A few days ago, we were doing a self-reflective exercise at work on what gives us power, how we demonstrate power, and what (or who) has power over us. Surprisingly, but not much, I found money featuring across the board for me: be it through financial independence or financial constraints. Power, as exercised by me or as exercised over me, has been intricately tied with my sexuality \u2013 ranging from job options to travel decisions to reproductive choices\u00a0\u2013 and money seemed to lord over it all. It wasn\u2019t the only lord, but it was quite a powerful lord.<\/p>\n
Once you start thinking about it, it\u2019s impressive how much money influences sexuality.<\/p>\n
A young woman who gave birth at 15 spoke to<\/a> the wildly popular Humans of New York (HONY) in Colombia (the creator seems to be on a tour of South America). She talked about how she\u2019s a slave to rent, works a minimum wage job at a casino seven days a week and has given up on going out or going on trips \u2013 all because of the baby. \u201cBut after getting my ear chewed off, and all of the bitching, and all of the scolding, I decided to take responsibility,\u201d she said, explaining why she didn\u2019t get an abortion. I wondered what her life would be like if she didn\u2019t have to think about money. Maybe she\u2019d be going to university while the baby was in the care of a cr\u00e8che or a nanny? Maybe she wouldn\u2019t have to work at a job that had such poor labour policies?<\/p>\n But this woman\u2019s tribulations reminded me of another woman\u2019s attempt to balance work and child. Suranya Aiyar writes about<\/a> how she decided to quit her job \u201cout of responsibility to my baby and responsibility to my work\u201d. Although she had a nanny who was supporting her in looking after the child, she felt she couldn\u2019t justify her demanding job when the family didn\u2019t need two incomes. \u201c\u2026 I did not see the point of sacrificing my time for the children for a job that was not so meaningful to me anyway.\u201d Aiyar is incredibly lucky; her class privilege allows her to evaluate whether she needs the job. The young Columbian in the HONY story, however, seems to have had a very raw deal \u2013 slaving for the baby, but no time for the baby. Money makes two women mother very differently.<\/p>\n Which leads me to the morally \u201cacceptable\u201d ways in which women are allowed to make money. You know, \u201crespectable\u201d jobs and such. It\u2019s incredible how often money is the determinant for what makes a job respectable: sex with husband = okay, sex for money = bad; having a child of your own = okay, having a child for money = bad; cook at home for family = love, cook for money = oh-poor-thing-trying-to-make-money.<\/p>\n The debate around surrogacy is especially telling. I was reminded of American TV show The Big Bang Theory<\/em>\u2019s very first episode, where two of the protagonists (both male) walk into a research clinic to \u201cdonate\u201d their sperm to a high-IQ sperm bank and make money in the process. They eventually leave the clinic without masturbating into a cup, but for men like them \u2013 and Joey from (the American TV show) Friends<\/em>, who has no issues masturbating into a cup to make money \u2013 it seems easier; there is little judgment, a sense of \u201cthere\u2019s little to be lost anyway\u201d. There is just so much tension fraught around women\u2019s sale of eggs or renting of their womb \u2013these need to be regulated, no doubt, for young women often aren\u2019t told that the procedure they\u2019re going through is to extract eggs; the surrogate mother typically receives little post-natal care; she has to be away from her family through the pregnancy and worse, there are no safeguards in case the child she delivers has a disability or is not of the gender the commissioning parents wanted[1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n Notwithstanding these necessities that need to be looked into, what\u2019s inescapable is the morality surrounding these issues. Sample the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 in India<\/a> (yet to be passed): it only permits \u201caltruistic\u201d surrogacy, and that too under strict conditions: the surrogate mother must be aged between 25 and 35 and a close relative of the couple, must be married and have a child of her own, and may not do this for money. The Bill raises in me visions of a selfless, sobbing married woman who does her all for her family. Money is a dirty word here and finds no place in this altruistic vision of selflessness, all for a happy, \u201ccomplete\u201d family.<\/p>\n It wouldn\u2019t be fair on my part to say men have it any easier, though. Bringing the bread home is such an intrinsic trait of \u201cmasculinity\u201d that is so easy to succumb to, feminist or not. \u201cHouse husbands\u201d are such a big deal that even saying the phrase seems strange, (Why can\u2019t we simply call them<\/em> homemakers? And a side thought \u2013 I read about a word \u201cShe-EO\u201d \u2013 you guessed it, a female CEO) I remember my partner and I promising each other equal support if either of us were to jump ship from corporate work to less-paying NGO work. I made the switch last year, but I always question whether I would be able to offer strong financial support were my partner to consider the switch. Blame my field of work \u2013 communications, that too for the development sector \u2013 or the blasted pay gap<\/a>, I will hardly be able to shoulder the burden of our household expenses without calling for a significant lifestyle change. Guiltily, I wonder if as a woman I can get away with earning relatively less, something that he, as a man, can\u2019t take for granted.<\/p>\n But I also wonder about the more \u201cfrivolous\u201d things. For instance, how easy is it for men to spend on beauty and grooming products? A Caucasian friend living in India recently mentioned that he got a pedicure and manicure for the first time because he got a free voucher; would he have ever thought of spending money on those services otherwise? Why is men\u2019s spending money and effort on how they dress \u2013 say, as with actor Hrithik Roshan in the Hindi film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara <\/em>(2011) \u2013 seen as reflective of a narcissistic, particular-about-how-he-dresses man, while the idea of women doing so \u2013 often portrayed as a casual, regular event in Indian cinema and TV soaps \u2013 is seen as regular, as just women \u2018doing their thing\u2019 if they have the money?<\/p>\n As I think through it, I\u2019m sure that money and sexuality are interlinked for people who fall at any point across the gender spectrum. Bangkok is one city that awes me when I think about trans people \u2013 I\u2019ve met people there who went through sex reassignment surgeries and worked at 7-Eleven convenience stores or owned posh pubs or were top models or train stewardesses \u2013 they really span the breadth. Closer home, I can recollect conversations over training sessions about hijras. \u201cBut they really extort money,\u201d complained two men in one session, giving examples of how hijras demanded exorbitant amounts of money at weddings they\u2019d been to. \u201cI\u2019m really torn between giving them money and telling them off when they grab my hand,\u201d discussed two women at another session, talking about hijras who tend to ask for money at traffic signals in cities. \u201cBut what other options have we given them to earn?\u201d my colleague typically asks in response to such thoughts, explaining how their social position has changed since the times they were in courts and palaces.<\/p>\n \u201cKaasa paathaa Gandhi thatha pole naam sirippom<\/em>!\u201d sing actors Kamal Haasan and Prabhu Deva in the Tamil movie Kaathala Kaathala<\/em> (1998): \u201cWe will grin like Gandhi (on a currency note) too if we see money!\u201d Money certainly makes the world go around, but what\u2019s so surprising is that having more of it doesn\u2019t necessarily make all sexuality-related choices easier. And just like sexuality, money, too, is complex, intricate and hard to decode.<\/p>\n Trust one of India\u2019s biggest superstars Rajinikanth to say it best (in Muthu<\/em>, Tamil, 1995) \u2013<\/p>\n \u201cKaiyil konjam kaasu irunthal, nee dhaan adharku ejamaanan;<\/p>\n Kazhuthu varaikkum kaasu irunthal, adhu dhaan unakku ejamaanan\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cA few notes in your hand, and you\u2019re the master of your money;<\/p>\n Once you\u2019re drowned in wealth, money controls you!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n [1]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> Information taken from the documentary film Can We See the Baby Bump Please?<\/a><\/em> (2013) by Surabhi Sharma for Sama – Resource Group for Women and Health.<\/span><\/p>\n Cover image taken from Kaathala Kaathala<\/em> (1998)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few days ago, we were doing a self-reflective exercise at work on what gives us power, how we demonstrate power, and what (or who) has power over us. Surprisingly, but not much, I found money featuring across the board for me: be it through financial independence or financial constraints. Power, as exercised by me or as exercised over me, has been intricately tied with my sexuality \u2013 ranging from job options to travel decisions to reproductive choices \u2013 and money seemed to lord over it all. It wasn\u2019t the only lord, but it was quite a powerful lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":11487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5,1208],"tags":[26,1210,1209,444,1211,738],"class_list":{"0":"post-11486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-issueinfocus","9":"category-money-and-sexuality","10":"tag-gender","11":"tag-humans-of-new-york","12":"tag-money","13":"tag-pregnancy","14":"tag-responsibility","15":"tag-vani-viswanathan"},"menu_order":958,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11486"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15203,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11486\/revisions\/15203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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