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On September 4^th 2012, Begum went to Coq d’Argent and ordered a glass of wine. At about 6:30pm, she put down her handbag and glass, and climbed over the edge to fall eight storeys. A post-mortem revealed she was not drunk. In her handbag, police found anti-depressants, a bottle of vodka and a note containing contact details of her next of kin.

The inquest was revealed December 12^th 2012 about the details surrounding her death. Begum had confided that she was struggling to reconcile her Muslim faith and her western lifestyle. Her university friends had said she was a ‘very happy, very bubbly’ woman but had lately become reclusive.  The inquest points to two recent incidents that may have contributed to her depression; losing her job as the former British Library manager, and being plagued by an internet stalker.

Her stalker used information from her Facebook profile to send coercive letters to her and her parents.  Begum didn’t know her stalker, but the letters contained information about her lifestyle and relationships. Her friends explained that Begum came from a traditional Muslim family but lived a western life independently and had non-Muslim partners which her family had found out about. She had recently confided that she feared she was living an impure life and as punishment would not be allowed into paradise.

The inquest revealed a few bits of important information. First, Begum was coerced through someone she didn’t know. It is shocking the presumption and entitlement of this person to bring forward information about her personal lifestyle to her parents. This person presumed they knew what was best for her, essentially outing her lifestyle before she was ready which lead to her death. In situations like this, it must have been difficult for her to know who her allies were. Friends she thought she could trust were using her public profile against her.

Second, I think it’s a crime that Begum’s family, neighbours and friends feel that her Western lifestyle and her faith do not overlap. It is a coercive strategy to force woman to submit to what is prescribed as the proper woman’s lifestyle. What people don’t realise is that all women struggle with reconciling what society expects of them and their choices.  The problem is in some situations, it is much harder for women to justify their choices than others.

There should be no reason for deaths like Begum. Women should not feel guilty over their choice of partners or lifestyles. We have to remember, we as women are the architectures of culture and religion as well. This is not simply a Muslim issue; other religions also give little credence for women’s leadership. Society needs to make space for the full expression of women if we are to prevent tragic deaths like this.

The photo above depicts one lone candle. It is used under the creative commons license and is published by LimeSpike.

This post was originally published on The f-word.

I blogged about my thoughts about entrepreneurship last week.  I’ve had a few more thoughts since then. There’s the idea of entrepreneurship as a new concept, or entrepreneurship as an expanding concept. For example; a new concept would be a completely new idea would be to test out a completely new product that had never before been used or invented before. While expanding a concept would be copying the same business, but in a new location (such as franchising a manicure business). Could you argue one is more/less entrepreneurial than the other?

What about social enterprise where financial reward is not the end of the game? I could make the argument that “Good Girls Marry Doctors” is a social enterprise because the reward is about increasing social capital. It’s an innovative idea. Is this entrepreneurial? Can I put this on my entrepreneurial CV?

In other news; if you are interested in starting a business and need a bit of capital, this event sounds like it’s for you! Pitch your idea before October 26th, 2012!!!

MILLERCOORS RECOGNIZES NATIONAL URBAN ENTREPRENEURS WEEK

AND REINFORCES SUPPORT OF SMALL BUSINESSES

MillerCoors Urban Entrepreneurs Series and Business Plan Competition Picks Up

 Steam with Education Series

CHICAGO (August XX, 2012) – MillerCoors salutes urban entrepreneurs and their continued economic impact, with its annual National Urban Entrepreneurs Week on August 20-24.  The week includes interactive online business forums and an audio series featuring small business tools and strategies, that are designed to fuel economic continued growth. According to www.creditdonkey.com , small businesses generated 64% of new jobs within a fifteen-year period and employ over half of all private sector employees.  With the support of programs like the MillerCoors Urban Entrepreneurs Series (MUES) and Business Plan Competition, small businesses will continue to emerge and create new jobs for the economy.

“As a business enterprise with solid entrepreneurial roots, we hold small business owners in high regard,” says Larry Waters, senior director Community Commerce and Partnerships, MillerCoors.  “We are committed to providing tangible resources, to help today’s entrepreneurs grow.”

National Urban Entrepreneurs Week will officially begin Monday, August 20 and consists of two online business forums via Twitter, hosted by Black Enterprise Magazine Senior Vice-President, Alfred Edmond and Chicago’s “Money Smart Guy,” Matt Sapaula. Followers can tweet questions to Edmond or Sapaula at @millercoorsmues #mues and they will answer questions and advise entrepreneurs on topics ranging from cash flow strategies, to business plan development.

National Urban Entrepreneurs Week is in support of the MUES Business Plan Competition and is now open for entries. Since the competition’s inception in 1999, MillerCoors has invested nearly $2 million to small businesses across America and will grant up to $150,000 in business grants this year. For more information, resources for developing business plans, as well as the official rules and requirements of the MUES Business Plan Competition, visit www.MillerCoorsMUES.com.

About  MillerCoors

Built on a foundation of great beer brands and nearly 300 years of brewing heritage, MillerCoors continues the commitment of its founders to brew the highest quality beers.  MillerCoors is the second-largest beer company in the United States, capturing nearly 30 percent of beer sales in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.  Led by two of the best-selling beers in the industry, MillerCoors has a broad portfolio of brands across every major industry segment.  The portfolio is led by the company’s premium light brands: Coors Light, Miller Lite and Miller64.  Coors Light, the World’s Most Refreshing Beer, offers consumers refreshment as cold as the Rockies.  Miller Lite established the American light beer category in 1975, offering beer drinkers a light beer that tastes like beer should.  Miller64 is 64 calories of crisp, light taste that complements a balanced lifestyle. MillerCoors brews premium beers Coors Banquet and Miller Genuine Draft, and economy brands Miller High Life and Keystone Light.  Tenth and Blake Beer Company, MillerCoors craft and import division, imports Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Pilsner Urquell and Grolsch and features craft brews from the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, Blue Moon Brewing Company and the Blitz-Weinhard Brewing Company.  MillerCoors operates eight major breweries in the U.S., as well as the Leinenkugel’s craft brewery in Chippewa Falls, Wisc. and two microbreweries, the  Tenth Street Brewery in Milwaukee and the Blue Moon Brewing Company at Coors Field in Denver.  MillerCoors vision is to create the best beer company in America through great people changing the way America enjoys beer. MillerCoors builds its brands the right way through brewing quality, responsible marketing and sustainable environmental and community impact.  MillerCoors is a joint venture of SABMiller plc and Molson Coors Brewing Company. Learn more at MillerCoors.com, at facebook.com/MillerCoors or on Twitter through @MillerCoors.

My mind has been on entrepreneurship lately. I’m always of two minds, part of me feels my parents whom have immigrated to Canada worked hard so that we would all have a good life. Entrepreneurship is risky, and I should only take the risk if it’s a sure bet.

I just watched “Be Your Own Boss” here on the television. Entrepreneurs are given 5,000 GBP to test a concept. If the concept works, the investor will give more money to start the organisation. I have worked hard to save my own money, I definitely had my own 5,000 GBP to invest in my own ideas. What am I waiting for? 

Perhaps immigrants are less willing to take risks because of what they have sacrificed? Wesley Yang wrote the popular article “Paper Tigers” on the New York Times describes it as “Bamboo Ceiling” an invisible barrier describing organisations with many Asians at junior levels but drops out significantly with seniority. 

While part of it could be racism, Yang had an alternative theory. 

“To become a leader requires taking personal initiative and thinking about how an organization can work differently. It also requires networking, self-promotion, and self-assertion. It’s racist to think that any given Asian individual is unlikely to be creative or risk-taking. It’s simple cultural observation to say that a group whose education has historically focused on rote memorization and “pumping the iron of math” is, on aggregate, unlikely to yield many people inclined to challenge authority or break with inherited ways of doing things.”

Could some of my cultural upbringing be preventing me from taking risks and breaking leadership barriers? 

Angie Chang, founder and editor in chief of Women 2.0, was quoted recently saying “Asian Americans need to develop and hold an entrepreneurial mindset and consider entrepreneurship as a viable career option..” (ALIST). 

However, despite a feeling of a lack of entrepreneurial spirit within the Asian community, I see evidence to the contrary. Ethnic restaurants are the primary example. Many first generation immigrants started ethnic restaurants as a foothold to earning enough income for the family. 

Perhaps it’s not that immigrants are not entrepreneurial, but that we must learn to define entrepreneurship differently. 

-Josephine

It’s no secret that the more I look the more I see GGMD themes in public media. 

I’m a bit behind the times in American television being in the UK, but I DIDN’T KNOW they had a GGMD theme in Glee!

Mike Chang, or otherwise known as “the other Asian dude” is a talented dancer. Tina is trying to encourage him to pursue his passion of dancing after high school. 

What? An Asian majoring in dance? How is that possible? 

He decides instead to do the ultimate Asian signature and go to college for “pre-med”. The whole episode shows the tension between Mike trying to abide by his father’s wishes, and Tina thinking you gotta follow your passion. Of course, because Glee is a fairy tale it all ends happily where Mike’s father realises Mike IS a talented dancer and so must then go to dance school.

Here’s a Glee cap for ya. 

These types of conflicts are now so completely obvious that they’re turning up in popular culture. It’s really interesting to see well written popular television shows write in a story plot involving an Asian who wants to do something different with her life…. 

Gilmore girls is one of my FAVOURITE television series growing up. How many of us thought we were Rory, going through the tribulations of life, trying to figure out if you’re attracted to the nice boy next door, or the rough mean bad boy? Throughout Rory’s life though a terrific foil character has been Lane Kim. Lane goes through this double agent lifestyle. For her mother, she was this good Christian Korean who never stayed out late, only dated boys her mother approved of (and dates were composed of your boyfriend’s parents, your boyfriend’s aunts and uncles, siblings, and the whole package).. But throughout the seven seasons, we see Lane and her relationship with her mom grow into something more honest and more functional. 

First we see Lane navigate the ways of finding (and then keeping!) a non-Korean boyfriend. Tough territory.   The hilarious little additions to the plot of how Lane is secretly really into rock music and how she hides her rock gear under the bed, in the floor boards, and even has a funky disco ball in her closet. Her life is all hidden away from her mom that in “the Clamor and the Clangor“, Episode 11 in Season 4 when Lane’s mom stumbles upon Lane’s life, it all comes unravelling. Lane can no longer hold the double lifestyle any longer.

The fact that more of these type of stories are coming out in the media really show how people are aware of GGMD issues. I’m really glad that Gilmore Girls took seven years to unfold Lane Kim’s plot as it is a complex issue and it demonstrated how bad the tension can be. 

Luckily, in Glee and in Gilmore girls there was a happy ending.  It doesn’t always work that way in the real world unfortunately.  What Gilmore Girls does well is it demonstrates that the negotiation around these issues is not a simple solution. It took Mrs. Kim many many episodes before she could come to terms with Lane’s dating habits (non-Korean), and the fact she’s into rock music. It even took Lane to leave the house under bad terms before they could come back together again as adults. Sometimes it may take families time before they can come back together again. Unlike Glee that washed over the issue in one episode (magically, Mike’s father sees what a wonderful dancer he is and is convinced his son will be a dancer instead of a doctor).

Finally, anybody have any comments about Priya’s dating life from the Big Bang Theory?

Have a great spring everybody! 

Thanks to 8Asians, they drew me attention to New York Times’ article on Asian and their dating habits. Namely, more Asians are dating within the same race due to growing numbers of immigrants from across the Pacific.

The New York Times article summarises a whole whopping TWO STUDIES that notice a dip in interracial marriage amongst Asians. One example of Chau Le, a Vietnamese American lawyer had been dating mainly white guys for most of her life. When she brought home a boyfriend, he was shocked by her customs of being polite and demure to her parents. She’s now married to an Indian-American lawyer who both understands equality in the marriage, but about respect for past customs.

While I understand where Ms. Le is coming from, I think this is a bad example for the New York Times. I can’t tell you how many inter racial politics there are between Asians. Frankly, one of the largest reasons for this project starting is because of examples of my friends bringing home a boyfriend who was Asian but not the RIGHT Asian and getting flak for it. I’m not sure if bringing home an Indian American would have been any better than bringing home an Anglo-saxon American for many homes.  These studies need to define race in a more specific manner.

The thing that really bugs me about this, and I’m sure anyone who knows me well knows I have a very particular opinion about this.  I can’t tell you how many times when I tell my story to a white person did I get the comment “but you’re all Asian! I would have thought it is close enough!”, I would love to have a really big honking NO!!! Explain this how in Ireland, both being of the same country but of if you’re Catholic or if you’re Protestant, you can’t marry each other? Despite being of the same race?? The issue of “You’re all Asian, you’re close enough…” is an inherent racial comment that shows your ignorance.

While living in the UK, something I’ve noticed is the political tensions between eastern and western Europe. There are political tensions between western european countries! People notice if a Brit marries someone from Spain, why is it not the same in Asia or in Africa? Asia is a wide expanse of many different countries and cultures. Please do not lump us together!  /JT

A quickie post in the spirit of cross between women’s rights and cultural issues…

<<The Moroccan government is looking to amend a controversial law that allow rapists to marry their victims after a 16-year-old girl killed herself, the country’s communications minister has told Al Jazeera.

Amina Al Filali, 16, drank rat poison last week in Larache, near the city of Tangiers after being severely beaten during a forced marriage to her rapist.

The girl’s rapist had sought to escape prison by invoking an article of the penal code that he claimed would exonerate him if the rape victim was his wife.>>

The outrage on this issue has been global. Social justice groups in Morocco have started a facebook page “We are all Amina Filali“. There is a petition on the facebook page calling for a significant change of Moroccan’s law Article 475 which includes a provision of a kidnapper marrying the victim in order to exonerate the honour of the victim’s family.

I’ve been completely slammed at work. This was an issue that came out a few weeks ago, I didn’t blog about it because I was still forming my opinions.

Let me paint the picture first.

The telegraph did an uncover scoop and correctly identified doctors in the UK who were performing illegal sex selective abortions. Quotes like “I don’t ask questions” float across the screen. As you can guess, many of the sex selective abortions were against girls.  The country is in an uproar, people talk about how it’s against UK values to have sex selective abortions. Right to Life groups lament about how this is why we shouldn’t allow women to have access to abortion because of situations like this. Further, parents who adopted little girls from overseas write long letters about how they are so grateful for their little girls and anyone who dream about not having a child because of their gender is beyond evil.

This is a complicated situation and must be unpacked. Overall, I disagree with most of the commentary that is released. Here are a few arguments and my comments below them.

1) Some Brits are making this into a ‘foreign’ issue. The argument is, foreigners are coming in with different values than ours and we don’t agree. The UK values little girls, and sex selective abortions are illegal. Foreigners are barbarians, stop infecting the UK with sexist foreign values.

Despite being one of the most multi-cultural countries in the world, I still get surprised when I get comments like these. I think the nationalistic tones over-rides the main issue which is about women’s rights, and the UK isn’t necessarily the best champion of women’s rights either! Some of these women who seek sex selective abortion do so at the fear of violence from their husbands. The UK still has terrible legislature against women who are dealing who are dealing with domestic violence.

Sexism is not a foreign concept. UK’s own brand of sexism have push these women to make unfortunate choices.

You can’t separate the sex selective abortions from the rest of women’s rights. How do we prioritise the safety of the unborn girl over the safety of the mother? But because this can be a slippery slope, let me make this clear. I am advocating that a safer world for women (free of coercion and domestic violence from their partners) which I hope will result in a safer world for women to want to and freely choose to have girls.

2) The Right to Life groups are making the argument that we should restrict abortion access because this is an infringement of UK values.

See my response above. The answer is NOT about restricting women’s choices. It’s about valuing women on all levels; valuing their autonomy over their body, and valuing them as girls. There is nothing more terrifying than knowing you’re carrying a child your husband doesn’t want and fear for your own life because of it.

3) Doctors were doing something illegal. Tougher laws need to be mandated to prevent sex selective abortions.

I’m not really sure this would make things any better. Sex selective abortions will occur no matter how you change legislature. I think this puts doctors in a really tough position.

Overall, the only way to truly rid sex selective abortions from our reality, is to create a culture where babies of any gender is fully valued and loved for who they are.

Things are a brewing here at GGMD. All good news. We hope to post it here if something firm comes up. Further… I am completely over Linsanity. I am completely over a) the racist sports articles about Jeremy Lin, b) the articles that CATCH the racist sports articles… POINT being… it’s great to see people of different backgrounds excelling in things people didn’t expect them to excel in. 

I read an interesting article by Shanghai Shiok! about culturally who takes care of the expenses of the wedding?

In a westerner society, the bride pays for the wedding. In Chinese society, the groom pays for the wedding. So if you’re an interracial couple… this can get very confusing! You could be in Shanghai Shiok!‘s case, where she (from an Asian background) thought her fiance (from Western background) was going to pay, where he thought it was her family’s responsibility! 

Or if vice-versa. If the bride was from the western background, and the groom was from an Asian background, you may have a fight on your hand over who is going to foot the bill! Haha! 

Photo credit to Shanghai Shiok! herself! 

/JT

Guess what! The lovely people at “Yeah, What She Said” were so kind to make a podcast of my radio interview! On December 19th, 2011, I was so happy to be a guest post in CJSW.

Jennie and Allison were so kind to interview me at CJSW. We discussed GGMD, what it’s about and how did we get started. It was really great to discuss the intersection of race and feminism. GGMD hits home for all women, not just Asians.

It was so surreal being back at the UC campus. I had so many fond memories of studying in the library and in MacHall.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Josephine