Smoking paper weed : the hallucination of academic publishing

"He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches"..........George Bernard Shaw
The above quote translates into the following : "Teachers are those whom the society can spare for repetitive and redundant activities".
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Public academic institutions are overgrown children of Socialism
After seven decades of independence, three decades of economic liberalization, and one full generation of pro-right socio-political shift of India, its prestigious academic institutions are still hanging from the umbilical cord of the State, wanting to sustain on the tax-payer's money. Consider this : If the government is paying you salary from the tax-payer's money, it simply means your work should directly contribute to the nation's wealth. This means that all engineering research must be necessarily application-based. (Core research is a scientist's job). The technological research must primarily be industry-relevant, understanding the market forces of demand and supply. Consequently, someone should be buying and applying this research to solve an actual real-life problem. Even if the research is theoretical, it should have industrial/market applicability in near future. Otherwise, it should NOT be funded by the government. An academician's efforts become worthwhile only if his/her research finding/publication is used soon enough by the industry : as simple as that. Otherwise, it is just Blue Skies Research. 
Now, how much of this happens in reality? A fresh faculty, mostly under 35, is pressurized to publish journal papers ASAP, come what may! Journal-publication is the only pre-set criterion to measure their credibility at this stage. In desperation, the faculty member resorts to all strategies (listed later) to somehow get a paper published, as quickly as possible. However, this low-self-esteem panic-stricken action does not necessarily lead to (a) the beginning of a new relevant research, (b)  establishing of a strong research group, (c) setting of a state-of-the-art laboratory, (d) industrial contacts and consultancy. All of this takes at least 5-7 years, after which those 'coveted' scholarly and archivable publications just happen, smoothly and automatically. Yet, one is supposed to publish from the first year itself (how man?), when the faculty neither has research students, nor expertise, nor confidence, nor independence, nor leadership skills. Thus begins the frantic 'writing' of random journal papers just for the sake of it.
          
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Academic research publishing is Business. Period.
This is the drill : As a young faculty, you slog it out for months defining a decent problem statement, doing research, collecting data, analyzing and comparing results, with or without the help of your graduate students, and put together a manuscript. You submit it to a reasonably good impact-factor journal. If cleared by the editorial office, it goes to the Editor. If the Editor feels it is in the scope of the journal, the manuscript goes under review. Reviewers are exactly someone like you, maybe a little more experienced in academia. But, reviewers are not paid for the peer-review process. It takes a month to  almost six months(!) to get the <1-page reviews of your 10-20 page manuscript. It may get outright rejected. If not, the reviewers suggest minor/major revisions. After one or two rounds of revision, your manuscript gets accepted. Take it from the top.

Now, your paper gets published a few weeks later and you are not paid a penny! Some journals even ask for fees to publish your paper (Wow! Slow clap)! The journal enjoys subscription (mostly) from academia, making money with free labor from both authors and reviewers! Does that make sense to you? No, right? Then why are you doing it? Why are you playing this losing, draining game? Because, it is translates into lines in your CV! It is expected of you in academia for your promotions! Your academic institution's ranking depends on papers and citations. More students approach you for improving their own CV and bagging your recommendations for their careers. Without publications, you cannot establish to the world what you are working on or what your research area is. But, once you are tenured, do you actually need to publish? Do you get salary increments based on your number of publications? The yearly appraisals are all self-appraisals(!), simply to inform your institute of what you did in the last academic year. No one gets back to you after that. 

Now, your manuscript is accepted and processed by the production department of the journal, and finally published. Then? You download the final PDF and store it. OK then? Did anybody read it? Yeah yeah, someone read it and cited it. Who? Most probably, another academician like you. One plain question : did anyone in the industry pick up your paper and use your methodology/results for an actual R-n-D application? Did they call you up/email you for further specific research inputs in a real industrial problem, involving money, commitment, accountability, and deadlines? Which real-life problem did your research help in solving? Your publication lies in the periodical section of university/institute libraries. Let's face it : no one got back to you after that!

Litmus test. Pose a simple question to a typical faculty member of a typical academic institute, i.e., "Why are you doing research?" The typical answer will be, "I need X number of papers for my promotion". A senior faculty member of a premier institute once told me, "I will publish papers since this is what my job demands me to do. I don't mind if it becomes toilet paper after that"!

Cost incurred upon the State: Let's do the simple arithmetic. You drew a salary of ~ INR 12 lakhs per annum (Asst. Professor). 25% of your time was spent in teaching. Another 25% was spent in administrative and grant-related activities. You took INR 6 lakhs per annum to do research and write, say, 3 journal papers. You were helped by a doctoral student, who drew INR 3 lakhs per annum and dedicated 75% of his/her time for the paper (the rest was for TA activities). Another Master's student taking INR 1.44 lakhs per annum worked full time on these papers. Thus the three papers were published by spending 6+2.25+1.44 = INR 9.69 lakhs, making each paper worth INR 3.23 lakhs!!!.  Wow! My car and a research paper are worth the same! This was spent entirely by the State (read tax-payers money). You and your students added lines in the CV. You get a promotion and now draw INR 15 lakhs per annum. You induct another doctoral student. Take it from the top!
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Strategies adopted in the game of academic publishing

Tweaking. A clever way of getting quick publications is the practice of 'tweaking'. It goes like this : pick up a recent publication, re-solve the problem, make a minute change to the problem formulation or the analysis methodology, and compare the results, and presto! Your new manuscript is ready! You can self-tweak, too. Extract your own published paper, re-juggle it, add a new dimension to the problem, and your new paper is ready! Your successive paper titles read almost the same. The same equations and diagrams keep appearing over and over, with some minor modifications. 

Co-authorship : Write just once sentence in a big shot's paper and watch your citation scores zoom!
Guest authorship : Doctoral/post-doctoral supervisors often do this with their students/post-docs. The low-paid overworked fellow has no option but to use the adviser's name simply to get the manuscript accepted for publication. 

Citation Gang : "You scratch my back and I will scratch yours". This will increase the citations of both. Innumerable such groups exist, which form a closed loop of authors and author-reviewer duos. Outsiders can join the gang by citing all the existing members. 

Blind review advantage : As the author of the paper, you do not know who the reviewers are. For a non-rejection review, you are invariably 'advised' to cite more literature, some of which are mentioned in the review letter. Look who is trying to increase his/her citations!

One fat cow for milking in the whole academic career : Many academicians keep on milking their PhD dissertation/post-doc work for future publications, even 5-10 years after graduation/end of contract! This happens even if the global research trends have changed (which are dependent on the global industrial and market trends). Once tenured, who bothers to keep in pace with the trends, yaar! The academy eventually becomes a Jurassic Park!

Inter-disciplinary work : Apply a particular discipline of knowledge in an application of some other discipline (whether industrially relevant or not is irrelevant) and you open a Pandora's box of possible publications.
Buttering : Cite the target journal papers, its editor's papers, and the suggested reviewers' papers, and you have increased your chances of getting your manuscript accepted.
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Once the papers start getting published by all strategies, the academic and academia become like this:
Dunning-Kruger syndrome : Egos fly high in the academic campus. Get published in a 'prestigious' journal and see the arrogance radiate. Academicians tend to self-hypnotize themselves into believing they are doing very 'interesting', 'challenging' work! They unknowingly end up living in a fool's paradise, deluding themselves on an everyday basis. What they need is a jolting to realize that most their "work" has absolutely no market value.
Too many people want to take refuge in academia. It is a place of escapists, who are too scared to face the real world and do real things involving money, accountability, deadlines. Industry employees earn more money (with equal or less qualifications) simply because they take on more risk and higher responsibility. Academia earns less, since it turns out to be the safest job. Does academia fit in the food chain? It is even a part of the economy? No!

Academic freedom hype : 'Freedom' is perhaps the most misunderstood and misused word here. Non-academics envy the freedom a professor gets : flexible work hours, no work attendance recording, no stand-up meetings (pictured below left), freedom to take a part of the day off without answering anyone, availability of research assistants (RA) and teaching assistants (TA) 24/7, freedom to ignore emails/calls, freedom to stay alone in the office as per own sweet will (pictured below right) as long as desired, long vacations, 3-7 teaching hours per week, no boss, zero accountability for research output (both quality and quantity), no external appraisals, no monthly progress reports/reviews. Shouldn't it be the life of one's dreams?
Well, not really. Even a house cat is free 24/7/365 to do what it wants : who cares? Thinking that 'No one will disturb me in academia and I can work at my own pace' actually translates into 'I don't matter and I don't stand accountable'. There is no stake and no one is counting on you. Wake up! NO one cares what you are doing. Your degrees, medals, awards, certificates, recognitions, mementos, plaques, trophies, have no value if you are not contributing to the economy. Why are your ex-students earning (much) more than you now? Do they email/call you back to clarify any technical doubt? Why did they stop counting on you since their graduation?

Academia is a lazy place. It operates at a very dilated time-scale. It is an extremely slow and boring environment. The biggest problem is : NOTHING HAPPENS! It is like watching a snooze-fest flop movie again and again, year after academic year. It is a fargiyappa of epic proportions : a black hole. Slothfulness breeds more slothfulness, procrastination is cumulative, mediocrity breeds more mediocrity.

Academia is a huge Ponzi scam. A researcher writes a paper in order to write more papers from it! A professor guides a student in order for the latter to become a professor and guide more students! 

Academia is an exploitative place. PhDs and post-docs are paid less than half of what they are worth, after slogging out twice as long as a normal non-academic person. Weeknights and weekends are also spend in the 'lab'. Finally we graduate a burnt-out, frustrated, disillusioned, (may be) job-less person!
Academia is an intellectually stimulating environment. Well! only for the students, NOT for the faculty. It is a one-way process. Students grow because of the faculty, but not vice-versa. As a faculty, you have to grow them up. You have to tolerate and handle their day-to-day immaturity, irresponsibility, unprofessionalism. You have to take s**t from them and then rectify them for their future.

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Don't get it wrong. Teaching is extremely important for the development of human resources. We don't have the time to learn everything in the hard way and reinvent the wheel. Governments must invest in education on a priority basis. Also, effective teaching is a rare skill; quite difficult to pick up and execute. Most academicians suck at their pedagogical skills (I have seen that personally, whether in India or USA). The rare effective teacher, who kindles the young minds in the classroom, gain ever-lasting respect. It is a challenge to ignite them year after academic year : you need to constantly up your game by learning more and keeping yourself updated about technological developments and industrial applications.
But why burden teachers with research? "Padhaana hain toh Padhaao. Yeh research karne ka naatak kyun kar rahe ho?"
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Last few words : Don't do a PhD unless absolutely interested. Finish it within 3-4 years max. As for a post-doc, Hello! What is that????!!!! Get out of this exile ASAP. You deserve a better life with a better work environment, exciting projects, supportive colleagues, and a (much) higher paycheck.

Men cannot respect (weak) women. Period.

"Men may be physically stronger than us, but we women are mentally stronger, we have more patience, more emotional resilience. We are more mature and we keep the family together". Blah. Blah. Blah.

Cut the crap and for once, Think! If men do not respect women, there must be some real, solid, logical reason right? You cannot live in denial : 3+ billion males on this planet cannot be wrong at the same time, all the time. Right? There must be some reason why the things are the way they are. Have you heard these often? "Men should always respect women". "Be a gentleman and show respect for a lady". Of course! Men are being (artificially) instructed to respect women, because they are not doing it automatically (naturally). You cannot force someone to respect you. Women screaming all over the world "Men should learn to treat women with respect", etc. will continue to be met with disappointment; again, and again, and again.
Men (or for that matter, women) cannot respect women (or for that matter, men) who cannot command respect. Respect is earned, and absolutely nothing else. Respect comes when the giver considers you respect-worthy. You cannot drill respect into his brain. If you are not independent, you will not be respected. Period. Do something respect-worthy and admirable, and respect will come in (before you know it), irrespective of your age/status/position.
At the very outset, let us burst the motherhood bubble. Many people teach their children/ students that respect women because they can give birth. Please! You cannot be respected for biological tasks. Do you get respect for digestion?! Then why should you get it for reproduction?! You are not your reproductive system. You are your total physical self, your being, your brain, your credentials, your professional prowess, and your financial power.

Men respect women with a combo of muscle+money+brain powers, and these are not mutually exclusive. The three aspects of you which need a makeover, in order to gain respect from the world, are as follows :

• Physical change.
• Financial change. 
• Attitude change.

1) Physical change
Physical power is the pristine definition of power since life started on earth. No questions about that! Respect for muscle power continues to remain subconscious and instinctive, outdoing everything else from a very basic level. It is high time women make peace with this fact, and start weight-training. Sounds immature? OK fine, don't do it! Then the society will continue to play Nirbhaya-Nirbhaya with you. We all know that the crimes against women won't stop by legislation : they will stop only when the potential rapist knows he will be thrashed by the muscular target. There is no point in taking the rapist to court after you get raped. The court will not undo the rape. It it will only increase your own insult. You have to defend yourself by playing the victim-card. But wait! Why should you again cause a vertical power dynamic? And the court will try to reverse the power dynamic as a compensation, a damage-control! Cut the crap! If you are a smart woman, don't you want the damage to not happen in the first place?
Even if you leave aside extremes, look at everyday life. Lack of muscular power will always have you requesting for masculine help in carrying the suitcase, pulling the sofa, opening the dabba, checking the overhead tank, cleaning the garden, jacking your car. Now the moment you 'request' (for tasks which you can be capable of doing yourself), you reduce to a 'lower' position, and the other person rises 'higher' to a higher. There is a tilt in the power balance. You in-debt yourself to him, and he becomes your benefactor. This keeps happening again and again. It is a polarization process. Over a period of time, you have allowed the man to swagger before you. He starts talking more condescendingly with you. He helps you in physically challenging tasks and simultaneously pities over your non-existent muscles. His body language gets cockier. His behavior becomes more patronizing, reducing you to a juvenile status in his eyes. Now it is a vertical he-up-you-down power dynamic. Who is responsible? YOU!
There is nothing un-feminine or un-womanly about weight-training. Such colloquial unwritten notions are patriarchal. The truth is that men discourage women from weight-training because men usually get intimidated by strong and gutsy women. They opt for tender and timid-looking (non-threatening) women to feel ego-secure. The muscular well-shaped body with a formidable posture, confident gait, tight skin, and steady well-coordinated controlled limb movements inspires respect immediately : the brain got wired like that in millions of years of evolution (Think Serena Williams). Physical power inspires confidence and admiration in others. It is so instinctive and reflexive. Somehow we always knew that, right? Only that no one articulated it out during our growing years. Don't you like a hardy car over a luxury car? Don't you like heavy wooden/metallic furniture over light plastic ones? Do you want the CEO of our company/Director of your institute to look like a well-built healthy strong energetic charismatic person or a thin slow lethargy-emanating weakling? (If s/he cannot look after him/herself, how will s/he look after the organization?). Do you want the plants in your garden to grow into strong healthy trees or remain stick-thin? Think how splendid a powerful horse looks running! Think Sunidhi Chauhan's powerful voice! Think Hrithik Roshan's powerful dance moves! Why is the movie Bahubali such a juggernaut phenomenon? A powerful appearance is attractive. Human beings instinctively want power and energy dripping out from everywhere. In biological terms, it translates to sparkling health. Health is not just absence of disease. It is also the ability to survive and thrive, and be mostly immune to physical/ biological harm.
Children were taught that 'boys are stronger' and that 'girls are the weaker sex'. Therefore the girls did not bother to train their muscles. Any girl lifting a dumbell was laughed at with sniggers : "You can never catch up with the boys, girl!" Sports didn't get encouraged in girls' schools, at least not in India. Muscles were termed 'unattractive' to the prospective suitor, and thus, for matrimonial prospects, women avoided the gym. Lady-like women forgot that they can run, too. They depended on men to lift the suitcases and push the furniture, while they did the flower arrangement. When they needed to change the LPG cylinder, they went looking for the strong male: "Can you please do this for me?" Appearing helpless with a support-seeking gaze was oh-so-heroine-sorts! Their whole life was spent like this. As a consolation prize, they were taught that 'women are better in verbal and social skills', 'women are more patient, forgiving, resilient'. Yawn! 

Weight : Men tease women about body weight because women get teased by it. Women are so conscious of their body weight that they mostly dread the weighing machine. I have never seen a woman objectively stepping on the weighing machine or declaring her weight. Mostly I have seen women stepping on it nervously and apprehensively, and quickly stepping down with a grumpy face. Wow! The male-dominated society gave another reason for women to feel "not good enough". Time to change your perspective : here it goes. There is nothing called "overweight", as long as your body fat percentage is correct. Check your class 4 science book. Weight is a force. Force overcomes resistance. Your superior weight will scare half the rapists away. Poor weight and muscle leads to an under-confident body language, and lo! The rapist has sensed an easy target! Why do you think in Mahabharata, people were scared of Bheema? Because of his huge body (muscular) weight : as simple as that! (For a fair game, wrestlers and boxers are grouped by weight slabs.)

Being fat and out-of-shape are one and the same thing. Body shape comes only from muscles (see above). Toning needs the elimination of fat. You are not becoming 'manly' by weight-training. Actually, you are becoming more womanly. (1) A strong chest will hold the breasts better. (2) A strong lower body will ease, or even eliminate, menstrual cramps. (3) A strong core will make childbirth easier. (4) A strong back and arms will let you carry your child easily.

Tips :

• Read this before you start. The density of unit mass muscle fibre is the same for both genders. Men are stronger since they have more lean mass. So you need to put on muscle weight. Simple! You also get an increased bone density, to carry you own weight. 
• Follow a 3-day split : (a) Legs and Glutes, (b) Chest-Shoulders-Arms, (c) Back-Abs-Core. Separate the days with a day of HIIT cardio in between. Relax on Sunday with Yoga. 
• Train for 50-60 min per day. Leave aside everything and make this a priority in your routine. 
• Hold the back erect, in the perfect shape of the spinal cord. All other muscles will perform in the best form. Animals have strong backs since they are four-legged, where the back is supporting the suspended body weight (including all organs). 
• If the gym trainer asks you to focus on cardio, turn a deaf ear. If he (female trainers will encourage you to do weight training) asks you to lift lighter weights, again turn a deaf ear.
• Beat yourself out in the gym like a beast. Push HARD! Pull HARD! Let your face contort in effort. Let the skin redden. Scream if you must, but push. Ignore wardrobe malfunctions : that is just too common in a gym and seriously, no one cares. 
• Eat protein. If you are 70 kgs, eat at least 70g of protein per day, more if it is your weight-training day. 

2) Financial change

You cannot, cannot, just cannot, gain respect if you don't earn your own money. This is non-negotiable. Your financial power is your backbone. It is actually your 'field', i.e., the area over which your sovereignty works. If you are financially dependent on your husband, you are in his field. It is similar to an electron (you) being bound in the field of a proton (man), and continuously (submissively) revolving around it. It can escape the field only after gaining more energy(power). That is why you got transferred from you father's house and now living in your husband's house (Kanyadaan), just like and electron gets transferred when two atoms bond. A penniless woman is always in a male field for survival. That led to the concept of "Streedhan" to ensure her survival. But, Streedhan is not earned, it is gifted. A gift implies a vertical power dynamic again. It is showered upon you for free. What should you take it? Where is your self-esteem that you will enjoy Dhan gifted by others? Don't you want to earn your own Dhan? When you earn your own money, it is a horizontal power dynamic between you and the employer. Both the parties need each other and it is a symbiotic win-win professional relationship.
If you are 50% of the world population doing 70% of the world's work, why should you allow men to earn 90% of the world  salary and own 99% of the world property? Stop your own exploitation. Stop sweating it out and start collecting your dues and rewards. Respect your own effort and make sure to deservedly collect its compensation, before putting in more effort. Do not cheapen your labor. Do not move a finger unless money in on the table. 

Have you seen women eat less? Because they are ashamed of eating too much (actually normal quantities). In the earlier generations, they were even ashamed of announcing that they are hungry, since they didn't earn the food. They ate last and ate the leftovers, after the men had eaten and burped and left the dining table. If they wanted a quick snack, they hid in the kitchen/storeroom and ate. They would never cook anything only for themselves. A woman having a good relaxed  meal would earn her comments like "Maharani abhi khaa rahi hain". Also, women eat after the men. They will first serve the men as a compensatory display of gratitude, since the men are the bread-winners. Time to change the perspective again : here it goes. Let's be objective : if a woman earns her own money, she can eat normally and not shyly. She does not need anyone's permission to eat. She can eat the quantity she wants, at the time she wants, and the dish she wants, cooked in the recipe she wants. This goes a long way in ensuring women's health, nutrition, growth, longevity, immunity, well-being, strength, agility, fitness, endurance. If both the spouses financially run the house, they can both sit down together and eat as equals. No one needs to role-play as a waiter. 

Have you seen many women marry for money? A man's salary/income is the main criterion of his eligibility in the marriage market. Now, if you push up men on the pedestal of a provider, he will continue to treat you as a 'lower' creature : again a vertical power dynamic! You will keep slogging like a maid-servant and he will be your master. (The opposite is also true : an ordinary man marrying a rich heiress is treated like a loser by his in-laws). Many men win over a (beautiful) lady into marriage with money power. Insecure husbands try to bolster their empty ego by ignoring/overlooking the financial ability of their wives and insisting on running the house with only "his" money, and save "hers" for "pocket money" : he is basically wanting to sustain the vertical power dynamic.
History shows that the wealth-generating India was not able to protect itself from foreign looters. A woman's earning power will make little change in the power dynamics if you do not control it and use it according to your own wish. If your salary gets credited to your father's/husband's bank account, you do not have the control over your own hard-earned wealth. This is an exploitative situation. You should have the control over how much you spend and how much you save. After that, you must know where to invest your wealth for handsome returns. You must know how to get tax benefits on your IT. If the money you earned is simply considered as a 'supplement' to the family-income by the family men, it should hurt your self-esteem. If it doesn't, you are simply a financial assistant. 

3) Attitude change

• Remember you are contributing to the GDP. The land is as much yours as men's. You pay your taxes to the government. The public property is as much yours as men's. So walk confidently in public with back straight and chin up. Stand on your nation's soil with your feet heavily planted on it. No one has to right to scare you off. No one can sideline you. No one can corner you. No one can ogle/whistle at you. No one can cause you to passively smoke. Use public property liberally : don't rush home by 6 pm with your vagina. You don't need anyone's permission to stand firmly on the ground or move around confidently, occupying your rightful place under the sun. 
• Be more mobile, well over the place. Make your presence felt. When you approach, people should instinctively and reflexively think "Madam aa rahi hain". Hold your ground, literally. Don't assume 'men are superior' and hence 'have more rights'. You paid your taxes, remember? Don't let any masculine movement involuntarily shift you to the sides / corners of the table / office / room / hall / bus / train compartment / auditorium / board room / gym / park. 
• If you think men are bosses, they will anyways boss over you. If you are clueless about how the world works, and men know it, they will treat you like a child. So leave the TV serial/salon trip/kitty party aside and get to know how the nation is running.
• If you follow the traditional social norms which men made (for their own advantage), you are sending the signal that you are playing the game according to his rules. Your predictability causes you to lose respect. Make your own rules and stick to them. Have your own life. You are not an assistant to men. You think about your husband's agenda and he think's about his own agenda, then where is your own agenda? 
• Do not allow anyone to swagger before you. If a man tells you something you already know (mansplaining), tell him calmly "I know that". Don't be under the impression that others know more than you : definitely not in this information age. Question men. Don't take their opinions as gospel truths. Don't give others an easy walkover : they should be slightly skeptical about having to convince you. Be a bit hard a nut to crack. Be honest and don't be swayed by his judgments. Don't disguise your statements as questions. You are entitled your opinion. And don't explain your stand too much. Stop taking 'permission' to say or do things. Just say or do what you have planned. It is up to others to deal with it. Don't wait for others' reactions. Speak clearly and firmly. Don't be scared that "oh-no someone is going to interrupt me in two seconds!". People don't interrupt if you are making sense. A room full of boys will not interrupt a lone girl if she is speaking something important, intelligent and substantial (incessant personal experience in 30 years) 
• Shake hands firmly with a man, like an equal. He is not doing a favor to you by extending his hand. He has come for a deal. Let him feel your power and presence. Make strong eye contact, and smile only slightly. Speak loudly enough, but lower your pitch. Baser tones instinctively command authority. Higher pitch tends to be associated with juveniles. Dress in darker, solid colors of thicker crisper material, i.e., power dress. Look a bit formidable. If you create a weaker first look / impression, people need only 10 seconds to dismiss you off! 
• Stop working so hard and sweating it out. Chill. Don't take more than your share of the workload or responsibility, whether at home or at work. Let others drag their own weight. Stop being motherly and bailing people out of trouble with your 'love and care'. Loving others is not your womanly duty : people need to earn your love. Let people suffer for their own mistakes. Do not allow others to inconvenience you : patience should have a limit. Keep a threshold and then pull the plug. 
• Keep people dependent on you. No one respects a person who is unnecessary. If no one needs you for anything, you will be ignored royally. Make yourself important and resourceful. People should have it at the back of their minds "Madam se poochho, unko maaloom hain", or "Madam ko bolo, kaam ho jaayega". Raise yourself to command such repute with your hard work. Don't exhaust your stock all at one time : the beneficiary will turn the back to the well one the thirst is quenched. Do not do anything thanklessly. Always calculate what you are gaining from the deal. Your are not born to be a martyr. Do not let anyone take you for granted. Apna Chutiya katwana band karo!
• Be aware of the tricks the male-dominated work environment will be playing with you. E.g., you might say something legitimate, and surprisingly the listener sees offended! He is only acting offended to imply that 'you are acting inappropriately', and actually signaling you to back off. Do not buy into this façade. Stick to what you had to say. Others need to get out of the comfort zones and deal with you. People might interrupt just for the sake of it. Such presumptuous people are very common. They are subconsciously trying to tame a confident woman. Politely yet firmly say, "Let me complete". Don't appear to be working too hard : it will give the illusion that you are trying to "prove" you are "good enough" in a man's world. Men may use the guilt-tripping tactic against you. Don't feel guilty of not doing your best all the time, whether at home or at work. People might shorten you name, or use only your first name throughout, intending a trivializing attitude. Don't let it happen at work. Razia Sultana had to dress as a man to appear convincing in court. Sushma Swaraj did not need to. But that does not mean that human instincts have changed (much). In the 21st century, the socio-power dynamic game has to be far more subtle. Therefore, formulate your strategies before throwing your hat into the ring. 
• Now let's move to the bedroom. Yes, it is a place of pristine power dynamics. If you always use the missionary position in bed, the man gets the vibe that he is "doing" and you are "being done to". It is again a vertical power dynamic, quite in the literal sense. People colloquially talk like this : "He is doing her". It is insulting, very insulting. You have been reduced to an object. You started this whole equation by waiting : waiting for attention, waiting to be asked out, waiting to be called up, waiting to be given gifts, waiting to be courted/wooed, waiting to be kissed, waiting to be said "I love you", waiting to be proposed, waiting for sexual pleasure. Why did you always keep yourself in the receiving position? You have been sending the idea that "love" is something a man 'gives' and a woman 'receives'. You have been an ovum waiting patiently for the sperm to come to you! You have reduced yourself to obey (only) the reproduction flow-chart! You also dress up and put make-up and wear jewelry to attract the sperm quickly! No wonder men don't treat you like equals, because they begin to assume that you have no other role to play! Reverse this inter-personal dynamic. Stop ignoring your genuine feelings. If you like a guy, tell him. Ask him out. Show interest in knowing him. You can be the first to express your feelings. If you are in a solid relationship, you can propose, too. You can take initiative for making love. Respecting your own desires and taking care of your own choices makes you respect-worthy. Taking the lead makes you admirable. In order to reverse the "he is doing her" dynamic, you have to 'do'. You cannot lying on your back all the while like a biology laboratory specimen. Be fair to men : why should he be doing a cardio workout as you half-sleep? Sex is not something owed to you : your partner is not your servant serving you sexual pleasure. Get up and be active. You have the right to pursue happiness. Neither are you his servant, catering him your anatomy. Sex is not a hospital operation, and you are not the patient. After sex, don't lie like a blessed oh-so-grateful sub-creature. Get up and eat something: you have spent lots of calories. 

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In a nutshell : Take full responsibility of your life. Be in the driver's seat. Your life should be your life, not someone else's. Live your life to the fullest, exactly the way you want. Raise your standards. Snap out of the comfort zone. Refuse consolation prizes. Refuse anything you have not earned.

Unlearning Convent education

Think objectively : Have you seen social workers in the animal kingdom? Have you seen an animal itself dying to save another? Have you seen female animals pampering the egos of their male counterparts?  Now you wonder why all of this, and much more, happen among us homo sapiens.

Wait wait, don't start the rant of "We are not animals, we are humans....". We ARE animals, well-bound within the undeniable Laws of Nature. Therefore let's get the fundamental rule straight : life wants to survive under all circumstances. Hence, self-sustenance is instinctive and imperative. Every single living organism wants to live and procreate. Nature sustains itself by competitively surviving and ensuring own growth and prosperity. Nature is Capitalistic. Period. You cannot help anyone grow unless you are yourself established and settled. It is a universal norm to first look after yourself and take care of your needs (physical, financial, social, emotional, intellectual).

Delving deeper, we see that the animal kingdom is matriarchal. The family consists of mostly the mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and the babies. The males would be mostly solitary, except during big threats. They will be waiting for the female's call in the mating season. Once the sperm transfer is over, the males are let off, back to solitude and freedom. No one demands or expects their presence in the family. The off-springs instinctively gravitate to the mother; but often do not know who the father is. The father might hang around the family (almost) inconsequentially before retreating into solitude.

Cut to the human society. It is patriarchal (due to its agriculture-based economy), but conversely, the women are not left in their solitude and freedom. They are chained as slaves to patriarchy. While animal matriarchy is natural and laid-back, human patriarchy is artificial and regimented. Try to capture an animal and it will fight back and usually escape. It has strong survival instincts and physical abilities to preserve its freedom. Now, try to capture a female human. A normal, strong-willed, independent, self-respecting female will preserve her freedom. She will consciously and sub-consciously avoid, fight back, and defeat patriarchy. Then how is patriarchy running all over the world, for millennia, uninterrupted? Every generation knows that women need to be first hypnotized into this slavery. Who does that? Convent education. Convent education prepares females for a sleep-walk through a life under a patriarchal society.

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Schooled in a girls-only convent education system for 11 years (1987-1998), I can safely say it is against the laws of Nature : impractical and 'idealistic'. It has unrealistic rules and expectations. It glorifies selflessness and self-sacrifice. It is here that girls are taught to be martyrs. They are taught to put themselves last. They are taught to forget they exist, and only care for others.
Convent-education chains normal human behavior, contorts instinctive thinking and distorts healthy feelings. Your tolerance threshold towards male-dominance is stretched to infinity. You are reprimanded if you show annoyance, even when it is justified. Rather, you are asked to forgive and forget. You are supposed to smile and take it in. You are told to bottle up feelings and put up a cheerful front. Similarly, you are not allowed to show happiness at your success, lest it causes envy in others. You are supposed to be humble and discreet about your achievements.
The convent system rewards those who obey rules unquestioningly, and punishes those who try to be themselves. It stunts mental growth and openness. You never learn to be critical. You never see the preaching nun in the classroom as a normal human being, capable of making mistakes or having wrong ideas. Even before you are a teenager, you get pre-biased about the world. Notions are drilled into your head like "gospel truths" (black-and-white). You are craftily denied the time and opportunity to explore the world objectively, and discover your own version of truth and untruth yourself.
Conformism is put on a lofty pedestal. Girls are taught to be tame and amiable. Their brains are systematically wired into believing that submission to authority is paramount. Rebellion is crushed by value-judging. School-girls are labeled as "good", "bad", "obedient", "wild", "kind", etc. You are taught not to speak your mind, but say only what is 'socially acceptable' and politically correct. Fear is instilled by incessant rebukes and reprimands. The spirit is broken like that of a circus animal! She faces stereotypical expectations from one and all, and keeps "trying" her best to win others' approval.
Naiveté is glamorized as being very attractive to the patriarchal male, who is expected to want a controllable, agency-less wife. Because marriage is epitomized as the aim of a woman's life, convent-education steps in and teaches the woman to be the "ideal" wife and the "ideal" mother. Guilelessness and ingenuousness are labeled attractive, and therefore encouraged in her behavior. She is supposed to act innocently and coyly all the time. Saccharine sweetness must reach cloying proportions to catch a husband! Good manners are taught to impress the would-be-in-laws, and constantly please them after marriage.

This is a dehumanizing process. Convent education tells you to put your own needs last! It exhorts selflessness, and asks you to forget that you yourself exist. It teaches you to think of others as priorities, drilling catchwords like "love", "service", "kindness", "care", "support", "sacrifice", into the female brain through the incessant moral-science classes. The school day begins with the morning prayer followed with songs (chimes) invoking notions like I-am-a-sinner-please-beat-me-God. It keeps repeating the dictum "live for others" and tells you to believe that unless you live for others, you cannot wash away your "sins".

Convent-education is a factory-line production. It does not respect your individuality. You are supposed to fit a certain mold to be "good enough" for others. It reinforces feminine stereotypes, and any aberration from that behavior is severely admonished. You are under a constant critical scrutiny. There is a permanent code-of-conduct. You cannot laugh loudly, cannot jump, cannot run, cannot be rude, cannot answer back, cannot rebel. You have to always be prim-and-proper and 'oh so lady-like!' You have to be congenial all the time and put up plastic smiles. This affected behavior (called 'nyaakaa') is just nauseatingly repulsive for a sufficiently intelligent person. A prude goody-two-shoes is initially amusing, but soon becomes irritating. Such a pretentious facade come across as phony and artificial. But the convent-education continues to consolidate this hypnotized grooming year after year, till a robot-ish young woman graduates and faces the big bad world. And then she is up for a jolt! She finds the world far more practical (Darling, idealism is only a theory), self-serving (Yup! what is wrong in that?), advantage-seeking (nature's rule, accept it), and "cruel" (actually normal).
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Any intelligent girl in a convent-education system feels suffocated. She can easily see through this artificial drama. Some girls simply play along, since they know they can be themselves after the school-hours. Others completely buy into it and take it as an absolute truth. But these are the two extremes of convent-educated girls. Most people are neither too intelligent (to see through the whole drama) nor too courageous (to openly rebel). A majority of the girls get stifled. This suppression may lead to frustration. However, a systematic brain-washing of 12 years often leads to learned helplessness. Girls learn to adjust, comply, obey, fall-in-line.

Such women never learn to be fully themselves. After school life, as they interact with more and more of the real world, they try to be as idealistic as possible, upholding their values. But, sooner or later, more and more people seem to be giving them "rude shocks", over and over again. By the time they realize they have been living a hoax (that the world had been making a C****** out of them), it is too late to (re-)learn the natural authenticity from scratch and assert themselves as normal humans. Hopelessly, they continue the old façade, waiting for appreciation for being "so sweet". (People who have taken shit, upon later realization, publicly insist and try to 'justify' taking shit. They do this in order to feel better, whereas in reality, they are only lying to themselves). 

Victim-card : Convent education teaches you to suffer for others, becoming a victim yourself. This strategy will backfire in an intelligent/practical environment, where normal people easily see through this psychological manipulation of playing the victim card. Embracing suffering for others sake can be easily perceived as a guilt-invoking tactic to win brownie points. No one likes sob stories. Yup, you actually get taunted for playing a martyr. It irritates normal people simply because it is abnormal and unnatural. Such females later become suckers for personal, social, and professional appreciation and validation. They feel worthwhile only after someone praises them. They work their asses off to get in others' good books and win praise. They pretend to be Mother Teresa and demand the Nobel. Gadhhi, teri apni koi life nahin hain kya?

Convent education teaches you to be politically correct. You cannot honestly speak your mind. You cannot show anger. You must always be patient and forgiving. You are hypnotized into praising others even if they don't deserve it. You start downplaying yourself to make others feel better. THe male-centric patriarchal society wants women to step back and put the spotlight on the husband. So convent-education hypes "virtues" like humility and down-to-earth behavior. You keep showering praise on others, hoping for some reciprocation. Stretching it too far, you become a doormat. Later in life, such women who have been lying to praise/raise/comfort others may realize this drama and explode, and create more enemies unnecessarily. 

Girls are made to forget that there is a word called "NO" in the dictionary. They act as if they are paid to be polite all the time! What is holding them at gun-point and asking them to forget about themselves? Fear. Fear of being judged and labeled by the society as "selfish". But of course, the patriarchal society will do exactly that! It always needs such tame women to maintain patriarchal law and order (read patriarchal values/ culture/ tradition). Why do you think convent-educated women are in high demand in the marriage market? Convent-education is preparing them for this, and then the  claiming "We cannot change the world, but we can make a difference". They are making a difference : regression. They are brainwashing impressionable toddlers for 12 years and making them sweet, nice, kind, polite, soft, obedient, etc., etc. before releasing them as nubile products for men to take home as a trophy and a slave (domestic, financial, reproductive slave). Men silently enjoy it, getting a joy-ride of patriarchy whereas you end up doing all the heavy-lifting. 

Convent-educated women usually lack self-esteem. They feel inadequate all the time. They are constantly trying to "prove themselves" to be worthy of external appreciation. They are programmed in believing that getting a scolding from an authority figure is nirvana. They buy into  guilt very easily. They never learn to answer back and defend themselves. They are believe that "others are right" and "others know more than me". It is as if written on their foreheads : "Come, Batter me!". They end up seeking opinions and advice every now and then. They look up to others as guardians and superiors, thinking "others know more than me". They get easily convinced to help/support/go-out-of-way-to-serve others. No wonder they get trampled all their lives. More practical people use and manipulate them for their own advantage/benefit, and then ignore them royally. Taking such shit from all and sundry 24/7/365, convent-educated women begin to question the meaning of their own lives (only if they are intelligent to see the shit). Convent-education trains them to take shit without realizing it as shit! Since they don't have the courage to assert themselves, they take is at a way of life as re-hypnotize themselves by "learning to count their blessings" as Sister taught them in the moral science class. 

Convent-educated women usually lack a strong personality. They are always wagging their tails before others, begging for sweet (read patronizing) behavior from others. They give in to bullies even before the fight begins and start crying. Playing helpless damsels-in-distress and surrendering are oh-so-feminine! Really?! No wonder men make them Chutiyaa-s, all the bloody time. They hand over their lives control to someone else, and blame him when something goes wrong. Wow! Convent-education is a brilliant system to train the future dumb assistants of patriarchy. Such women will always look up to someone else to salvage them (socially/financially/emotionally). They accept patronizing and condescending behavior like blessings, and obediently fall in line like a school-girl. They are always ready to be ordered by and taken-to-task by anyone. Their natural defenses are blunted. They are oh-so-happy to be under the scanner and be constantly scrutinized. They get a "progress report card" at regular intervals, and they promise to fare better next time. Any "mistake" of theirs is frowned upon : "how dare she fail to be the model woman?" It is very easy to guilt-trip them. They buy into "constructive criticism" and are never truly happy. A constant people-pleaser, they allow anyone to sit on their heads and boss them around. 

Since such a woman gladly takes shit, the world gladly cooperates : there are endless people to remind her that her hair is wrong, her skin is wrong, her dress is wrong, her make-up is wrong, her cooking is wrong, her singing is wrong, her mothering-skills are wrong, her comment is wrong, her opinion is wrong, her joke is wrong, etc., etc. She is constantly insecure and trying to prove "I am good enough". Does she have the self-esteem to snap, "Who are you to judge me?" Naah!

Convent education breeds a vicious cycle : women trapped by its brainwashing want other women also be the same. I was in Class 6. A nun took the moral science class, teaching us to be lady-like a well-behaved, since "one day you will be the wives of big big doctors, engineers". (Yes! She actually said it). Even the sari-clad sindoor-smeared teachers spoke similarly. They taught us in class 8  that "Girls have to leave their parents' home and  go away after marriage". What else could they tell students, after themselves surrendering to patriarchy? They had eagerly taken up their nurturing motherly caretaker roles (nothing exciting remains in their lives), and got typecast in it for life (by themselves only!). It is a vicious cycle of patriarchy creating a market for convent-educated women, and convent education allowing the free run of patriarchy : both systems feeding off each other and it is an endless downward spiral. 

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Sala band karo yeh fargi-yappa!

Regimentation is for cattle, not for intelligent humans with decision-making ability, logic and reason. Rules and regulations can be respected, without sacrificing your own self-esteem. I unlearnt this 12-year convent education in a few years after leaving that artificial environment. Yes, there were rude shocks: people walking over me and I realizing it after it was too late, people guilt-tripping me without me answering back, people using my time and resources without me getting anything in return, etc. Things changed by the time I graduated from college. Survival instincts stopped my tail-wagging, and whetted my claws. The solid sense of self-esteem kicked away anyone who tried to crush it (three persons even got slapped). Revenges were taken on anyone who tried to take me for granted. No compromises were made to fit-in and conform : that would have been a laughable situation. I trivialized and trashed all patriarchal expectations from the society (family, relatives, friends, acquaintances, etc.) and today, I live free, exactly as I want, 24/7/365. Today I can say I am neither 'good' nor 'bad', I am normal. I am usually polite, but not goody-two-shoes. I am palatable, but not saccharine sweet. I don't scare anyone, and neither do I get scared. I am indifferent to comments and trolls. I groom myself but don't worry non-stop about clothes/accessories/make-up/hairstyle. I have friends but I fiercely protect my solitude. I support others, but not without asking questions. I don't smile if I don't feel like. I usually don't move a finger unless money is on the table. I respect my parents but don't worship them. I listen to feedback but answer back when it starts bordering on patronizing.