The Indian-American perspective on the Women’s March

by philg

I got together with friends this evening to watch my first football game of the season. One thing I learned is that Roku plus the CBS streaming service will tend to cut out during every critical play. Fortunately none of us are actually passionate about football…

I asked an Indian-American entrepreneur who studied at Harvard Medical School if she’d gone to the Women’s March. She looked at me incredulously. “I was working.”

Exercise for readers: Use Google or Bing image search. Count how many images of the Women’s March you need to review before you find an Indian-American or Chinese-American woman. Extra credit: How many images before you find an Indian-American or Chinese-American wearing a hand-knit hat?

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30 thoughts on “The Indian-American perspective on the Women’s March”

  1. It turned out to be a bunch of well-fed white women wearing $150 running shoes and holding $500 cell phones, with more life options than they know what to do with.

    Practically speaking, there are no more rights left to give women. So when they find out that all jobs frankly kind of suck, everybody forms hierarchies, everybody has to compete, and successful men don’t enjoy their company, what then? Answer: find a lightning rod for all your inchoate rage about your sucky life and go on a stupid, pointless march.

  2. Their main concern seems to be that Trump will somehow stop access to abortions and will prevent them from getting free women’s medical care. The abortion thing will never happen; too many people on both sides of the aisle want it. As for the second, I really don’t understand why these women feel that someone else should be paying for their healthcare. I’ve never come across a man out protesting that the government should be paying for his prostate exam every year.

    Women have to decide; your either strong, independent, liberated women who wish to take responsibility for their own lives, or lilting flowers who want to go through life being dependents of the state.

  3. I could immediately think of seven Indian- and Asian- American men and women who went to the marches in DC and Boston. More than half of them are entrepreneurs.

  8. “Considering 1 in 8 develops breast cancer repealing Obamacare’s pre existing conditions clause does not sound a great idea for many either.”

    When Obamacare was first introduced, the recommended age for breast cancer screening was raised. Many of us believe that this was not a result of good medical practices but because programs like Obamacare cause rationing of services.

  9. The pre-existing clause was duplicating existing state laws. It was not really needed. The media sob stories of rescission invariably involved the “victim” lying about their health status in the first place and Obamacare doesn’t cover that pre-existing condition (“liar”).

  11. Snopes said they could not prove the correlation.
    WHAT’S TRUE: Researchers identified a spike in maternal mortality in Texas between 2011 and 2014, while state statistics demonstrated a steady climb in such deaths beginning in approximately 2003.

    Typically men die with prostate cancer not because of it. It is usually extremely slow progressing and

  12. tekumse: If we assume it is true that maternal mortality “soared” in Texas and some other states (according to the article) following the introduction of Obamacare in 2012, why does that support continuing Obamacare? Wouldn’t that be an argument instead for putting pregnant Americans on flights to France or Switzerland a month before their due dates and then having the birth handled by a system with a lower risk of death? That would save money and lives. The cost of an apartment in Europe for a month being smaller than the difference in cost between a European and a U.S. hospital (see http://www.cnbc.com/2013/09/23/why-the-cost-of-giving-birth-could-make-you-cry-like-a-baby.html ).

  13. >If we assume it is true that maternal
    >mortality “soared” in Texas and some
    >other states (according to the article)
    >following the introduction of Obamacare
    >in 2012, why does that support
    >continuing Obamacare?

    I believe that during that period Texas implemented policies which may have had the effect of reducing maternal access to healthcare. Additionally, there may have been other trends not directly related to healthcare access which could have impacted maternal mortality. In short, the fact that maternal mortality “soared” in Texas is relevant for evaluating whether or not to continue Obamacare but by itself is not probative.

    >Wouldn’t that be an argument instead for putting pregnant
    >Americans on flights to France or Switzerland a month
    >before their due dates and then having the birth
    >handled by a system with a lower risk of death?

    Whether or not this intervention is effective for lowering maternal death risk depends on why the two systems are producing different risk of death (better management of high risk of deliveries vs. experiencing fewer high risk deliveries due to better prenatal care over the entire pregnancy). It is conceivable the intervention (if provided over the full pregnancy) could work to reduce maternal death risk even if the apartment was in Texas. For many women, birthing a child also involves their spouse, parents, in-laws, and other children. The cost of the entire kit and kaboodle putting their lives on hold for a month in Europe could make the intervention a lot less economically viable.

  14. “Why They Marched” isn’t difficult to figure out. The balance of power, rights, and net benefits in the United States favors women and the march is about keeping and continuing to advance privileged status.

  15. The spike idea is misleading because there are so few maternal deaths that an extra one or two can raise the numbers for smaller subpopulations. So really, people should be happy that the actual numbers are so small statistical chance can create the illusion of “spikes” despite little or no change in overall care type and form.

  16. Ok, you guys sent me off to research the Texas maternal mortality thing.

    They are counting homicides as “maternal mortality due to lack of healthcare”.

    Also drug ODs. So basically the entire topic is politicized (any death in the first six weeks postpartum is counted as due to postpartum complications whether this is the case or not). Thus it is extremely misleading, possibly “fake news” to claim that the increase in deaths is from bad pregnancy and postpartum health care or lack thereof.

  17. Phil sure loves him some Asians and never misses a chance to rag on lazy American goyim sitting around playing xbox or otherwise being stupid.

  18. @Practical: are you saying that the statistics for maternal 6-week postpartum deaths from presumptively random causes are not properly normalized against the ambient rate for deaths due to similar causes?

  20. I recall seeing some faces in the news that appeared to be of east Asian ancestry. You can probably find a bunch of south Asian faces as well if you looked. Of course, Asian-Americans are a small minority group, making up maybe 5% of the population, which explains why you might not see many Asian faces. Also, the march took place on a Sunday, so many of the marchers didn’t have to miss work.

    Furthermore, NA’s remark that the participants were all very prosperous white women has to be nonsense. There were hundreds of thousands of people there. Some of them were certainly middle class, working class, or poor. There were also articles in the news about women taking the busses to DC from places like Michigan. Rich people don’t travel that way.

  21. Re: Indian and Chinese-Americans in protesting. I think this video sums it up pretty well.

    I dislike Trump but believe the protesters need to accept their candidate lost, stop crying about it and try doing something with their lives.

  22. @J Cortez: Trump and the Republicans barely won one election. Unless we actually believe we’ve installed a Trumpenfuhrer, there will be another election in two years. Of course people need to accept that Trump won the election, but no one needs to accept the transformation of America into Trumpworld.

  23. I dislike Trump but believe the protesters need to accept their candidate lost, stop crying about it and try doing something with their lives.

    Protests and marches and so forth were a very part of the movements that made America a better country in the 20th century. They helped give woman the vote, bring in the New Deal and end segregation. Big business doesn’t need such popular movements to advance its agenda. A small number of billionaires can provide politicians with their campaign funding to get what they want. Ordinary working people have to get together in large numbers and organize and protest and so forth to have an effect. So you’re the expressing the business message: get back to work, stay out of politics, don’t organize, spend you free at home, watching television alone or playing with your smartphone.

  24. Vince: Protests and marches ended segregation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9981 was issued in 1948. What protests had there been in 1947 or 1948? Protests and marches led to the Supreme Court decision in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education (1954)?

    Billionaires can easily buy elections? How come Hillary Clinton didn’t win then? She raised more money, and from richer people, than Donald Trump, right? Why didn’t Hillary’s friends at Goldman secure her victory?

    Protests and marches led to women being able to vote? https://www.bustle.com/articles/105598-theres-1-country-where-women-cant-vote-its-seriously-time-for-it-to-break-with says that there is only one country on the planet where women can’t vote. Does that mean there were protests and marches in every country on Planet Earth?

  25. Vince said, “Protests and marches and so forth were a very part of the movements that made America a better country in the 20th century. They helped give woman the vote, bring in the New Deal and end segregation. Big business doesn’t need such popular movements to advance its agenda. A small number of billionaires can provide politicians with their campaign funding to get what they want. Ordinary working people have to get together in large numbers and organize and protest and so forth to have an effect. So you’re the expressing the business message: get back to work, stay out of politics, don’t organize, spend you free at home, watching television alone or playing with your smartphone.”

    I do not follow making a comparison of the election of Donald Trump to the Great Depression or Jim Crow era United States. It seems to me those were much more poor, violent and terrifying times.

    What I hoped to express was the complete polar opposite mindset of the stereotypical Indian and Chinese-American vs the protestors. There are people that are laser focused on succeeding for themselves and their family and there are people acting like reactionary imbeciles. So much of what I’ve seen in the past week is more like performance art than people presenting rational, coherent ideas.

    If anyone wants political change, that is their prerogative. Protesting is a perfectly fine method of affecting change, but much of what’s happened is far from smart discourse or political activism. It’s disruptive noise without clear messaging or goals.

  26. Protests and marches ended segregation?

    I wasn’t referring to all segregation. It was referring to the civil rights acts of 1963 and 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act (1968, I believe). Though you may have already known what I was referring to. Though, if you looked into it, you might find some protests and marches, etc. during WW2 and shortly afterwards.

    When I referred to women and the vote, I meant in America.

    Regarding Trump and Hillary and elections, you forget that Trump himself is a billionaire and had billionaires like the Mercers supporting him. Most rich people are Republicans and are presumably pleased with Trump’s election. It’s rather silly to question the importance of money in elections. Politicians wouldn’t spend so much time raising money If they didn’t need it.

    While we’re at it, we could mention some of the other movements of the 60s and 70s – the antiwar movement, the women’s movement and environmental and gay movements.

  27. J Cortez:

    I wasn’t comparing the election of Trump to Jim Crow or the Depression. I was just making a point about the effectiveness of protests in the street. You do have a point that the marches on Sunday appeared to lack a program. On the other hand, you seem to imply that that’s irrelevant, that, no matter what the reason, that Asian-Americans are too sensible to get involved political activity, because they’re only concerned about their personal well being.

  28. I just cam across the following from researcher who studies popular movements:

    The Women’s March has some of the hallmarks of the beginning of a successful movement, Chenoweth said. The ability to mobilize large numbers of people is often associated with the creation of an effective campaign. The fact that the march was inclusive and broad rather than tied to a specific policy goal helped draw big numbers, Chenoweth said, and the explicitly non-violent nature of the protests helped attract even more. The level of organization on display at events large to small bodes well for the social movement, as does the proportion of march participants who aren’t usually politically engaged.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/womens-march-protest-count/514166/

  29. Vince – “Most rich people are Republicans and are presumably pleased with Trump’s election.”

    I’d say most rich people care not which political party they bribe for their special treatment. See Donald Trump as an example. They laugh at how the average interested newsreader gets hung up on Republicans and Democrats.

    “I just cam across the following from researcher who studies popular movements:”
    What, again, is the purpose of this movement? Moving for movement’s sake? The extent I could find was, “We’re not gonna take it anymore!”

  30. Wall Street in particular has enough money to influence both parties. Let’s put it this way. Rich people may have a great life no matter which party hold the White House. But they prefer the Republicans, who operate as if they think that life is difficult for wealthy Americans.

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