Good catch “Google will see this site as being authoritative. It will see your titles as being authoritative. When someone searches they will say see, look at these articles, without looking into it deeper.”

I personally write SEO articles as a side gig. What the author is doing here is so dangerous for the image of the Sikh community they do not realize. Placing an article on the internet is not same as publishing it in a news paper, the audience is larger and google’s spider will direct the audience to such material. Key words in the title and article once entered in google will automatically direct the search to this article and any related to it even with out the word “Sikh” in it. The author should take a serious look at what is being published here, and not create a negative image for the Sikh community because there is a personal agenda to down play men, driven by modern western feminist thinking. In fact if the author is serious enough about this issue there should be conference held to bring forth the concerns to the community rather then post base less articles on a blog with no solid proof for the “abuse” issue, which will bring a negative image to the community.

Reema,
“Why don’t we focus on our own community instead of worrying how we look in others’ eyes?”

Believe it or not, the opinions of others matter in how successful your community will be. Especially if your community is a minority. Having a stereo type which down plays your minority community will only further depopulate your community as a whole not help it. Regardless of what we think our own young women and men will not be willing to associate with our own communities or marry with in the community just because we are the “abusers” a stereo type which is already in the works about the Sikh men in India, by non-Sikh sources. Yes we need to confront this issue if it truly exists to the extent the author wants to make it seem it exists, but we also need to be highly cautious of the strategy we use to find any solution.

Publishing such a title is not such a small impact with today’s technology this can damage a community image. The average person today does not watch TV news programs they watch sound bite material, they ready high lights not articles to place such a title on a article such as this is very unprofessional and a cheap shot by the author to get their name out there, to express their opinion about a subject by using someone else’s work. This clearly shows that this author is opinionated and does not have solid facts to back up their claims.

Also if one reads the articles on the links in the article there are some brief descriptions of women killed by their husbands. I don’t know but the last I remember someone has to be pretty messed up in the head to set someone on fire! So is it really a Sikh, Hindu, Christian etc. or someone out of their fu.k.ng mind
for some God known reason (molested as a child, abused as a child) which make these people do such a thing.

Everything you’ve written is premised on some notion of there being this perfect seperation between the Punjabi and the Sikh; many, if not most, are both.

Lets not get into what is ideal – lets look at the reality of the situation.

It would be ideal if all those claiming to be Sikhs were perfect Sikhs, flawless in all aspects, adhering 100% to Sikh principles, and living in a vacuum, free from any cultural intrusions or impact.

Sadly, that is not the case.

You will find Sikh women, who are Punjabi by culture, struggling in families which demean and devalue them. Are they not Sikh women because they live in such families? Should we strip the “Sikh” from their identity because they do feel fear, and feel trapped, and have feelings of hopelessness? Are they not Sikhs because they have weaknesses, and are not pictures of perfection?

The Sikh message of equality is awesome; however, the practice of this equality amongst Sikhs is hardly uniform.

On the one hand South Asian masculinity seems to have been problematized in many ways, from macho to overtly patriarchal and further down the spectrum from that. This particularly becomes a constraint to South Asian men in terms of who they feel they can grow up to be as they mature.

On the other hand, South Asian cultural patriarchy has serious consequences as it exists. This harms women, and also everyone around it as well.

A balancing point may be to not play a part in negative developments while being part of positive ones.

Guru Nanak Sahib Ji existed so does that mean I come from a utopian background, no, it means I dont need mythlogical stories to draw upon, instead Sikhs have a Faith based in reality.

Guru Nanak Sahib Ji spread the message of equality between all human beings. So, yes Sikhism does provide this message to everyone regardless of being male or female.

The major religions of the world besides Sikhism portray women as lesser. How many men of Judeo-Christian-Islamic backgrounds will not allow women to forget that they took the apple from the serpent, and then had Adam to do the same. Because of this act all woman are bad. Christian women are damned if they do and damnet if they dont believe this.

In Sikhism do we have any stories remotely related to why a woman should be seen this way? No, not one has ever been told.

There is a difference between punjabi women and Sikh women, way too many punjabi women identify with being punjabi and especilly their caste more so than Sikhism.

Why dont Punjabi women realize that they are essentially agreeing that they are low caste hindus.

This will also be why a punjabi woman will want her daughter/daughter-in-law to abort a female baby. Because a female will always be worthless according to what the caste system is based in, hinduism. Hinduism is described as the worst in terms of treatment of women.

http://www.geocities.com/~abdulwahid/hinduism/hindu_women.html

A Sikh woman does not need feminism, because western women have been berated by western religions. A Sikh woman needs Waheguru Period

A Sikh woman can use Sikhism to make her point to anyone. Sikhism did not put a load on her back or shackles on her wrists, and ankles. Sikhism never teaches her to be less or for her to accept a lesser role.

Dont mix the affects of community. Community based on Sikhism is different than a community based on the trends of being a punjabi.

I dont know any Sikh man that thinks we can exist without Sikh women, I dont know any Sikh man thats hyping feminisim.

I do know Sikh men and women that could agree on a similar explanation of Sikh family-ism.

It might not be directed at one person, but everyone’s a part of a community and they will identify with different things than what anyone intended.

Having worked at a newspaper for a few years and experiencing the “why do we do it this way” behind their editorial practices and policies, I think the attempt to link this to Sikhs can be done without doing it literally, and in this case would have been wiser to not try and make every article “sikh”.

I would like to try and share what I saw and what shaped what I read.

There are many great articles that apply to all people, and having them on a sikh blog may not mean that it has to be tied in, literally. Such hand-holding in an intelligent environment (as hard as that might be to conceive sometimes) leads readers to not enjoy connecting the obvious dots themselves.

Providing low hanging fruit that is satisfying, leads to people reaching for the higher hanging fruit which we desperately need so much attention paid to.

In this case, this article simply saying “New immigration option for women” probably would have sufficed. Why? We can connect the dot to the word “immigrant”, and some would be able to connect the dot to “women” as meaning, “Sikh/Punjabi women too, if it applies to them.

This thread has proven that there is no shortage of misinterpretation and mis-perception, keeping a message clear, concise and open, maybe by an editor’s foreward to the article helps shape and guide discussion and observation more as you intended.

Being aware of how subtle, and powerful presentation is in perception and interpretation will likely lead us to become more aware as people.

I highly recommend the excellent BBC Series called “The Century of the self”. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151

It pretty well shows how every facet of our so called open and free minds, may not be as open, flexible to entertaining opinions and viewpoints that we don’t share with others, and how it came to be that way.

Beginning with a generalization (Sikh – immigrant – battered – women), something long tied to a stereotype with no solution as the punchline… and then having no direct references to Sikh women in the content is what people in Public Relations and Propaganda call manufacturing consent / opinion.

The gist is, the more you repeat something, even if it’s a lie, the more it’ll become believed truth. Look at Sikhs int he minds eyes. The voices that get heard say what they want and we all deal with it, good and bad.

By partaking, even indirectly in linking the words sikh, women, and battered and not framing it, contextually with respect to scope, situation, brevity, etc, it does not allow the reader a fair outlook, and allows them to draw (as we can see) their own conclusions, some extreme, on all both of the spectrum.

Google will see this site as being authoritative. It will see your titles as being authoritative. When someone searches they will say see, look at these articles, without looking into it deeper.

There is a fine balance between journalism (presenting facts) and opinion pieces which share a perspective. When a site such as this tactfully dances on both sides of the fence, it’s easy to slip up and not seperate facts from opinion and ensure they are framed as such.

In this case, there are facts in this article. How much, or whether it exclusively impacts or applies to sikhs is open to debate, as we have here.

It’s the same thing that happens in the media when someone or something is vilified far beyond the scope of the true impact or nature. Is Britney Spear’s life more important than other things?

I hope my words are accepted by everyone as another perspective from an editorial/journalism side.

This is a fantastic site and showing that it is coming to, and going through, and evolving through such clarifications leads to the suggestion that there will be higher and deeper and more critical thinking with our hearts, as much as our minds, something sorely missing from our community.

By writing here I too am sharing my belief in this place as it continues to evolve to inspire people to aspire to greater levels of thinking, feeling, and being.

Bhul chuk maaf,
-justasikh

First of all, in no way, shape, or form was the intent of this post to ‘vilify’ Punjabi Sikh men as a group. Rest assured, I know many, many sensitive, reflective Punjabi Sikh men who are as feministic as Punjabi Sikh women. And engaging in a conversation about abuse in the community does NOT need to be a women vs. men issue. On the contrary, we need to respectfully have this discussion amongst both genders to see where each of us can improve in our communication and relationships.

Secondly- the audience (both intended and actual) of this blog is Punjabi Sikhs. Why don’t we focus on our own community instead of worrying how we look in others’ eyes? The truth will come out. Whatever our problems are, people will see. What our strengths are, people will see.

If you really think that the gurus’ message of equality amongst genders is the norm in our communities, then you and I are coming from very different realities. That’s lovely that you’ve grown up and lived in some utopian society, but that hasn’t been my experience, nor the experience of any other Punjabi Sikh person I know, male or female.

Why do you take this personally? This is a discussion about what takes place in the community. It’s not directed at you. If you respect and listen to all the women in your life as equals, then more power to you. But you don’t have the right to shut down and silence a conversation that others need to have.

Especially when you know that majority of punjabi women are educated, fierce defenders of family life, and dont engage in promiscuous sex, let alone prostitution.

Is this true?