women, are perceived and treated. Then, this article brings in suggestions on being part of the change, and not the problem, for all everyday individuals to consider.

So, here are four high profile cases of women of colour going through it – notice the trends of how society is currently [now, in this moment, 2022] treating them.

Brittney Griner

It made international news when American WNBA player and 2x Olympic Gold Medalist Brittney Griner was imprisoned in Russia for carrying a gram of cannabis oil [prescribed by her doctor as pain medication]. If you commit a crime in another country, the rhetoric is, you do the time. Fair. However, Brittney isn’t the first person to carry cannabis oil in her luggage upon entering Russia. In 2019, American-Israeli, Naama Issachar, was sentenced to 7 ½ years in prison for a similar mishap – where she unintentionally brought cannabis into the country when travelling from India to Israel. She was pardoned by Putin within 7.5 months when tensions rose high between the two countries – something that wasn’t the case for Griner despite tensions between America and Russia.

Separating from the rhetoric of paying dues for committing crimes, Griner was released in a prison swap with convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout on December 8, 2022 – a deal that has been claimed to be ‘manageable’ by the Biden Administration. In response, many right-wing propagandists started to spread false information about Griner: harnessing her unique physical characteristics such as her height, deeper voice, and body size to argue that she is a man pretending to be a woman playing in the WNBA. Not only is misinformation about Griner’s biological sex spreading like wildfire, her outward gender fluidity despite identifying as a woman is exactly the ammo being used to further perpetuate misinformation, harassment and bullying against her. So, despite the fact that Griner spent time in horrendous conditions in Russian holding cells – despite the fact that she literally went missing and her loved ones had no idea about her whereabouts or condition – people think it's perfectly fine to channel hate towards her because of a prison swap deal she had no control over. As if she is the cause of war. As if the US does not perpetuate wars, arm countries with its $175 billion weapons manufacturing industry and hasn’t destabilised and destroyed almost the entirety of the Middle East [including the ongoing war in Yemen, where over 300,000 children are severely malnourished.] But, right, Brittney’s the one who isn’t patriotic. Cool.

Meg Thee Stallion

In July 2020, American rapper Meg Thee Stallion was shot by her then boyfriend, fellow rapper Tory Lanez. For some reason, Tory Lanez fans really want to dispute this. LAPD reports from that evening themselves reveal that Meg was rushed to the hospital for bleeding from gunshot wounds on her feet, while Lanez was charged for carrying a concealed firearm. Now that the case has reached the American Court, misogynists across the globe, including within celebrity culture itself, have developed rhetoric on regular and social media channels denying what happened – instead, they place blame on Meg. This is something that has happened time and time again not just within the rap community, but any time, essentially, a celebrity has come forward with a domestic violence case. 

The rap and hip hop industry is notoriously male-centric, with only 21% of the industry being composed of female rappers. A common byproduct of this is, of course, misogynistic lyrics, which, for the sake of this article, we’re not going to get into. That’s a whole other discussion. But, similar to Griner’s case here, misogynoir knows no bounds. Just like many women who have gone public about their domestic violence ordeals before her, Meg finds herself constantly defending herself against online bullying and harassment. Because for some reason, people find the need to message her horrible things in defence of Tory Lanez – and make memes and jokes out of the whole ordeal. And so do media outlets. Just like the South Asian community, the black community also holds a disturbing trend of protecting offenders instead of survivors.

Harpreet Kaur Gill

This case hits close to home because I knew of Harpreet Kaur Gill. On the evening of Wednesday, December 7th 2022, Surrey RCMP arrived at the complex of Narinder Singh and Harpreet Kaur Gill. Narinder had stabbed his wife to death – and despite what the media and interviewees within news stories are telling you, yes, one of Harpreet’s three children was also harmed in his rage. Contrary to what her neighbours are telling news reporters, everyone in Harpreet’s townhouse complex knew what was going on in her home. No, the family wasn’t stable. Yes, it had a history of domestic violence. And to the credit of a few folks – a couple of Punjabi neighbours intervened in the violence over the few years she lived with her family in the townhouse complex she was ultimately murdered by her husband in. I was physically around for some of these instances. Police were also called a few times to intercept her husband’s violent, rageful episodes as well. 

My nephew and niece knew Harpreet’s children. They played in the complex together. They went to school together. They were friends. Although they are one of the few kids in the complex who don’t identify as South Asian, at a young age, these children very quickly learned how the Punjabi community operates – to this day, when I visit, the kiddos often ask me why my community is so quick to turn a blind eye to the horrible screams of women that they sometimes hear at night. A sombre reality they also live in as a byproduct of what happens “on the down low” in a majority of our Punjabi homes. Nope. Harpreet’s home is not the only one that holds a violent, unstable Punjabi man. How can you be surprised though? So many South Asian homes in Surrey, the Lower Mainland, BC, Canada, and throughout the diaspora within the world hold a similar story. 

Harpreet died in vain – I will even go so far as to say it was the community that contributed to her murder. The violence she faced was something that was well-known. I’ve seen men and women in our community, in that complex, turn a blind eye to her plight. Ostracising her instead – something that is also common in our community. If a woman, for some reason, is facing a husband who hurts her – puts his hands on her, assaults her be it physically, sexually or verbally, or controls her, we say “well shit, there must be something wrong with her. She must have done something to piss him off.”

Mandeep Kaur

This case is one that I am so surprised has not pivoted the way we interact with domestic violence as a community. In early August 2022, a video circulated among Punjabi WhatsApp groups, social media, and media channels of Mandeep Kaur, a mother of three in Richmond Hill, New York. In the video, she revealed that she suffered horrid domestic abuse by the hands of her husband. She recounted gruesome ways in which she suffered – often physically – while her children helplessly watched. She also circulated a video of herself being strangled by her husband, unable to breathe and struggling under his body weight. In the video, she said she couldn’t tolerate the abuse anymore, and found the only way out was to end her life.

Since the videos came out, Mandeep Kaur made international and cultural news. In the midst of her pain, many people, including Punjabi media personalities, questioned her role in her suffering – claiming that she “must have done something to deserve it.” Yeah, contemporary media is somehow, bafflingly, creating space for toxic, misogynistic discussions like this. What does this tell you about what Punjabi society accepts, and what it doesn’t?

Let’s back it up. Why are black and brown stories coupled here?

No, we aren’t trying to create connections that aren’t there. Neither do we have our own sneaky, hidden agenda [yes, this is a dig at those who think everything in the world has a hidden agenda] by writing this article and linking black female celebrities with everyday immigrant Sikh women. There are many parallels between the ways black women in celebrity and pop culture and brown women in everyday life are ostracised by society – a greater reflection of the domestic violence and gender inequality struggle within the black community, and within the world as a whole. The two recent examples of online harassment and character assassination of Brittney Griner and Meg Thee Stallion can be exemplified further by black women throughout time – from parallels between Michelle Obama’s body type and Brittney Griner’s, to public domestic violence cases against black female celebrities like Tina Turner, Rihanna, and Kelly Rowland to name a few.

Fact of the matter is, with the visibility of these public celebrity stories, the black community is a lot more open and takes a bigger stand against domestic violence. Yes, misogynoir exists and is extremely prevalent. But, there is a larger, a lot more visible acceptance of domestic violence as an issue within black communities and spheres. South Asians aren’t there yet, and this stems from pushing our issues under the rug and refusing to acknowledge them as a community, let alone tackle them. Our biggest domestic violence case to make the rounds in celebrity culture was between Aishwarya Rai and Salman Khan in the late 1990s/early 2000s. And even now, media rhetoric continues to favour Salman Khan in misreporting facts about the case in entirety. While people all together choose to forget the horrid details of what Aishwarya underwent as they file into cinemas during a new Sallu Bhai film opening [I am also guilty of this.] Thus, black culture holds a consistent, visible framework of struggle against domestic violence within its pop cultural paradigm and through the established concept of misogynoir that is non-existent in the South Asian world and is adequate to compare culturally.

In the same light, notice how the Punjabi community once again is not equipped with language to describe gender disparity, gender inequality, and the unique plight and suffering of women at the hands of an unequal social system for the genders. Barriers of language negate the existence of things. By having no language around how wrong domestic violence is, how will we know to speak up against it?

We are the problem

It becomes clear at first glance of each of their stories that these four women live(d) four very different realities. From cultural connections and self-expression, to ways of being. Their commonalities? They’re all female. Their plights are very classically gendered predicaments; reflective of various different kinds of oppression no matter how “modern” and “accepting” our collective, Western society seems to be. And the end result? Somehow, for some reason, always ends up focussing on character assassination, bullying and harassment of women going through ordeals instead of speaking on larger problems perpetuated by bigger systems and paradigms of thought. Meaning? We keep shitting on women when our systems and internal biases themselves still make it impossible for women to live day-to-day lives without their characters, and physical lives, being threatened.

Simply put, we are failing women. We are allowing gross misconduct and dehumanisation to occur on radio programming, television media, and entertainment media. Yes, a lot of it is coming from the polarised political right wing – but it goes deeper than this.

Without discounting systemic disadvantages, in reality, many of these news stories are reflective of the ways we view and treat each other as a community, and then document them accordingly. This is even more so apparent in the South Asian community, where suddenly, you have extreme misogynists coming forth as experts on female morality [think of “former” radio host Paul Brar striking again and again and making CBC news headlines for his bigotry here.] So, even if a woman’s gone through something horrible, some dude is gonna bark about how women should act. Like he personally knows the perpetrators in these news stories and has gotta back his homies up.

And the moral policing is still extremely apparent and important to consider in Punjabi communities. A recent ordeal where an OnlyFans creator posted pictured of her Punjabi wedding celebrations showed a frenzy of males [and females] expressing their extreme offence at the fact that a Punjabi OnlyFans creator had a Punjabi Sikh wedding – as if males aren’t the biggest consumers of porn and sexually explicit content anyway, and Sikh males don’t watch porn or engage in sexual activities…

We blame social systems and social paradigms for a disturbing theme that actually reflects us as a society: and that is that we absolutely massacre the reputations [and quite literally, in some instances, the actual physical bodies] of women.

And we lie. We pretend nothing is going on. That it isn’t us. That we don’t perpetuate these harms in our own circles by either staying silent, refusing to acknowledge harms, and character assassinating the women in the headlines instead of addressing and taking a stand against those who are hurting them. We are complicit. This isn’t a left or right or media issue. It’s an US issue.

So what do we do? There is already a disparity between what is considered ethical, socially responsible reporting. So much so that any reporting that supports females in certain cases is accused of being overtly leftist propaganda [talk about irony.] We have heard the term “radicalism” so many times that it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Yet, somehow, this radicalism seems to constantly be applied to the female psyche, female body, female mind, and female soul. As modern and increasingly egalitarian our world claims to be, the root of the issue still lies in the fact that the problems women of colour, be it Black, Brown or Indigenous, face are still very real and extremely life threatening.

Hold up Juggi, the community can’t take the law in its own hands. That’s something the police can only deal with.

Right. Besides the fact that citizen’s arrests are a very real possibility in Canada, we really can’t do much to charge someone – and we definitely can’t take the law in our hands. But, we also cannot leave the burden on law enforcement here. Law enforcement can only help us as much as we let them. I’ve personally talked to countless Constables with the VPD on domestic violence cases. A trend that remains consistent across generations in Asian and South Asian communities when it comes to reporting domestic violence is that of “honour.” The police simply can’t do anything if we do not report, or charge someone with domestic violence without our compliance. Beyond the question of police brutality, even if they want to help, they can’t because they’re forced to live by an “honour” code that we as Asians abide by. Quite literally, you could have a black eye, or be wearing a cast from abuse. If there isn’t reason beyond a doubt for a cop to charge someone for abuse, or if you’re denying that your black eye came from your husband, they simply can’t charge him.

This is where community complicitness in holding the silence comes in. When we protect abusers, or when we turn a blind eye to someone’s plight, we quite literally are saying it’s okay for them to be dealing with another person who is putting them physically in harm's way. What does this say about who we are as people? And what does this say about how we, the next generation, choose to lead?

But wait, what’s the solution, then?

We conducted our own research from 2019 through 2021, where we interviewed over 100 South Asian identifying locals (in Vancouver, Canada), and international male and female participants individually for no less than 90 minutes about how they interact with the world around them. In our sample, we asked the same questions relating to what it was like growing up in and interacting with adults playing traditional gender roles, lasting trauma from life experiences that participants defined as disturbing or traumatic and included definitions of domestic violence, and pivotal moments in their lives that they described to be moments of clarity and self-awareness in breaking cycles of trauma for themselves and their loved ones. 100% of participants witnessed domestic violence and gender inequality at home to some level – whether it was through an unequal distribution of household work and the responsibilities that come with raising children, verbal abuse, or flat out brutal, traumatic domestic violence between parents and relatives.

In our sample of 100 participants, all participants reached a stage of self-awareness in order to create agency and change in their own lives. Whether it was through observation or a rebel phase of their own – they all came to the conclusion that the cycles of trauma that they saw and experienced in repetition had to end through their own psychological and emotional transformation – which ultimately created a paradigm for them to then take concrete action to break the cycle and create space for a new way of thinking that bends these frivolous gender rules.

So… what does this mean?

It’s clear. The onus is on us to do the individual work to shift our mindsets. But, before we do this, we have to create an inner self-awareness that transmutes our ego and individual experiences. We have to start questioning why these things happen – not stay apathetic or look at these gross cycles of abuse and trauma as one to adopt for ourselves. Because, fact of the matter is that, every week or so, there is a new murder of a South Asian woman that ends up on our news.

We were the kids who helplessly watched – and now we have agency to make a choice.

If you’ve made it this far into this article, this is your call to do your inner work. To make it all about you for a second to understand your own biases, harmful ways of thinking, bigotry and misogyny, and then never do that again when it comes to how you interact with domestic violence at home, within your social circles, and within the framework of the South Asian and global communities. It is not your time to speak if you are not part of a growing community of domestic violence survivors – and this includes women. It is your time to be an ally. To listen, to uplift, to create meaningful solidarity that extends beyond a few words on Twitter feeds. Solidary is not something to be monetised. It’s not something to create a mass following over. It’s something to embed into our own individual existences and come together as a collective so we can shift from being “hush hush” into creating concrete action as a community against despicable acts like domestic violence [from character assassination to a dude with anger issues taking it out on his girlfriend or wife]. Goddess knows it’s about damn time.

Sources

1. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/brittney-griner-american-israeli-woman-was-held-russian-prison-cannabi-rcna37938

2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-military-exports-idUSKBN28E2ZK

3. https://www.unicef.ca/en/donate/help-children-in-yemen#:~:text=Treated%20217%2C041%20children%20for%20severe,drinking%2C%20cooking%20and%20personal%20hygiene

4. https://www.vox.com/culture/23494788/megan-thee-stallion-tory-lanez-assault-trial

5. https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/12/21/are-you-listening-misogyny-in-rap-music-and-what-it-means-for-women-in-society/

6. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/process-addiction/porn-addiction/pornography-statistics/