Globe & Mail Article: Young Heterosexual South Asians Talk About Love, Arranged Marriages, & Relationships.
Zosia Bielski
From Friday’s Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Aug. 06, 2010
As Pamela Bhavra scrolled through the marital prospects, a faceless man named Amar stood out. He had no photo up, but reminded Ms. Bhavra of her little brother – a middle child reared by his mother and two sisters.
“Basically he wrote, ‘You see ladies? I’ve been trained well,’” Ms. Bhavra recalled.
It was winter 2007 in Edmonton and the Sikh woman was trying her luck on Shaadi.com, a 20-million-strong Indian matrimonial website.
“My dad had told me that he wanted me to get married. He was joking around one day: ‘I’ll take you to India and just get you married there,’ and I was, like, ‘No!’ So I went on Shaadi.com.”
She messaged Amar, he responded and the two began a thoroughly modern courtship ritual: They started with e-mails and progressed through MSN instant messaging, texting, phone calls and finally an in-person meeting.
“We met on a Friday and he proposed to me on the Monday,” says Ms. Bhavra, a 27-year-old health consultant.
Jimmy Jeong/www.jimmyshoots.com
Pamela and Amar Bhavra practice a Bhangra dance, for an upcoming friend’s wedding, in their new home in Edmonton, Alberta on August 4, 2010.
Both she and her Sikh husband, a 32-year-old financial services manager, used the ethnic dating site as a welcome alternative to the prospect of arranged marriage: “I wasn’t the going-back-home-to-India-and-get-married type of guy, what the mother wanted,” Mr. Bhavra said.
But it also appealed on another level.
“I grew up in small town Saskatchewan and I married a guy from the same religion, same caste and he’s traditional,” said Ms. Bhavra, who was born in Estevan, Sask., a tiny town bordering North Dakota. “I can keep my culture alive in my children. … If I were to marry a Caucasian guy, my kids would lose their culture.”
The Bhavras embody many of the contradictions of the modern South Asian online dater, many of whom are looking to appease family and still retain some choice over their marital matters. A plethora of online dating sites now cater to the demand: aside from Shaadi, which boasts 2 million Canadian members and opened its first Canadian matchmaking centre in Mississauga, Ont., this past May, there is Rishta.com, which caters to high-income Indians, IndianFriendFinder.com (with more than 16,000 Canadian members) and MuslimFriends.com, among others.
Unlike Lavalife and eHarmony users, members on these sites often have a parent looking over their shoulder – if not running their profile outright. About 30 per cent of the Canadian profiles on Shaadi are made by parents for their sons and daughters – and scrutinized routinely.
“That’s something that doesn’t happen on other dating sites,” said Anjan Saikia, vice-president of Shaadi North America. “Unlike the very individual orientation of white people, [with] people from South Asia
, the boy looks at the girl, the girl looks at the boy, but they also look at the two families. At the end of the day, the bonding between families in our culture is very important to both the younger generation and the parents.”
Among other criteria, the site lets members search by community, religion, caste and sub caste, although Mr. Saikia said most users don’t base their choices on caste, but religion.
The company recently teamed up with FastLife International, which organizes speed dating and singles’ events around the world. About two years ago, FastLife launched events for Hindus, Christians and Jews, as well as East Asians. For this community, they host four events monthly in Toronto and two a month in Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa.
“In Canada, there’s a greater demand for these events than there is in any other of our markets,” says chief executive Justin Parfitt.
Sikh and language-based speed dating are on the way, and the company has also partnered with Zhenai, China’s fastest growing dating site.
Mr. Parfitt allows that it can all be a bit tense for some of the more traditional parents.
“They drop their children off and sort of lurk around a little bit. It’s our job to put them at ease and let them know that what we’re doing is a dating event and that it’s all about expanding your social circle and has got nothing to do with sex. … And they calm down and they understand.”
Mr. Parfitt is careful about cultural sensitivities, but draws the line at caste, which isn’t one of the criteria at the events: “It doesn’t fit very comfortably with me because it’s based on a pecking order.”
Asked whether he thinks it’s right to segregate daters, Mr. Parfitt said, “Initially, we were a little leery of offering events based on ethnicity. But ultimately, dating isn’t about political correctness: It’s about people’s preferences. When you’re dating, that’s the way it is. We decided to cater to that demand.”
Özlem Sensoy sees all of it as a good antidote to mainstream sites such as Lavalife, eHarmony and Plenty of Fish, even though all of those allow members to filter their searches by ethnicity.
“The whole paradigm of dating sites themselves is a very Western, commercial, capitalist creation,” says Prof. Sensoy, who teaches in the department of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at Simon Fraser University.
She says online dating, which is basically shopping for a mate while sitting alone at your computer, runs counter to the “collectivist, family-based” South Asian communities, but that these sites offer a “safe place” to try it out.
“It isn’t just two individuals getting married: It’s two families coming together. That’s a cultural lens that’s not a part of mainstream dating sites.”
As for big mother watching the monitor over their shoulders, some are pushing back. Said Mr. Bhavra: “If the parents are doing that, then there’s really no difference from what they were doing before.”
Globe & Mail Article: Study Finds That Lesbians Are Better Raising Children Than Heterosexuals.
ADRIANA BARTON
VANCOUVER — From Monday’s Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Aug. 09, 2010
At summer pride parades across the country, queer parents have had plenty to celebrate: So far, it’s been a banner year for lesbian moms.
Lisa Cholodenko’s ode to lesbian families – The Kids Are All Right – opened last month with the highest per-theatre box office average of the year. Gushy scenes notwithstanding, it’s got Oscar buzz. Not bad for a movie about two kids who yearn to meet their sperm-donor dad.
In June, lesbian moms got a nod from Stephen Colbert after a 25-year-long study found that kids raised by lesbian parents have fewer behavioral problems and rate higher in social and academic competence than their peers.
“Yes, lesbians raise well-adjusted teens who don’t misbehave – and that proves it’s unnatural,” he quipped on The Colbert Report.
The mock news anchor was referring to the first conception-to-adolescence study of children raised in lesbian families, led by Nanette Gartrell, a psychiatrist who teaches at the UCLA School of Law.
The study, along with other recently published research, suggests that lesbian parents may have an edge.
Della Rollins for The Globe and Mail
Ruthanne Price (right) and her wife Melanie Chamberland play with their three-year-old son Ezra Chamberland Price.
But there’s nothing stopping straight parents from following their lead.
Lesbian mothers tend to be authoritative rather than authoritarian, and combine verbal limit-setting with empathy, consistency and affection, notes Judith Stacey, a sociologist at New York University who co-authored a review of studies on lesbian parents published earlier this year.
It’s the kind of parenting that research has shown to be best for kids, Dr. Stacey says. “It doesn’t require being a lesbian.”
But it can’t hurt to have two moms.
According to Dr. Stacey, the non-biological mother in a lesbian family tends to be more engaged in her children’s lives than the average heterosexual father.
Straight parents may bicker because the mother feels overburdened by childcare, Dr. Gartrell says, whereas “lesbian moms argue about not getting enough time with the kids.”
In general, lesbians take an egalitarian approach to parenting and housework, which may increase harmony in the home, Dr. Stacey suggests. When two parents get along, she adds, “it’s a great advantage for kids.”
Melanie Chamberland of Richmond Hill, Ont., says her whole family benefited when her partner, Ruthanne Price, took a four-month unpaid leave from her job as a librarian after the birth of their son Ezra.
“That really allowed us to get our parenting groove on.”
Although Ms. Chamberland, a former librarian, chose to stay home with their son, now 3, her partner continues to do a “great amount” of domestic work according to the family “chore chart,” she says.
“Our vision was really that things would be shared 50-50.”
Della Rollins for The Globe and Mail
TORONTO: July 29, 2010 — Melanie Chamberland (left) and her wife Ruthanne Price read to their three-year-old son Ezra Chamberland Price.
The majority of lesbian mothers continue to co-parent after a relationship breaks down, says Dr. Gartrell. In the longitudinal study she oversees, 56 per cent of couples separated after being together for an average of 12 years. Among them, more than 70 per cent share custody of their kids.
Children with two actively involved parents are more likely to thrive, Dr. Stacey says. But she cautions against exaggerating the role of parents’ gender.
The childrearing advantages specific to lesbian mothers – if they exist – are “mild,” she says.
She notes that mothers in the study led by Dr. Gartrell are not a representative sample of lesbian parents (they were volunteers) and the study doesn’t include a comparison group of heterosexual parents.
The well-being of the children in the study may be due to “selection effects” – the qualities of lesbian women who choose to become parents, Dr. Stacey adds.
Lesbian mothers tend to be older, well-educated and committed to raising children together, she explains. And unlike the “oops” babies conceived by straight couples, “there are no accidental children.”
Finding a sperm donor takes time and thought, and fertility treatments require adequate income, Dr. Stacey points out.
“In order to become a lesbian parent – and a gay male parent, even more so – you have to jump through so many hoops that it selects for better parenting.”
Lesbian parents often live in urban and progressive neighbourhoods, she adds.
Boys raised by lesbians don’t necessarily lack male role models, since their mothers tend to involve a wide range of adults in their kids’ lives – including the sperm donor, who is often a relative. For the children of lesbians, Dr. Stacey explains, these unconventional family groups may create a village effect.
Ms. Chamberland says she hopes her “intentional community” of gay and straight friends, with and without kids, will give her son Ezra an appreciation for diversity in families and sexual orientation as he grows up.
But she shies away from the idea that lesbian moms have a leg-up in the parenting department.
“We’re just a family like any other,” she says. “Ezra just happens to have two moms.”
Ny Daily News Article: Angry Lesbian Shoots Her Female Partner Over Text Message From Her Jump Off!
Off-duty cop Ekeythia Dunston shoots girlfriend after text message sparks fight, police sources say
BY Kevin Deutsch, Rocco Parascandola and Joe Kemp
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
An off-duty cop fired two rounds into her girlfriend early Monday after a suspicious text message sparked an all-out battle between the pair, police sources said.
Ekeythia Dunston, 32, and her 42-year-old partner, Erica LeGall, had returned to their Harlem home from a night on a Circle Line boat tour when Dunston – a police officer for eight years – got a text message from another woman about 3:15 a.m., the sources said.
An argument soon erupted between them, as their two sons – Jayleen, 7, who is LeGall’s, and Daichoi, 13, who is Dunston’s – were asleep in their room, sources and witnesses said.
“I heard them arguing,” said neighbor Connie Sedgewick, 41. “It sounded like it was over another woman.”
LeGall grabbed a clothes iron and whacked Dunston across her skull, leaving a “tennis-ball-sized welt” on her head, a source said.
Then Dunston grabbed her pistol.
Lisa Evans, 41, whose apartment is below the couple’s, said she heard shouts: “No! No! No! Don’t shoot!”
Dunston squeezed off two shots, striking her gal pal once in the thigh and once in her shoulder, cops said. The boys and their 32-year-old baby-sitter were unharmed in the dispute, police said.
“It’s horrible,” said Dunston’s mother, Ekeythia, 51. “It’s been a fog on me all day. I hope everyone’s okay.”
LeGall was taken to Harlem Hospital, where she was in critical but stable condition. She was charged with assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
Dunston, who is works out of the 108th Precinct in Long Island City, was treated for her head injury at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia.
She was arrested and charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child. She was suspended without pay. The city’s Administration for Children’s Services took the boys away, the elder Dunston said.
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