[submitted 13.4.21] So Fire Me

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Always hard to do issues about things which are horrifying IRL but hopefully this hits the balance.

DRAFT 2:

TITLE:
So Fire Me

VALIDITY:
Low gender equality, marriage legal, capitalism
ADULT

DESCRIPTION:
Human rights organisations are drawing attention to the horrifying practice of bride burning, where young women are being doused in petrol and immolated by their husband or husband's family, as "punishment" for the bride's family refusing to pay a sufficiently generous dowry.

OPTION 1
"The problem here is the concept of dowries," explains @@random_name(female)@@, who has six daughters. "They promote the idea that women are a financial burden, and suggest that families are paying to transfer that burden. My girls have expensive tastes, but they are all treasures! You should ban dowries, and to make sure that there's no stealth dowries, ban wedding gifts of all sorts. Marriages should be about love, not money."

OUTCOME:
the best things in life are free

OPTION 2
"No, dear, the root cause is a lack of respect for women," interrupts the previous speaker's husband, moving her gently to one side with a patronising smirk. "When I was at school we were taught to be gentlemen, and that a woman should be showered with flowers and kisses, not kerosene. Give boys classes on how to respect women, and society will fix itself."

OUTCOME:
matches made in heaven don't involve safety matches

OPTION 3
"Lack of respect is indeed the problem -- lack of respect for the law!" mutters an old man, who is father and uncle of the previous speakers. "Murder is murder, and all this talk about root causes misses the point. Vile animals who do this sort of thing need to whipped like dogs till they die like dogs. Damn dogs!" His pet dog backs away nervously.

OUTCOME:
you can't beat good old-fashioned discipline

OPTION 4
"Lack of respect for tradition is the problem," mutters an even older man, who smells suspiciously of gasoline. "Maybe if families paid respectable dowries then women wouldn't have to get burnt. Bride burning is regrettable, but should be seen as the legal right of any family that feels their honour has been tarnished by an inadequate dowry. This is undeniably moral!"

OUTCOME:
morally right and far right are seen as political synonyms

DRAFT1:

TITLE:
So Fire Me

VALIDITY:
Low gender equality, marriage legal, capitalism
ADULT

DESCRIPTION:
Human rights organisations are drawing attention to the horrifying practice of bride burning, where young women are being doused in petrol and immolated by their husband or husband's family, as "punishment" for the bride's family refusing to pay a sufficiently generous dowry.

OPTION 1
"The problem here is the concept of dowries," explains @@random_name(female)@@, who has six daughters. "They promote the idea that women are a financial burden, and suggest that families are paying to transfer that burden. My girls have expensive tastes, but they are all treasures! You should ban dowries, and to make sure that there's no stealth dowries, ban wedding gifts of all sorts. Marriages should be about love, not money."

OUTCOME:
the best things in life are free

OPTION 2
"No, dear, the root cause is a lack of respect for women," interrupts the previous speaker's husband, moving her gently to one side with a patronising smirk. "When I was at school we were taught to be gentlemen, and that a woman should be showered with flowers and kisses, not kerosene. Give boys classes on how to respect women, and society will fix itself."

OUTCOME:
matches made in heaven don't involve safety matches

OPTION 3
"Lack of respect is indeed the problem -- lack of respect for the law!" mutters an old man, who is father and uncle of the previous speakers. "Murder is murder, and all this talk about root causes misses the point. Vile animals who do this sort of thing need to whipped like dogs till they die like dogs. Damn dogs!" His pet dog backs away nervously.

OUTCOME:
you can't beat good old-fashioned discipline

[Trotterdam]

I don't doubt that this is a real issue in some countries, but it sounds pretty alien to Western ears, where dowries aren't a common practice to begin with.

Worth noting is that dowries are hardly a universal practice even in more "primitive" societies, as quite a few pay bride prices, instead. It's interesting how regardless of whether it's the bride's family paying the groom's or the groom's family paying the bride's, it still gets criticized as misogynistic.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Sure, its not an issue for most nations in the real world either. However, India and Pakistan make up about 20% of the world population between them, and there's around two and a half thousand reported cases there every year, with some estimating twice as many cases unreported.

So its definitely something that's big enough to justify an issue. After all, we've got a large number of issues based on British and American situations, many of which might sound alien to those outside of the West.

I think there's an argument to say that most players are from the Western world, but I don't think that means Issues have to be drawn solely from that milieu.

I've been careful here to avoid numbers, regardless, so players can decide for themselves whether its a fringe practice of a few communities or a major problem.

[Trotterdam]

Yeah. I have to wonder if there's some validity that would help identify which nations this is likely to be an actual problem in, but I don't think so.

[Lelscrep]

Yeah. I have to wonder if there's some validity that would help identify which nations this is likely to be an actual problem in, but I don't think so.

Maybe high Rudeness, Ideological Radicality, or even Religiousness? Also possibly nations with a low Human Development Index?

[SherpDaWerp]

Dowries in general don't have any representation in the issue base yet. Maybe it's worth writing a pre-amble style issue about the practice of dowries and whether they are/aren't widespread in @@NAME@@.

[Fauxia]

Yeah. I have to wonder if there's some validity that would help identify which nations this is likely to be an actual problem in, but I don't think so.

Maybe high Rudeness, Ideological Radicality, or even Religiousness? Also possibly nations with a low Human Development Index?

Isn't this pretty similar to issue 841? I guess that one has different options, but the premise is similar. Just something to be careful of.

Lack of gender equality is a good requirement, although Trott is right to point out that the practice is opposite in some countries... I guess it's ambiguous enough as it stands as to how widespread the practice is and where it's concentrated.

I also hate to be that guy, but some nations do ban pets, for option 3... which is rather unfortunate.

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

Maybe high Rudeness, Ideological Radicality, or even Religiousness? Also possibly nations with a low Human Development Index?

Isn't this pretty similar to issue 841? I guess that one has different options, but the premise is similar. Just something to be careful of.

841 has nothing to do with dowries, though, which is quite essential for the proposed issue here.

[Trotterdam]

Lack of gender equality is a good requirement, although Trott is right to point out that the practice is opposite in some countries... I guess it's ambiguous enough as it stands as to how widespread the practice is and where it's concentrated.

Wikipedia says that bride prices are more common in cultures that practice polygyny (which creates an economic scarcity of women, i.e.: demand exceeds supply), while dowries are more common in cultures that practice strict monogamy (which instead creates a scarcity in rich/desirable men for women to marry). Though I'm sure there are exceptions to this.

I suppose that "does not practice polygamy" is not a particularly harsh requirement to add.

[South Slovestinia]

I'd just like to note that issues based on exaggerated/satirical versions of real life things are fairly common, and the concept of dowries is pretty well known, so I'm not sure this would really need those prerequisites. I'm not even sure you need low gender equality and capitalism to do it, because this could be a problem even in countries that are socialist or that try to be committed to gender equality. One suggestion I have is to include more... unusual options (like establishing a secret police force to enforce gender equality, with the result "hell hath no fury like a women scorned", or abolishing the institution of marriage) to give countries more freedom to respond in ways that would make sense for them.

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

Does Option 3 bring anything new for nations that already practice corporal punishment? Who are you going to flog anyway, if not the people who burn someone to death?

[Lelscrep]

Does Option 3 bring anything new for nations that already practice corporal punishment? Who are you going to flog anyway, if not the people who burn someone to death?

This could be solved by just adding a "does not have Corporal Punishment policy" validity check to option three, as I think the first two options make up enough of an issue on their own. Alternatively, the third option could just make dowries in general an act punishable by corporal punishment?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

My thinking was that option 3 would add corporal and capital punishment, with stat doppelgangers for nations with or without those policies.

Re: the similarities to Burn Noticed, I definitely was aware of that as I drafted, which was why I tried to avoid making the options parallels as well. That one goes:

1) retribution
2) therapies
3) remove supply chain
4) burning women is a good thing.

Clearly I didn't need an option here to approve setting fire to women, so I tried to avoid the therapies/disrupt supplies route, and to go at tackling dowries and respect for women as the core approach. This makes it a similar premise (bad things being done to women by toxic patriarchy) but shifts the thrust of the issue, I think.

[Fauxia]

Lack of gender equality is a good requirement, although Trott is right to point out that the practice is opposite in some countries... I guess it's ambiguous enough as it stands as to how widespread the practice is and where it's concentrated.

Wikipedia says that bride prices are more common in cultures that practice polygyny (which creates an economic scarcity of women, i.e.: demand exceeds supply), while dowries are more common in cultures that practice strict monogamy (which instead creates a scarcity in rich/desirable men for women to marry). Though I'm sure there are exceptions to this.

I suppose that "does not practice polygamy" is not a particularly harsh requirement to add.

Right, having recently read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, I was thinking of some African cultures which were definitely polygynist.

Another validity requirement, probably, would be no government-arranged marriage. That would be an odd situation for a dowry to exist.

[Australian rePublic]

How is this a women's right issue if the bride's father is obligated to pay for the dowry? I get that the father isn't the victim of being burnt alive, but it is coming out of his income

[Fauxia]

How is this a women's right issue if the bride's father is obligated to pay for the dowry? I get that the father isn't the victim of being burnt alive, but it is coming out of his income

Well, the idea that women are worth less and have to pay for a husband.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

How is this a women's right issue if the bride's father is obligated to pay for the dowry? I get that the father isn't the victim of being burnt alive, but it is coming out of his income

Essentially the woman gets physically burnt as a punishment to her family.

This (men being punished by their women suffering) isn't an uncommon theme in older value systems, sadly. And honestly, if you look out across modern media even in the Western world, you can see those themes still exist as familiar narrative structures. Women in refrigerators, and all that.

[Estado Novo Portugues]

I suggest adding an Option 4 (keeping the status quo) and Option 5 (making the practice mandatory), to round out the list of choices. As of now, all three voices are in the "Against" camp. This is NOT to say I support violence against women—I just think the available options should reflect a more diverse range of views. After all, in a society that's regressive enough for bride-burning to receive tacit approval from a sizable population, there are definitely going to be staunch defenders of the tradition.

Yeah. I have to wonder if there's some validity that would help identify which nations this is likely to be an actual problem in, but I don't think so.

High in Religiousness, Social Conservatism, Primitiveness and Ignorance. Low in Civil Rights, Public Education, Scientific Advancement and Inclusiveness. Maybe also a low Human Development Index, but there isn't always a correlation between development and gender liberation (take Saudi Arabia as an example).

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Yeah I guess so. Option 4 added, with a slight feeling of nausea...

[Socialist States of Ludistan]

Excuse me for perhaps sounding stupid, but why would this issue be strictly capitalist?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Excuse me for perhaps sounding stupid, but why would this issue be strictly capitalist?

Because dowries imply capitalism?