User:Sjburton18/Something Like a War

Something like a War is a film about reproductive rights, especially women’s reproductive rights, in India. The film includes footage of a group of women discussing their sexuality and motherhood. The discussions between these women emphasize the challenges women face to be valued for more than their reproductive role. One woman states that they (women) are valued only for their womb, an only if their womb produces a boy. Women in India are objectified by their sexuality and ability to reproduce. This often forces women to hide their sexuality. Once women are able to reproduce they are married off and expected to have children, often at a very young age. While there is pressure from families to have children, the government also exerts pressure to limit the reproduction of especially low-income, dalit and Mulsim women. This often forces women to feel ashamed and hide their menstruation. One scene shows a woman describing her first time menstruating, stating that a friend told her to hide this, to do so she should shove sand between her legs.

Deepa Dhanraj is a world renowned filmmaker that has been involved with the women's rights movement since 1980. She founded Yugantar, a Bangladesh-based film production organization that mainly focuses on producing films about women’s labor and domestic conditions in the southern parts of India. With over three decades of experience with filmography she has produced award winning films such as Enough of this Silence (2008), and The Advocate (2007). Her film Something Like a War depicts gender and class violence of the population control policies enforced by the Indian government.

 Family Planning Reforms of India 

India was the first country to adopt an official family planning program in 1952 and the Ford Foundation gave the country an initial grant of 9 million dollars. Under the direction of United States advisors, 6.5 million men were sterilized by the end of India's emergency rule in 1977 which exceeded the target of 50% men being sterilized. The direction was then turned towards the women of India and under the family planning targets of 1985-1990, thirty-one million women were sterilized, twenty-five million women had IUD procedures done, and fourteen million had other contraceptive procedures done to them. There was pressure from the government on women to stop having children, however there was also pressure from their family members to continue to have children in hopes that they would bring a boy. Many Indians prefer sons over daughters because they see the boys as an investment and girls as a liability in the family dynamic. To Indian parents, they see the boys as the future breadwinners and caregivers and they see the girls as a payment responsibility in the future when the parents are obligated to pay dowries when their daughters marry.

Statistically, the Family planning programs implemented in India target women more than men. The figure for female sterilization is thirty-nine percent which is double than the global percentage. The most popular form of female sterilization is tubal ligation which is done in government facilitated sterilization camps where the women are lined up and a surgeon is able to surgically cut and tie their fallopian tubes. It is more risky for the women to get sterilized than men, in fact in 2014 fifteen women in the Indian State of Chhattisgarh died from sterilization operations being performed on them by Dr. R.K. Gupta. He performed more than eighty surgeries that day and in addition to the fifteen deaths, seventy women were hospitalized under critical condition and out of the seventy twenty were put under mechanical ventilation.

 Reproduction Oppression in India 

Tubal ligation is favored among other female sterilization methods because it is advocated by family planners to be the most effective, low-risk and inexpensive procedure compared to other contraceptives. Much of the Indian population are often not educated in family planning and reproduction health, especially the population that live in rural area. A study was conducted in Madhya Pradesh which is considered to be one of the least developed states of India and it was found that there was an extreme lack of knowledge amongst the community about family planning and where to find the resources to get informed about the topic. It is the standard in Madhya Pradesh to have the Family planning programs to target the women of the community due to their subordinate status and their disability to make any decision in regards to family healthcare. The decision is left up to their husbands and many do not understand the full affects of female sterilization and much of their knowledge is superficial because many only have equal to or less than a secondary education. Men were found to know of contraception however there were different definitions amongst them of what contraception was they just knew it delayed pregnancy.

Ninety-three percent of men that participated in the study were not relying on a permanent method of sterilization however the survey conducted found that seventy-nine percent were willing to adopt a permanent method only if their wives would adopt female sterilization due to social and cultural reasons. It is popular for the wives to undergo sterilization rather than their husbands because as one man stated, "Men work hard for the family, while women stay at home." Male sterilization, referred to as "purush nasbandi" is very unpopular in not just in Madhya Pradesh but across the country of India. It is said if the male undergo sterilization it would make the man weaker and be prone to other illnesses. It is automatically assumed that undergoing a sterilization procedure is a woman thing and the decision is ultimately left up to their husbands.