← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Petr
Thread ID: 19728 | Posts: 10 | Started: 2005-08-19
2005-08-19 08:12 | User Profile
[I]"Culture of Critique" is now invading India...[/I]
[url]http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=66&ncid=66&e=2&u=/bw/20050818/bs_bw/b3948530[/url]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=5] India's New Worldly Women [/SIZE] [B] By Pete Engardio in New York
Thu Aug 18, 8:17 AM ET[/B]
When the first American music videos and popular TV shows began appearing in Indian homes in the early 1990s thanks to satellite and cable, many pundits predicted Indian society would never be the same. For the first time, young Indian women saw a regular dose of sexy, scantily clad divas shimmying. Female viewers also saw independent, successful women -- think Ally McBeal -- and fun, sensitive guys a la Friends. Sex and divorce were openly discussed in these TV imports and couples kissed passionately -- then still a taboo in Indian TV shows and movies.
[B]Indeed, the impact on younger generations of Indian women has been profound. Whereas Indian women traditionally have been submissive to parents and husbands and valued frugality and modesty, a number of sociological studies show that young Indian females now prize financial independence, freedom to decide when to marry and have children, and glamorous careers (see BW, 8/22/05, "A Thousand Chinese Desires Bloom").[/B]
[B]TOMORROW'S BUYERS[/B]
"A generation back, women would sacrifice themselves and believed in saving," says Nisha Singhania, senior strategic planning director of Grey Worldwide India. "Today, it is spend, spend, spend. It is O.K. for a woman to want something for herself, and people will accept it if she goes out into a man's world making a statement."
Because today's young women are the key consumer group of tomorrow, these shifts have big implications for marketing companies. And the trends come out clearly in two recent studies by Grey Global Group. One study examined 3,400 unmarried women aged 19-22 of different income and social levels. Altogether, the project involved 40 focus groups in five large metro areas and five smaller cities.
In some cases, the researchers lived with the women for a while to study them more closely. The researchers supplemented this data with interviews of journalists, teachers, and psychologists.
Among the findings:
[B]-- Guilt-free materialism[/B]. Fifty-one percent of young single women in major metro areas say it's necessary to have a big house and big car to be happy. In smaller cities, 86% agreed with this statement. "This shows that the less women have, the greater are their aspirations," says Singhania.
One woman interviewed was making just $200 a year but said she wants to own a jet plane. "A typical comment in recent interviews was, 'I want money, fame and success,'" says Singhania.
[B]-- Parental ties[/B]. Traditionally, parents regarded girls as somebody else's future property. They arranged marriages for their daughters, and then the daughters would go away and take care of their in-laws, so parents needed and doted on sons. "As a girl, you never spoke to your parents. They spoke to you," Singhania says.
But today's young women are rebelling against that. Sixty-seven percent say they plan to take care of their parents into their old age -- and that means they need money.
Unilever (NYSE:UL - News) played on that sentiment with a recent controversial -- but successful -- ad for its Fair and Lovely line of beauty products. A daughter came home and found that her parents had no sugar for coffee because they couldn't afford it. She became an airline hostess after using the Fair and Lovely products to make her beautiful. She then visited her parents and took them to a first-class restaurant.
[B]-- Marital freedom[/B]. Now many women say they'll marry when ready -- not when their parents decide to marry them off. Sixty-five percent say dating is essential, and they also want to become financially independent before they marry. More than three-quarters -- 76% -- say they want to maintain that independence afterward. Sixty percent say they'll decide how to spend their own salaries.
What's more, 76% say they'll decide when to have children. "They now regard this as the woman's decision completely," observes Singhania. In big metro areas, 24% say they never want children, and that number reaches 40% in smaller cities. [B] -- Individualism[/B]. Female role models in Indian culture used to personify perfection, Singhania says. Now, 62% of girls say it's O.K. if they have faults and that people see them. "They don't want to be seen as Mrs. Perfect," she says. "Popular characters are Phoebe of Friends and Ally McBeal. They like women who commit blunders."
[B]-- Careerism[/B]. A decade ago, most young women saw themselves as housewives. After that, most said they wanted to be teachers or doctors. "If they had a profession at all, it had to be a noble cause," Singhania says. "Now, it is about glamour, money, and fame."
A surprising 45% of young single females say they would like to be journalists. Singhania says that's largely because prominent female journalists, especially TV reporters, are seen as very glamorous.
Another 39% say they would like to be managers, 38% are interested in design, and 20% think they want to be teachers. Interestingly, 13% say they would like to be in the military. The percentage of those saying they want to be a full-time housewife was minuscule.
[B]-- Modern husbands[/B]. "The relationship with the husband used to be one of awe," Singhania says. "Now, women want a partner and a relationship of equals. They want to marry a man like Greg of Dharma and Greg or Chandler of Friends." A recent Whirlpool (NYSE:WHR - News) ad shows a man washing the family clothes before his wife comes home from work, while a Samsung home-appliance ad shows a husband and wife cooking together.
For Indian society, the changes in young women's outlook on life is revolutionary. For marketers, they offer interesting new opportunities to exploit.[/FONT]
2005-08-20 09:23 | User Profile
[I]Here is another article from BusinessWeek, the one that the piece below alluded to: "[B]A Thousand Chinese Desires Bloom[/B]""
Culture-destroying individualism and consumerism are rapidly spreading in the Far East. This phenomenon will have global consequences, so I'd advice WNs to pay good attention to it.[/I]
[url]http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_34/b3948531.htm[/url]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=5]A Thousand Chinese Desires Bloom [/SIZE]
[B]AUGUST 22, 2005 [/B]
[SIZE=3][I]A large study gives insight into the mindset of China's increasingly varied consumers, a complexity foreign outfits need to get to grips with [/I] [/SIZE]
Many foreign companies still tend to treat Chinese consumers as an undifferentiated mass. Their priority is getting products into the country, figuring they can then formulate an advertising campaign based on clichés of what people in developing nations want (see BW, 8/22/05, "India's New Worldly Women").
In fact, China's consumer market is quickly becoming increasingly sophisticated -- and segmented. Savvy corporations are learning to tailor their products and pitches to the tastes, aspirations, and demands of distinct elements of the population.
"People from the outside think this is just a gold mine," says Grey Global Group's Josh Li, managing director of the marketing outfit's Beijing office. "Actually, this is a very complex market, with many diverse lifestyles."
THE CHINESE DREAM.
To get a good picture of China's emerging consumer class, Grey collaborated with the British Council, a government-funded organization that promotes education and culture, to conduct a detailed study of Chinese aged 16 to 39 living in 30 big cities.
They collected data from home visits with 70,000 people -- an enormous sample size -- that Grey figures is representative of 50 million to 60 million people. The study was supplemented with data from a Chinese research institute survey of 10,000 university undergraduates.
The main trend that emerges is that the younger generations in China are very confident about their future, says Viveca Chan, an early pioneer in studying Chinese consumers, who was until recently head of Grey's Asia operations. "When I went to school, everyone talked about the American Dream, and everyone in China aspired to go there," Chan says. "Now, the Chinese Dream is starting to happen."
PRAGMATIC YOUTH.
Another clear finding is that young Chinese adults are extremely driven and are obsessed with getting ahead. "If you talk to them, they are very eager to get connected to the business world, the reality world," says Li. "This is entirely a new generation for China."
Li, who is 35, says when he was in college he was very much involved in politics and took part in the 1989 prodemocracy movement. "Now, students don't care about those issues. They care about getting a good job and are quite willing to join the Communist Party to get it, even though they don't believe in communism."
But this doesn't mean all young Chinese think only about making money. "At the same time, they are looking for fun," he says. "They are looking for safe rebellion and calculated risks. There's a lot of unemployment, so the competition for jobs is huge."
PRECIOUS INFO.
This kind of information is valuable for marketing companies as they try to figure out which buttons to push. The study, called the Chinese Media and Marketing Survey, found that the younger Chinese generation can be segmented into consumer groups with distinct psychological perspectives and values.
The biggest consumer category, 34% of the sample, is what Grey labels "advancers." They are obsessed with their self-image, and money is important to them. Most are male, and 69% are married.
"This is the big market, the backbone of China's consumer market," says Li. "And they have a lot of influence over those below them." These are the buyers Volkswagen, General Motors, and the major cell-phone suppliers are after.
KEY TARGET.
Another 17% of the young adult market are regarded as "experimenters," meaning they are most likely to be the first, say, to buy a PDA with the latest features. About 11% of those sampled can be classified as "young and hip" -- they are the type who want iPod music players and trendy clothes. They tend to admire the same celebrities as Taiwanese or Hong Kong youth. And 11.6% are classified as "motivated" -- mainly concerned with getting ahead in their careers.
The richest segment, labeled the "achievers," account for about 5%. These are the people who often end up in top executive positions and are a key target market for companies like Oracle.
INFLUENTIAL SEGMENT.
This privileged group is always influential in Chinese society, Li says, because of the prestige associated with success. Especially popular are wealthy tycoons who are socially responsible, such as Hong Kong's Li Ka-shing, who donates heavily to educational causes.
A final, and surprisingly big, segment of the Chinese young adults are simply the "independents," those who pride themselves on charting their own course and not following the pack. They account for 8.6% of young adults.
[B]Perhaps the most interesting aspects of the Grey study, however, is the way it breaks down the psychological makeup of today's young Chinese adults. Researchers asked a number of questions about basic values. In many ways, attitudes seem like those of young Americans in the post-World War II era[/B].
Among the major characteristics:
ââ¬Â¢ [B]Individualism[/B]: Roughly two-thirds of young Chinese prefer to do things themselves, rather than rely on others. The same percentage also say they don't judge others on how they live their lives.
ââ¬Â¢ [B]Craving a better life[/B]: Only 39% of Chinese are happy with their life as is. And a mere 18% say they have enough money to enjoy life. Fifty-nine percent say they need to take risks to be successful. For consumer products companies, this means there is a huge desire for new trends.
ââ¬Â¢ [B]Career ambition[/B]: Eighty percent of younger Chinese say they are working very hard for their career. Two-thirds agree with the statement, "It is important that my family thinks I am successful."
ââ¬Â¢[B] Liberated women[/B]: Men should do house work, according to 64% of men and women surveyed. The divorce rate now is about 22% in China overall but higher and rising in urban areas.
ââ¬Â¢ [B]Internationalism[/B]: Two-thirds of young Chinese adults say they are interested in other cultures and in international events, while 52% say they are attracted to lifestyles of developed nations. But marketers shouldn't take these opinions too literally. Says Chan: "They don't walk the walk. They still eat noodles, not pasta. Lifestyles are very difficult to change."
ââ¬Â¢ [B]Value of knowledge[/B]: Some 75% say it's important to be well-informed. "This is an important trend," Li says. "The market is characterized by mobility. People believe they will have a better life with more knowledge." It helps explain why the education market, especially for business and professional improvement programs, is booming across China, as are sales of business books.
ââ¬Â¢ [B]Longing for enjoyment[/B]: There is growing demand for spiritual experiences. Sixty-two percent say they spend time outdoors to understand nature, one-third say they exercise regularly. "However, this is an aspiration," cautions Chan. "The survey also shows 51% are willing to sacrifice leisure for making more money."
ââ¬Â¢ [B]Social consciousness. [/B] Young Chinese adults care more about the environment, charity, and public interests in general than older Chinese. Sixty percent say they have often taken measures to protect the environment, and 59% say they appreciate enterprises or brands that support charity.
Add all of these findings together, and you get a profile of a population that's making a dramatic departure from thousands of years of tradition. What's more, attitudes are changing with remarkable speed. They are putting a greater value on creativity, self-expression, and control over their own lives.
For Western companies, understanding this evolving mindset -- and dispensing with old stereotypes -- will be vital for success in the China market.
[I]By Pete Engardio in New York[/I][/FONT]
2005-08-21 19:20 | User Profile
Ping! This is important stuff!
2005-08-22 01:12 | User Profile
These trends raise the question, is feminism and "women's liberation" a specifically Jewish-led social movement (as Kevin MacDonald would have it) or is it an inevitable trend in any society that reaches a certain level of affluence?
Parts of India and China are catching up to the living standards of the Western world around the time of the feminist revolution. As women's time is freed up from daily chores by modern labour-saving devices like washing machines and clothes driers, the economic necessity of organising society along gender-specific roles is lessened. A growing economy that relies on encouraging mindless materialism to expand markets for consumer goods is going to create masses of status-hungry young women more interested in careers than traditional family life, with or without the influence of "Ally McBeal" and "Friends" (at least they are spared "Sex in the City". Consumerism naturally lends itself to selfish hedonism because that's the best way to make people buy lots of stuff they don't need.
The other hole in the "Jews are behind feminism" theory is that feminism in the USA (where the Jewish influence is greatest) actually lagged somewhat behind some other Western countries such as Australia and New Zealand (a vaginocracy now ruled by a closet lesbian for a Prime Minister where the feminist agenda is much further advanced than in the USA). The major triggers for the women's lib movement in these countries were: labour-saving devices that freed women from their tradition roles as full-time homemakers, and the experience of WW2 where many women entered the workforce on what was supposed to be a temporary basis while the men were off fighting.
I think that support for feminism among some Jews was out of (possibly subconsicous) malice towards Whites and schadenfreude at seeing White birthrates plummet as traditional values deteriorate. I must admit a bit of glee at hearing that India and China are soon to be in demographic decline myself! However I don't buy the CofC line that it was made up out of whole cloth as part of a Jewish group-evolutionary strategy to undermine White civilisation.
Feminism (the destructive sort, not the healthy attitude that women are equal but suited for different roles) is a result of industrialisation and modernisation itself because without a strong religious tradition the economic necessity for gender specialisation is no longer there once society reaches a certain standard of living. Perhaps we should all become Luddites to save the White Race? :)
2005-08-22 03:20 | User Profile
Funny how atheism and feminism seem to go hand in hand. Or maybe I misread societal trends.
AE
[QUOTE=RowdyRoddyPiper]These trends raise the question, is feminism and "women's liberation" a specifically Jewish-led social movement (as Kevin MacDonald would have it) or is it an inevitable trend in any society that reaches a certain level of affluence?
Parts of India and China are catching up to the living standards of the Western world around the time of the feminist revolution. As women's time is freed up from daily chores by modern labour-saving devices like washing machines and clothes driers, the economic necessity of organising society along gender-specific roles is lessened. A growing economy that relies on encouraging mindless materialism to expand markets for consumer goods is going to create masses of status-hungry young women more interested in careers than traditional family life, with or without the influence of "Ally McBeal" and "Friends" (at least they are spared "Sex in the City". Consumerism naturally lends itself to selfish hedonism because that's the best way to make people buy lots of stuff they don't need.
The other hole in the "Jews are behind feminism" theory is that feminism in the USA (where the Jewish influence is greatest) actually lagged somewhat behind some other Western countries such as Australia and New Zealand (a vaginocracy now ruled by a closet lesbian for a Prime Minister where the feminist agenda is much further advanced than in the USA). The major triggers for the women's lib movement in these countries were: labour-saving devices that freed women from their tradition roles as full-time homemakers, and the experience of WW2 where many women entered the workforce on what was supposed to be a temporary basis while the men were off fighting.
I think that support for feminism among some Jews was out of (possibly subconsicous) malice towards Whites and schadenfreude at seeing White birthrates plummet as traditional values deteriorate. I must admit a bit of glee at hearing that India and China are soon to be in demographic decline myself! However I don't buy the CofC line that it was made up out of whole cloth as part of a Jewish group-evolutionary strategy to undermine White civilisation.
Feminism (the destructive sort, not the healthy attitude that women are equal but suited for different roles) is a result of industrialisation and modernisation itself because without a strong religious tradition the economic necessity for gender specialisation is no longer there once society reaches a certain standard of living. Perhaps we should all become Luddites to save the White Race? :)[/QUOTE]
2005-08-22 04:44 | User Profile
Feminism equals death. It represents sterility. It is a cult of the goddess that requires its votaries to tear out their reproductive organs. Jews had their hand in its creation but it has a life of its own now.
2005-08-22 06:03 | User Profile
The marxists have ruled India's government from 1947(Well the Hindu Nations did have a government for a short time), is it any shock that cultural marxism is making some gains.
2005-08-22 06:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]Feminism equals death. It represents sterility. It is a cult of the goddess that requires its votaries to tear out their reproductive organs. Jews had their hand in its creation but it has a life of its own now.[/QUOTE] Nicely and succinctly put. Thanks for saying in 2 lines what took me 5 paragraphs.:whstl:
2005-08-22 07:58 | User Profile
[I]It is interesting that southern, Dravidian parts of India have progressed more than "Aryan"-speaking northern parts of India...[/I]
[url]http://coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreview/print_right.php?func=detail&par=607[/url]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=5]Indian Proof That Literacy and Lower Birthrates Go Together[/SIZE]
[B]24/04/2001 | International Herald Tribune |
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray [/B] OXFORD, England
[B]The latest census figures from India disprove Malthusian predictions of a population getting so big that it spirals out of control and creates havoc. The [U]figures confirm that investment and development bring down numbers more effectively than any conscious effort to limit births[/U][/B].
The message should not be lost on Indian politicians who still look askance at economic liberalization, which started a decade ago, as a conspiracy to enrich capitalists at the expense of the poor.
A second lesson from India's 2001 census bears out the claim by Amartya Sen, the Nobel prize-winning Indian economist, that education, especially for women, is the best catalyst for birth control and social progress. As he has pointed out many times, population growth is lowest in the southern state of Kerala, which has the highest male and female literacy rates.
[B]The new statistics show that numbers in Kerala, where 93 percent of people can read and write, grew by 9.4 percent in the last decade. Growth in Bihar, whose 47 percent literacy rate lags behind the national average, was about 25 percent. India registered a 21.3 percent population increase from 1991 to 2001, adding in absolute terms 180.6 million people to bring the present total to 1.027 billion. This is 2 percentage points below the growth rate for the previous decade.[/B]
The total is below China's 1.265 billion, belying predictions that, unrestrained by the coercive one-child policy that Beijing imposed 20 years ago, Indians would soon outnumber the Chinese.
India's voluntary birth control program has been virtually moribund since an attempt to impose mass sterilization during the emergency regime of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977. .India is profiting slowly from rising income levels since the free market reforms that were introduced in 1991 by then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and his finance minister, Manmohan Singh.
The reforms have been continued by the current coalition government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Absolute poverty, defined as a daily income of less than the equivalent of $1, fell from 36 to 26 percent in the decade to 2001. The literacy rate has risen from 52.2 to 65.4 percent. The number of illiterates has fallen (from 328 million to 296 million) for the first time since India became independent in 1947.
[B]Birthrates are lowest in the southern and western states - Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, in addition to Kerala - which have forged ahead economically since 1991. Birthrates are highest in northern states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, which rely mainly on agriculture. These northern states have low literacy levels.[/B]
A side effect of this pattern is that it accentuates the north-south divide in Indian politics.
The central government's policy of treating population size as the determining factor for allocating funds, which gives Uttar Pradesh with its more than 166 million people the lion's share, could be said to reward backwardness. So do special educational, financial and employment privileges for lower caste groups in the Hindu hierarchy.
Such anomalies prompt achievers like Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, to complain of discrimination. But reform is unlikely, since Uttar Pradesh is Mr. Vajpayee's home and his party's principal bastion. The rationale for disbursing funds is political, not pragmatic.
The answer to India's problems lies in greater productive investment. It alone can generate resources for social reform, especially much higher per capita spending on primary education. The writer, a visiting fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and a former editor of The Statesman in India, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune. [/FONT]
2005-08-22 15:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE=RowdyRoddyPiper]These trends raise the question, is feminism and "women's liberation" a specifically Jewish-led social movement (as Kevin MacDonald would have it) or is it an inevitable trend in any society that reaches a certain level of affluence?[/QUOTE] It should be noted, however, that the article discussed the very real influence that indoctrination by Western (Jewish-controlled) media has had on Indian women. Indian women aspire to marrying a man like 'Chandler on Friends' for Pete's sake!