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Singles’ Day in China

The idea for Singles Day is believed to have originated at China’s Nanjing University in 1993 and was originally called “Bachelor’s Day”.

On the day, single people — particularly men — treated themselves with gifts and presents and organised social gatherings and parties.

The concept of dating was new to China in the 1990s, with marriage being the predominant way people coupled up.

Exposure to Western culture resulted in dating, and singledom in conjunction, becoming popular.

For single people, the day became one to celebrate their single identities, in the face of society at large mostly recognising couples and families on festivals.


In 2009, e-commerce giant Alibaba turned November 11 into a 24-hour mega-shopping festival with attractive deals.

By emphasizing that singles—often shamed over their status—should treat themselves, Alibaba created a kind of party feeling.

criticism

promoting excessive consumption and consumerism,

impacting the environment with the sheer volume of goods sold, their deliveries resulting in fuel emissions, packaging with plastic and other difficult-to-recycle materials, and so on.

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Criticism

Apart from sexist and violent comments on social media, 4B and its predecessor movements have seen thoughtful and reasoned criticism too.

Some point out that just cutting off contact with men is not a solution — this puts the onus of staying away from men on the woman, instead of demanding change and accountability from men.

Believing men as incapable of reform can play into the ‘boys will be boys’ school of thought, it is argued.

Meaningful change can come by raising awareness and a sense of responsibility among men, and this can happen by pushing back from within relationships, it is pointed out.

Others point out that such totalising movements can be exclusionary of transgender rights.

Yet others say that these movements rob women of choice: one can be frustrated with inequality but still want children, or in the case of heterosexual women, sexual pleasure.

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4B Movement

4B stands for four bis, or no in the Korean language: bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae, and bisekseu,

meaning the refusal of (heterosexual) marriage, childbirth, romance, and sexual relationships, respectively.

4B movement belongs to the strain of radical feminism that believes that heterosexual relationships at their heart remain structures of oppression, and women need to break free of them to be truly independent and happy.

In the Indian context, consider this — marriage often involves dowry, the burden of running the married home and raising the child is disproportionately on women, many women are penalised at their workplaces for motherhood duties, and intimate partner violence is common. While women are supposed to endure all this for the sake of love and duties, there are very little expectations from men except earning money.

The proponents of the 4B movement believe that unless men work more actively for a gender-just society, women should not reward them with children, love, and emotional and other forms of labour.

The movement started in South Korea around 2016, when a young woman was murdered in a Seoul subway station. Her killer said he had “felt ignored by women”. This was also the time when multiple women in South Korea reported having been filmed by spycams in washrooms or while having sex, by strangers as well as men known to them. In many cases, the police were hostile to the victims. The MeToo movement gave further impetus to women talking about their struggles and their rights more vocally.

4B is largely an online movement and it is difficult to measure its impact.

the movement wants women to imagine more roles for themselves than just wife and mother. Women not bogged down by domestic duties and not being controlled by a man can focus on their own aims, hobbies, comfort and happiness, the movement’s followers believe.

They also advocate women building strong solidarities with other women. This includes, but is not limited to, lesbian relationships.

Women can depend on each other for comfort, companionship and emotional support, while working together to achieve common goals.

4B is sometimes expanded to 6B4T, which advocates staying away from firms perceived as misogynist, rejecting the fandom culture, rejecting beauty standards that conform to the male gaze, etc.

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The great scholar of care, Nel Noddings, saw practical education and experience of caregiving as being central to the cultivation of caring in society.

People who cared for another person through a specific series of routinised one-on-one encounters could also be persuaded to care about wider injustices and inequality in public life.

She defined this “education” as “a constellation of encounters, both planned and unplanned, that promote growth through the acquisition of knowledge, skills, understanding and appreciation”.

Care Economy

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'Let’s work to promote global peace’: PM Modi congratulates Donald Trump on ‘historic’ US election win

"As you build on the successes of your previous term, I look forward to renewing our collaboration to further strengthen the India-US Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership," Modi wrote on X.

As B R Ambedkar pointed out,

caste leads not only to the division of labour but of labourers as well.

Dalits often face discrimination when seeking employment in sectors that are considered “pure”. Manual scavenging or cleaning of dry latrines, for instance, is a job that the Dalit classes have been burdened with.

Although the practice was banned under the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers Act, 2013, the inhumane exercise continues.

According to government data, 97 per cent of manual scavengers are Dalits.

The breakdown of numbers reveals that 42,594 manual scavengers belong to Scheduled Castes, 421 belong to Scheduled Tribes and 431 belong to Other Backward Classes.

Caste remains a reality

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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/love-sex/the-new-trend-in-dating-what-is-throning-and-why-are-people-doing-it/amp_articleshow/114855719.cms

Happy Diwali To All of You

Reasons for child marriage

What is Void & Voidable marriage

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Social Media and Cultural Traditions