Every now and then, those in positions of influence or authority and those who ought to know better, manage to conclusively prove that they don’t, in fact know better. The wording of a text book recently demonstrated how primitive in their thinking are the people who could be influencing the education system. A passage about the ‘modern girl’ seems exceedingly out of touch with modernity, the girl as well as reality – here’s what it’s all about:
The whole page consists of a breathtakingly censorious view of what a ‘modern girl’ should be and is instead. That she wears jeans and doesn’t wear sarees is clearly bad. Seeing (sic) TV and movies and being interested in fashion are other transgressions she is guilty of. Shockingly she is also not willing to ‘confine herself within the four walls of her home’ and wants to ‘enjoy life like the boys’. How terrible! Worse, she likes outdoor activities and mixes freely with boys! What a hussy! She also looks after her own ‘health and figure’, buys costly beauty products and has ‘no time to look after the needs of the other members of her family’. What a miscreant!
Overleaf, the writer continues the diatribe; ranting against the terrible sort of female who wants to climb mountains and achieve goals while shockingly being comfortable speaking to boys. This vixen-ish woman wants only pleasure from life and is too ‘selfish to think about others.’
Because she is no longer a shy, obedient and homely ‘creature’; wants more for herself than just being someone's daughter or sister, she is apparently self-centred. The writer is also outraged that this ‘creature’ presumes to have a life beyond the one as a sister/daughter.
So the writer is both regressive and has a poor command of the language; evidently unaware that ‘homely’ (meaning plain or unattractive) ‘homey’ are two different words. There are other glaring errors of syntax and some very clumsy sentence construction but, I’ll put off being a Grammar Nazi just this once. The fact that the author is an MA in English is deeply worrying!
Feminist Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen is obviously not pleased with the definition of the ‘modern’ girl and recommends ‘unlearning’ the nonsense on the pages of the text book. Sound advice.
The author of book appears to be one Purabi Chakraborty, a rather sadly misguided woman it would seem. Someone that this tweet helpfully describes as the literate idiot!
This tweet is a pun on the name of the author; changing Purabi to Purani; which is fitting, when we look at how primitive her thinking is.
Happily, this is merely a self-published book that was, but is no longer available on Amazon. Another book by the same author has 6 presumably justified one star reviews such as this – “BAN THIS BOOK FOR THE WELFARE OF THE SOCIETY!! This author is feeding outrageous misogynistic concepts into young minds and is a danger to us all!!” OK then, we can stop outraging now.
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