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Culture Vs Religion


seektruthgal
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So Im writing this as a twenty-something female who is disturbed by the patternsof behaviour, socializing, and the punjabi approach to relationships that I am seeing.

I, like many other people on this site, have grown up with great family values, a lot of support, and have been instilled with the desire to succeed, to make good the sacrifices our parents made when they came here.

Many of us I think innately carry that goal within us. Many have termed it 'the first generation guilt factor', but I do not think that is the case. I think that making good of our parents sacrifices is a blessing, and something that I am proud to do.

Here is where the dilemma is though. I feel that, as a female, how much I achieve, what I do, and how much I try, will never be seen in the same light or with the same level of prestige, as our male counterparts.

Especially when it comes to relationships. I feel like the expectations placed on us, as first generation children, are not realistic. Men do not have the same expectations and are not stigmatized to the same degree as we females are.

Religiously, we are all equal. Culturally we are not. If we allow ouselves to be judged according to culaturally subjective titles such as 'good vs bad girls' and or any other deragotory lables, then aren't we in fact saying that culture is overriding religion? Which, I certianly believe should not be the case.

What I am trying to say is, when we are taught to stay home, not be assertive, listen to what we are told, marry within our caste -- all of these things are the opposite of what our religion tells us, which as much as I know, I am proud to say, is to respect women and men equally in front of the khalsa, and the Golden Temple has four doors to accomodate all castes.

If all castes are welcome in the Golden TEmple, then surely they can be welcome in our homes, and families. A lot of the strife and fighting that occurs within families and between parents and children is about just that, caste, and other things, which religiously, we should all accept as SIkhs.

What do folks think?

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Religiously, we are all equal. Culturally we are not. If we allow ouselves to be judged according to culaturally subjective titles such as 'good vs bad girls' and or any other deragotory lables, then aren't we in fact saying that culture is overriding religion? Which, I certianly believe should not be the case.

I feel its society that rides this, and society is based on culture more than religion. People in general tend to limit religion to Nitnem/prayers and places of worship and Sunday. Why not instill religion into their daily lives?

What I am trying to say is, when we are taught to stay home, not be assertive, listen to what we are told, marry within our caste -- all of these things are the opposite of what our religion tells us, which as much as I know, I am proud to say, is to respect women and men equally in front of the khalsa, and the Golden Temple has four doors to accomodate all castes.

The only thing that seems to be against Sikhi is "marry within our caste" - all the other things in the list seem to be just ordinary family values depends on the family..

If all castes are welcome in the Golden TEmple, then surely they can be welcome in our homes, and families. A lot of the strife and fighting that occurs within families and between parents and children is about just that, caste, and other things, which religiously, we should all accept as SIkhs.

In my opinion, the reason why people didn't marry into castes was because of practicality. The ways of lives differed between castes (assuming that castes were based on jobs)

eg: Eating habits would've been different - farmers eat more body biulding stuff while businessmen eat more mind-making foods.. no?

However, what the introduction of Khalsa-hood has done, was create a way of life which was the same for all castes - Ie: Saint Soldier discipline. This solves the practicle issue.

That aside, coming to England/Canada etc has changed Punjabis - and the differences between castes also lessened from here (i dont see any chamaars making leather shoes or any Jatts farming). They all work together in the same occupations generally. So that also solves this issue. of different ways of life.

On the other hand, we , being the great people we are, stick to being ourselves and create an even bigger divide by co-operating it into religion (Casted Gurdwaras). I thought only Jatts/Rajputs had the caste-driven ego problem - No siree everyone is suffering from it.

So yeah, that's my opinion, I know it didn't help but it helped me to open up about this issue :D

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First of all penji, welcome to Sikhsangat :D

So Im writing this as a twenty-something female who is disturbed by the patternsof behaviour, socializing, and the punjabi approach to relationships that I am seeing.
Thats where our problem starts. We have forgotten our Sikh values and Punjabiyat has taken precedence to Sikhi. The best example is Punjab's current situation in terms of religious enthusiasm.
I, like many other people on this site, have grown up with great family values, a lot of support, and have been instilled with the desire to succeed, to make good the sacrifices our parents made when they came here.
Keep going, you'll be fine :)
I feel that, as a female, how much I achieve, what I do, and how much I try, will never be seen in the same light or with the same level of prestige, as our male counterparts.
And you do realize that this is again Punjabism, not Sikhism, right? Not just Punjabis, nearly all of the subcontinental subcultures are hypocritical when it comes to gender equality. There are 2 sets of rules, one for guys and one for girls whereas our Gurus had one for everyone irrespective of any manmade differentiation.
Religiously, we are all equal. Culturally we are not.
Which is why we should give importance to religion.
If we allow ouselves to be judged according to culaturally subjective titles such as 'good vs bad girls' and or any other deragotory lables, then aren't we in fact saying that culture is overriding religion? Which, I certianly believe should not be the case.
There you go!
What I am trying to say is, when we are taught to stay home, not be assertive, listen to what we are told, marry within our caste -- all of these things are the opposite of what our religion tells us, which as much as I know, I am proud to say, is to respect women and men equally in front of the khalsa, and the Golden Temple has four doors to accomodate all castes.
Penji you have addressed some core and subtle issues here. The starting point to finding a solution is to learn what Gurbani teaches us, inspire our families to learn them as well, and slowly take ourselves away from cultural "flaws" towards a more religious living.
If all castes are welcome in the Golden TEmple, then surely they can be welcome in our homes, and families. A lot of the strife and fighting that occurs within families and between parents and children is about just that, caste, and other things, which religiously, we should all accept as SIkhs.
Not allowing the kids to marry someone based on caste is wrong as per Sikhi. However, if the parents have other genuine reasons, then those should be taken into account.

Just my opinion, and I stand corrected anywhere that I may be wrong :D

Guru rakha

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seektruthgirl

1) sexism is a result of the present capitalist society we live in... which is not the ideal society that is part of gurmat. in a gurmat society women/men would all be gursikh......when there is gursikhi then automatically the gender gap is bridged. look at sikh history mata bhagh kaur is shashtardhari and fighting alongside her men counterpart, then Gurusahib tends to her wounds exactly as did to gursikh males.

2)casteism is a brahman principle that we have never been able to get rid of in our culture/religion

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Another point regarding gender equality regards the objectification of women sexual objects, we can see this all the time everywhere in the media. So don't think gender equality doesn't exist in what we call progressive societies, it just has another form.

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daal singh you wrote

So don't think gender equality doesn't exist in what we call progressive societies, it just has another form.

what does the above mean

Well, what I meant is that often you get some people who claim that Western societies are the models of gender equality and other societies, such as Eastern ones are oppressive towards females.

My point was that even such so called progressive societies oppress women themselves by objectify them by their beauty and nothing else (i.e. sex objects).

This puts extreme pressure on females who obsess about their looks and in extreme cases resort to plastic surgery in a neurotic attempt to keep "looking good".

In this society women who are less attractive are subtly perceived as having less value. That is why here you can meet really young girls, say 14, who are already abnormally obsessed by their looks and fashion.

Did that make sense?

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yes now it makes sense

thanks for that its a brilliant and valid point that you have made

i feel the same problem is happening in men such as the david beckham effect in men

I agree with you. Although we should all strive to look after our health as best we can and keep fit, this obsession with physical attraction over all else is shallow.

What kind of role model is Beckham, or any footballer? I have more respect for a social worker or something, but here they idolise such people. Don't make any sense to me. I don't have anything against Beckham, I'm sure he is a nice guy but....

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Wow, thanks for the responses! I like this website.

I have to say, that this adds some clarity -- its obvious that I have some skewed perceptions that I'm acting on as truth. You're right that family values maybe shouldn't be generalized to an entire population. I suppose it is just hard to get away from being taught things as 'right' or 'wrong' and then growing up and realizing, at an age when I think you should be more 'wise', things that are not necessarily the truth.

Here's another angle though -- if religion says one thing, your family says another, general broad society still another, then how do you decide what to do? It seems a simple question -- but living your life trying to please everyone else, can cause serious problems. I was reading somewhere that first generation western born punjabi girls have been persenting characteristics of borderline personality disorders. The result of having fragmented identities - ie - being one way at home, and another way in the real world.

I touched on several issues at once -- sort of just babbled on the screen. My issue is, well everything. I just see hypocrisy everywhere i look. I liked the media example you gave - we are taught one thing at home, taught that beauty is not on the surface, taught to focus on other things, taught to enjoy our rotia, and then we are bombarded with images that we can never aspire to, like blonde blue eyed sex objects that we see. Now, I guess it makes sense that with migration, cultures change. So therein lies another dilemma - things that were previously taboo, are now slowly sneaking their way into dominant punjabi culture - for example, things like dating, sex, even displaing some of the superficial characterisitics that we see in western media all around us. So -- the question now becomes, what do we participate in, what can we now do, because the things that we didn't do before, telling ourselves that we are being 'sikh', or 'punjabi' (and i recognize that you're right, people do confuse the two as being interchangeable, and they shouldn't), are now allowed. As a teen here in Toronto today, you can date, pretty much behave as your friends of any other culture do, and it seems that on the whole, there is a 'niche' or a place for you to belong within the culture, that there wasn't before. In essence - I see a shift even with the kids that are a decade younger today -- the way they carry their identity is fascinatingly different - its almost as though the 'rules' you had to obey before, in order to be able to say ' i am punjabi' have now conveniently broadened so that its almost as though anything goes. ANd if anything goes, then really aren't we just painting the broader global culture brown, yet calling it our own? Is there really any place for it anymore? Does culture go beyond just music and food today?

On the gender in the media issue - I really relate to what you were saying - in fact I've had this conversation with friends before, and I find that the so -called liberal sexuality that westerners claim to enjoy, is actually disguised oppression - it always will depend on the sexual values in the eye of the beholder - liberalism allows for women to 'flaunt' - which- yes - encourages a focus on appearance - so that we are essentially grooming ourselves to be just what we are told we are being freed from - an object.

People who advocate that the see a lot of eastern cultures as 'oppressive' - are basing that on the fact that the non-flaunting of natural sexuality or appearance, is a form of oppression - but is it really? I've found that arguments can be made for either case.

Is any of this making sense. Im babbling.

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