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It's more than sex ed. For these young women, it's a movement for equality.

When writer Meera Subramanian traveled to India, she wasn't sure exactly what she'd find.

In an excerpt from her book, "A River Runs Again," she tells us what she discovered:

It was the girls who talked most passionately. Several spoke of becoming more comfortable with their bodies after having been taught what was happening to them, after resolving at least some of the mysteries of adolescence. They had lost their shyness by learning about the details of biology…


Scene from rural Bihar. Photo courtesy of Allison Joyce/Redux.

In rural Bihar — one of India's most impoverished states — Subramanian sat in a small brick one-room schoolhouse, listening to a group of local teenagers talk about their lives. One young woman in particular caught her attention...

Sobha was the most self-possessed. Her forehead was marked with a sparkly bindi that matched an S-shaped pendant hanging from her neck. She sat attentively as the others spoke, only once interjecting, “We should say the truth." But once she had the floor, she commanded the room. All distracted chatter stopped.

“'What sort of place is this?' you'll say if you come to my village. From Bodh Gaya, there's a river and a hill, and behind them is the village, like a cave. People were afraid to go inside. Even my father didn't want to stay in the village. It was claustrophobic." There had been changes, she said. Some villagers now had phones, and one road was being paved. She learned about the Pathfinder training course from village elders, who said all girls between fifteen and eighteen should attend.

Subramanian writes that Sobha and the other teenagers had just finished a three-day training on the basics of sexual health through an organization called Pathfinder International, led by two bold advocates, Pinki and Binod.

But “my situation was common in the village," [Sobha] said, “where each household might have six sisters, five sisters. So we made a group with at least one girl from each house. We took the training and then we went back home to teach others." She had to periodically gulp to catch her breath, as though she had been waiting a very long time to speak and felt the importance of each word.


Pathfinder mural in Bihar. Photo courtesy of Allison Joyce/Redux.

Sobha said she was able to get a Pathfinder poster of the life cycle of a human being passing from birth through adolescence, followed by marriage and a young couple weighing birth-control options, and later holding a child as it is being immunized. She used the poster to begin talking with others in the village. Pinki and Binod exchanged looks; they had no idea that one of their students had gone rogue and appointed herself as trainer.

When Sobha finished, Pinki asked if she would continue to work with Pathfinder to organize more training courses. Sobha eagerly agreed.

Subramanian was deeply moved by what she saw. These teenagers weren't just learning about reproductive health; they were learning to find their true voices:

We emerged from the small schoolhouse into an afternoon damp with mist. Though their hair was neatly pulled back and their clothes were modest, I saw the girls as powerful goddesses, devis eager for justice, who stepped in where the male gods were failing, determined to quietly, or not so quietly, dismantle a world that treats them as second-rate citizens.

Pinki and Binod. Photo courtesy of Allison Joyce/Redux.

As she continued her travels, Subramanian found even more reason to hope for a future of real equality and sustainability throughout India.

India is undergoing a radical test. Girls from all over South Asia are leaning in, tipping the balance, and hairline fractures are appearing in the ancient system of chauvinism. Whether sexual violence is on the rise or decline is difficult to know. Whether the aggression is men's bitter reaction to the power they perceive they are losing to women is likewise uncertain.

But what is known is that it is now news. The rise of both women and men who are unwilling to accept the status quo has been startling and encouraging. There are women who bring their daughters into the streets to protest, boys like Sanoj who fight for the rights of their sisters, men like Pinki's father who struggle to educate their daughters.

In her new book, "A River Runs Again," Subramanian writes about the real change happening — not just in Bihar, but all across the country. From villagers reviving a dead river to an engineer-turned-farmer bringing organic food to the plates of everyday Indians. And, perhaps most heartening of all, women and girls are taking the lead.

Everyone is thirsty. Girls and women, after centuries of serving tea to the men in their lives, are reaching for their own cups. I don't want to believe that power is finite. Let the teapot be topped off, let the servings be stretched. Because everyone is striving. In today's India, men and women, boys and girls, share each other's desires for what Pinki calls “self-independence."

Pathfinder training for local men in Bihar. Photo courtesy of Allison Joyce/Redux.

Maybe this is why Pathfinder has found that its trainings are substantially more effective when they teach young men and women simultaneously. It's not just about giving knowledge to the girls or teaching the boys to be respectful. It's about what arises in the ākāșa, that ethereal space between the two sexes. It's about what happens when their lives come together.

The stricter laws against rape that passed at record pace in 2013 might translate into less violence against women. And increasing government support for safety nets and social security could make aging parents less dependent on sons, helping to balance the economic scales that favor a boy child over a girl...

In a country that has historically discriminated harshly against women, both men and women are now coming together to fight for equality. Of course, there's still work to be done...

Resistance remains. Some local government officials have responded to the rash of rapes by suggesting India lower the legal age of marriage to help curb such crimes. “Boys and girls should be married by the time they turn sixteen," they argue, “so that they do not stray." In the face of such logic, the problems can seem intractable. But traditions can be lost in just a single generation. So can the beliefs that it is necessary to marry off your daughter at the onset of puberty and that it is her fault if she does not deliver a son, and do so immediately.

Pathfinder materials. Photo courtesy of Allison Joyce/Redux.

...but Subramanian has seen firsthand what happens when people defy expectations and find their own voices:

I have seen the shift in my own family. My Indian grandmother was married at the age of ten. Her four daughters were married in their late teens and twenties. My father, one of her middle sons, completely broke rank, marrying an American when he was thirty. I wasn't married until the tender age of forty-four and have chosen not to have children. Among my cousins' grown children who remain in India, arranged marriage remains the norm, but some are holding out against matches they're not willing to accept. Each generation has had fewer children than the one before it, and the levels of education for both males and females tick upward. Our population growth is stable.

But we are a family with relative means. For the vast majority of Indians still struggling to survive, larger structural changes are needed. They are within reach. Kerala once had the highest population growth in India, but since 1971 it has invested heavily in women's education, accessible family planning, and comprehensive health care. With neither threat nor coercion, the fertility rate more than halved in a single generation, from over four to under two…

Those teenagers in Bihar are part of a whole new generation. It starts with education...

To stabilize population growth is to rally for literacy, because reading and understanding words on a page develops the same skills needed to read and understand our own bodies. Through this knowledge comes power and autonomy. And speech. The girls I met in Bihar ... spoke in feisty voices, their excitement coupled with impatience as they told the stories of their lives. What they found was that learning how to speak — to a husband, a mother-in-law, a doctor, a police officer — is a powerful tool. With this transformation of a private voice into a public voice a public identity is born, one prepared to dissent and stand up for oneself.

“People ask us, 'Why do you go to these meetings? Do they give you something?'" Reena Kumari, an eighteen-year-old Bihari girl told me. “I say, 'When you go to pray, do you get something?' They say, 'Well, that one girl who did the training met a boy and ran away.'" She laughed, and continued speaking quickly, in a strong voice. “We argue back — you had her for fifteen years and they had her for three days and you're saying we influenced her?" she said.

“There is a flaw in your nurturing, not in our friendship."

“You fight back with their parents?" I asked.

...and it ends with a new generation that can speak their minds and own their futures.

“Hum bolti hain!" she said. “We speak up! Before training, we didn't know anything, but after, we do. We learned how to find the right words to negotiate. There are so many changes."

Scene from rural Bihar. Photo courtesy of Allison Joyce/Redux.

To negotiate such changes is to ask for everything you want, knowing you might only get a fraction. It is to remain unflinching as you look forward into the future of India's women and girls and the generations they will bear. The path ahead is difficult, littered with obstacles, still under construction. But I can imagine the youth I met in Bodh Gaya [in Bihar] growing up in this new India, their India, moving forward down this road… They shape the way as they go. They link their fingers, they quicken their pace, and their voices, rising up into that space between spaces, are unafraid.

A waiter talking with his hands.

One of the great things about America is that we have a relatively young culture, so many of the foods that we eat were brought over from other countries. That makes America a great place to try out all the different types of food from around the world.

However, we also like to put our own stamp on staples from around the globe that give the American version its own unique flair. Some foods that we claim originated overseas were actually first made right here in the U.S. of A. For example, chimichangas, which can be found in many Mexican restaurants, actually originated in the state of Arizona. Crab Rangoon, a popular “Chinese” dish, was actually invented in San Francisco, and spaghetti and meatballs were never a thing in Italy.

TikTok creator Gabby Donahue posted a video that’s the perfect example of how some ethnic foods get remixed once they become popular in the States. In a video with over 7 million views, her father shows a waiter in Italy a photo of chicken parmesan from Olive Garden so he can order it at the restaurant. The waiter's reaction is an excellent example of someone trying to be polite while he cannot believe what he is seeing.

“My Boston Irish father trying to order a Google image of the Olive Garden chicken parm in Italy,” Donahue wrote in the text overlay.

@gabbydonahuee

@Olive Garden ‘s biggest fan 😭😭😭😭 #italy #cultureshock #chickenparm #olivegarden


When the father showed the picture to the waiter, he seemed a bit confused about the image. “Only in the States,” he said. “It doesn’t exist in Italy.” The father couldn’t believe what he was hearing: “It doesn’t exist in Italy?”

“I don’t know what it is…on the pasta?” the waiter said, trying to make sense of the chicken breast smothered in cheese and sauce. The waiter gave his final verdict while holding his chin: “No. That’s horrible.”

“Horrible? Wow. Look at that. That doesn’t,” the father laughed. “That looks good… but,” the waiter shrugged off the father. “It does look good,” the father continued. “It tastes good. I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna mail you some. I’ll send it to you.”

“Okay? Olive Garden chicken, I’m gonna search,” the waiter said, walking away from the table.


The commenters had a field day analyzing the waiter’s body language. “‘No, that looks good’ while looking completely disgusted was the most Italian reaction ever,” one commenter wrote. “Bro remembered halfway through his disgust that he’s at work,” another added.

It’s not crazy that an American would think that chicken parmesan is an Italian dish; after all, it’s served in most Italian-American restaurants. However, according to Paesana, it was created in America by the Italian diaspora.

“In the Old World, that’s Italy prior to the Italian diaspora—the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy to America—proteins like chicken were not widely available," according to an article on the site. "As such, the prototypical chicken parmigiana was actually made with breaded, fried slices of eggplant in place of chicken for a dish called melanzane alla Parmigiana."


Even though chicken parmesan didn’t originate in the old country, Pasquale Sciarappa, a popular Italian-born food influencer living in America, has no problem cooking the dish.

"'That’s not Italian!’ I hear this every time I share a dish like Chicken Parmigiana. And you know what? They’re right — it’s not something you’d traditionally find in Italy. But you know what else is true? It’s Italian-American. It was born in immigrant kitchens — from people who left Italy, landed in the U.S., and made do with what they had. They took inspiration from dishes like melanzane alla parmigiana and recreated comfort from memory using what was available,” he wrote.

It’s understandable that an American could go to Italy without knowing that something he’d had in Italian restaurants wasn’t actually from Italy. It’s understandable for an Italian server to balk at a photo of a dish served in an American restaurant that you’d find in a shopping mall.

But we should all agree that one of the wonderful things about American culture is that it's an amalgamation of different cultures stirred around in the same pot, and if that means we get a fresh variation on the burrito, a new way to eat Chinese crab, or a tasty piece of chicken where eggplant used to be, the more the better.

Education

Stop struggling with small talk by using the easy 'COST method'

This simple acronym will make your next social gathering a lot more enjoyable.

A man and woman chatting at a dinner party.

There are several reasons why people are hesitant to engage in small talk at a party or around the water cooler at work. Some people simply avoid it because they don’t find chatting about the weather, sports, or what they saw on television the night before very interesting.

Others are afraid that they may run out of things to say or that there will be an awkward pause that makes them want to hide their head in the sand, like an ostrich. Mary, a friendship educator with a degree in interpersonal communication, has a solution for those of us who want to be friendly and meet people but abhor small talk; she calls it the COST method.

What is the COST method for making small talk?

According to Mary, who goes by @better.social.skills on TikTok, COST stands for Compliment, Observation, Story, and Tip. These are four options you can turn to when you're in need of a conversation topic.

@better.social.skills

Remember the acronym C.O.S.T. and you’ll always have something to talk about at parties or events. C stands for compliment. Tell somebody you like their shirt or shoes, for example, and see where the conversation leads. O stands for observation. Remark on something happening around you, like if you enjoy the music or feel a certain way about the weather. A stands for story, in which you share a little anecdote about yourself. For example, maybe you were late to the party for some reason, or you’re excited to get home and watch a show you’re loving. T stands for tip, in which you give a small recommendation to someone. For example, where the shortest bathroom lines are, which food is particular particularly delicious, or point out an interesting person they might want to talk to. What do you think? Would you use these? #creatorsearchinsights #conversationstarters

1. Compliment

“Tell somebody you like their shirt or shoes, for example, and see where the conversation leads,” Mary says.

“Oh, I like your shoes.”

“I like your shirt.”

“You have such a soothing voice.”

2. Observation

“Remark on something happening around you,” Mary says.

“This song is amazing.”

“I really love how Jeanie decorated this room.”

“There’s a lot more people here than last night.”

3. Story

“Share a little anecdote about yourself. For example, maybe you were late to the party for some reason, or you’re excited to get home and watch a show you’re loving,” she said.

4. Tip

“Give a small recommendation to someone. For example, where the shortest bathroom lines are, which food is particularly delicious, or point out an interesting person they might want to talk to,” Mary said.

“I don’t know if you’ve tried the new Mexican place on South Street yet…”

“I’d have one of Jeanie’s margaritas now, before they are all gone.”

“Be careful if you talk to Brian. He can get a bit long-winded.”

chatting before movie, popcorn, movie theater, snacks, small talk Three people chatitng before a movie.via Canva/Photos

The great thing, if you’re a little shy about making small talk, is that studies show that you definitely don’t need to do all the heavy lifting in the conversation. In fact, a Gong.io study found that the best way to make a connection with someone is to speak 43% of the time and let your new friend talk for the other 57% of the conversation.

Further proof that the best way to make a great first impression is a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It found that when meeting someone for the first time, ask them a question and then be sure to ask two additional follow-ups before discussing yourself. This has been found to dramatically increase your likability.

“We identify a robust and consistent relationship between question-asking and liking,” the authors of the study write. “People who ask more questions, particularly follow-up questions, are better liked by their conversation partners.”

For those of you who have always felt that you're bad at making small talk. while others seemed to do it naturally, realize that people aren’t born great communicators; it’s a skill that can be learned just like anything else. With a few tips from the experts, you can go from dreading small talk to enjoying striking up a conversation with just about anyone.

Harvard researcher Arthur C. Brooks studies what leads to human happiness.

We live in a society that prizes ambition, celebrating goal-setting, and hustle culture as praiseworthy vehicles on the road to success. We also live in a society that associates successfully getting whatever our hearts desire with happiness. The formula we internalize from an early age is that desire + ambition + goal-setting + doing what it takes = a successful, happy life.

But as Harvard University happiness researcher Arthur C. Brooks has found, in his studies as well as his own experience, that happiness doesn't follow that formula. "It took me too long to figure this one out," Brooks told podcast host Tim Ferris, explaining why he uses a "reverse bucket list" to live a happier life.

bucket list, wants, desires, goals, detachment Many people make bucket lists of things they want in life. Giphy

Brooks shared that on his birthday, he would always make a list of his desires, ambitions, and things he wanted to accomplish—a bucket list. But when he was 50, he found his bucket list from when he was 40 and had an epiphany: "I looked at that list from when I was 40, and I'd checked everything off that list. And I was less happy at 50 than I was at 40."

As a social scientist, he recognized that he was doing something wrong and analyzed it.

"This is a neurophysiological problem and a psychological problem all rolled into one handy package," he said. "I was making the mistake of thinking that my satisfaction would come from having more. And the truth of the matter is that lasting and stable satisfaction, which doesn't wear off in a minute, comes when you understand that your satisfaction is your haves divided by your wants…You can increase your satisfaction temporarily and inefficiently by having more, or permanently and securely by wanting less."

Brooks concluded that he needed a "reverse bucket list" that would help him "consciously detach" from his worldly wants and desires by simply writing them down and crossing them off.

"I know that these things are going to occur to me as natural goals," Brooks said, citing human evolutionary psychology. "But I do not want to be owned by them. I want to manage them." He discussed moving those desires from the instinctual limbic system to the conscious pre-frontal cortex by examining each one and saying, "Maybe I get it, maybe I don't," but crossing them off as attachments. "And I'm free…it works," he said.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"When I write them down, I acknowledge that I have the desire," he explained on X. "When I cross them out, I acknowledge that I will not be attached to this goal."

The idea that attachment itself causes unhappiness is a concept found in many spiritual traditions, but it is most closely associated with Buddhism. Mike Brooks, PhD, explains that humans need healthy attachments, such as an attachment to staying alive and attachments to loved ones, to avoid suffering. But many things to which we are attached are not necessarily healthy, either by degree (over-attachment) or by nature (being attached to things that are impermanent).

"We should strive for flexibility in our attachments because the objects of our attachment are inherently in flux," Brooks writes in Psychology Today. "In this way, we suffer unnecessarily when we don't accept their impermanent nature."

What Arthur C. Brooks suggests that we strive to detach ourselves from our wants and desires because the simplest way to solve the 'haves/wants = happiness' formula is to reduce the denominator. The reverse bucket list, in which you cross off desires before you fulfill them, can help free you from attachment and lead to a happier overall existence.

Did Julius Caesar have his armpits plucked? Probably.

Modern life may have us shaving, waxing, microblading, laser treating, Botoxing, and altering our natural appearance in all manner of ways in the name of beauty, but the idea of grooming to specific societal standards is nothing new. In cultures all around the world and throughout history, humans have found countless creative ways to make ourselves (ostensibly) look better.

Of course, what looks better is subjective and always has been. Take, for example, the ancient Romans. If you wanted to be seen as a studly man 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire, you'd remove as much of your body hair as possible. That meant tweezing—or being tweezed by someone else, most likely an enslaved person.

armpit hair, grooming, hair removal, hairless, beauty standard Armpit hair wasn't cook in ancient Rome. Giphy

The Romans, in general, weren't big on body hair for men or women.

"You had to have the look,” Cameron Moffett, English Heritage’s curator at the Wroxeter Roman City museum in Shropshire, U.K., told The Times. “And the look was hairlessness, particularly the underarms.” A collection of 50 tweezers on display at the museum, recovered from the archeological site that was once the Roman city of Viriconium, speaks to Roman tweezing habits, but that's not the only evidence we have.

Stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote in a letter lamenting how the noise from the Roman baths was disrupting his work: "Besides those who just have loud voices, imagine the skinny armpit-hair plucker whose cries are shrill to draw people's attention and never stop except when he's doing his job and making someone else shriek for him."

When we picture the ancient Romans, "skinny armpit-hair plucker" may not be the image that comes to mind, yet here we are.


teeth brushing, toothbrush, oral hygiene, toothpaste, dental hygiene They brushed with what now? Giphy

While we fret over fluoride, the Romans brushed their teeth with pee and mouse brains.

Toothpastes of the past were made with all kinds of things—herbs, spices, salts, crushed bone, and more. For the ancient Romans, that "more" included mouse brains and human urine, according to Decisions in Dentistry. Mouse brains were believed to enhance the effectiveness of toothpaste, and urine, imported in large quantities from Portugal, was utilized for its ammonia content and whitening properties. A standard Roman toothpaste would be a mixture of herbs, mouse brains, urine, and a binder such as honey. Oddly enough, it appeared to be somewhat effective, with archeological findings showing a relatively low number of cavities and tooth decay.

@charissekenion

Sailorr has everyone talking about her sound - and her teeth. Here’s my super short history lesson on the practice of ohaguro #ohaguro #geisha #japanese #japantok #aapi #history #japan #historytok #sailorr #japanesebeauty

Meanwhile, in ancient Japan, women tried to blacken their teeth

Teeth whitening is all the rage in modern times, but in the distant past in parts of Asia, making your teeth black was considered beautiful. The practice known as ohaguro was a traditional Japanese practice that, ironically, was intended to prevent tooth decay.

According to a letter in the British Dental Journal, women in ancient Japan would paint a solution of ferric acetate (from iron filings), vinegar, and tannin from tea or vegetables. It was called kanemizuonto and made the teeth appear black. The practice has made a comeback among some rural areas of Southeast Asia, and the Vietnamese-American singer Sailorr has made waves with her blackened teeth as well.

ear picker, history, artifact, grooming, beauty An ornate ear picker.The Swedish History Museum, Stockholm/Wikimedia Commons

Ear pickers were much prettier than Q-tips. In fact, they were an accessory.

The old saying, "Don't put anything in your ear except your elbow," may not be as old as it seems, as people have been inserting objects into their ears to remove wax for a long time.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was common to see beautiful, ornate "ear pickers"—small metal tools with a small scoop at the end for cleaning ears as well as teeth and fingernails. According to Jamestown Rediscovery, it was fashionable to wear gold and silver toiletry tools, such as ear pickers or toothpicks, as accessories. It's hard to imagine wearing Q-tips and toothpicks around. Also, ew. But if you look up "ear pickers," you'll find ornate examples from various parts of the world.

At the very least, it's nice to know that modern humans are not the first ones to go to great—and sometimes interesting—lengths to meet an arbitrary social standard of beauty. (And three cheers for modern toothpaste. Seriously.)