Should Huma be a 'good South Asian wife' or leave her man?

Indian-Americans are getting a lot of media attention, and it’s a smorgasbord of the good, bad and the ugly.

The ugly

One victim of the media spotlight is Huma Abedin, 34, a Pakistani-Indian-American who is a top aide to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the wife of disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat.

Weiner was accused last week of sending lewd pictures via Twitter to a Seattle college student. He initially claimed that his account had been hacked by a third party, but has since done an about-face and has admitted to sending the offending tweet. He also confessed to a history of this kind of misbehavior, having had inappropriate web-based exchanges with, he reported, six women over the course of three years.

And now everyone’s wondering what poor Abedin will do - and why she bothered to marry a known playboy less than a year ago in the first place.

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Abedin is clearly no slouch; in fact, she could have been a tremendous asset to her husband. Abedin, who was born in the US,has a fabulously global background. Her Iran-expert father was Indian (he is now deceased) and her mother is a sociology professor in Saudi Arabia, where Abedin grew up. She has been a Clinton aide since the ’90s.

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And Clinton clearly adores her. When Abedin was profiled in Vogue in 2007, Clinton said that she “has the energy of a woman in her 20s, the confidence of a woman in her 30s, the experience of a woman in her 40s and the grace of a woman in her 50s.”

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Once news of her husband’s transgression broke, Abedin reportedly consulted Clinton - who is obviously no stranger to public and politically charged acts of infidelity - about how to handle the situation. According to the Wall Street Journal, she reacted with anger and sadness, but maintained her composure.

Abedin strategically chose not to make a public appearance with Weiner during the Monday press conference where he publicly admitted to the wrongdoing.

This seems to indicate that she won’t suffer fools, and the Twittersphere is rallying for her not to, according to the Huffington Post: “Don’t be another Pakistani Good Wife” according to one tweet. Others beseeched her not to follow in the footsteps of her boss, who famously stood by her man following his admission of adultery while in the Oval Office.

Shirin Sadeghi of the Huffington Post worried that if Abedin were to similarly stick with the marriage, the US public would mistakenly view it through a cultural lens. She wrote that it would be “the South Asian wife in her - that traditional notion of a woman who will put up with anything simply because society demands it of her - that will have compelled her to stay.”

In the grand political calculation, Sadeghi added, “If she stays, the Hillary parallels would suggest political motivations - but even Hillary’s behaviour, after decades of marriage, could have at least partially been chalked up to sentimentality. If she leaves, she would prove that she is human.”

The bad

According to a study by the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), Indian immigrant women living in California, New Jersey, and New York, said cultural pressure compelled them to abort female foetuses and use medical technology to select sons, the latter of which is prohibited in India.

The qualitative study of 65 women was conducted between 2004 and 2009, and it was led by a UCSF medical resident, Sunita Puri. Though it should be noted that the study is based on a relatively small sample size, it found that 89 percent of the women in the study aborted female foetuses. These findings were consistent among all education levels, and the women in the study had a wide range of religious and employment backgrounds. Collectively, they had immigrated from 18 different states in India.

According to UCSF, the women in the study felt tremendous pressure to bear sons from their husbands and in-laws.

One study participant told researchers: “When my second child was also a girl, she [mother-in-law] did not want to hold her after the birth,” one woman commented. Another mother-to-be said she was obtaining testing to determine the sex of her child because if it was not a boy, “I will have to get an abortion because he [husband] does not want another daughter.”

Women interviewed for the study who did not abort female foetuses also said they experienced various degrees of verbal and physical abuse.

The good

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For Tuesday night’s state dinner in honour of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Michelle Obama once again chose to wear a gown by Indian-American designer Naeem Khan.

The Washington Post reported that Obama “shimmered in an all-over embellished gown… It was an ivory, V-neck column dress embellished with silver beads, white sequins and metallic thread in a geometric pattern - and she’s back to what seems like her favorite seasonal sleeveless look, which shows off her famously toned arms.”

Obama has worn Khan’s creations before - in 2009, she donned a gown that received a thumbs-up from stateside fashionistas during Manmohan Singh’svisit to the White House.

Indian-born Khan has also dressed the likes of Penelope Cruz, Beyonce, and Queen Noor of Jordan.According to the designer’s website, he “cultivated his vast knowledge of textiles under the watchful eyes of his grandfather and father, both well known in Indian for designing intricate clothing worn by the royal families.”

More good

Venture capital titan Vinod Khosla was named to the board of directors of Square, the mobile payment start-up, started by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

A co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Khosla is a Valley legend, and his venture capital fund, Khosla Ventures, was one of the earliest investors in the start-up.

“Square is thrilled to welcome Vinod to our board,” Dorsey said in a statement. “We have worked closely with Khosla Ventures since our inception and Vinod’s expertise, history and input will be a tremendous asset to our company as we continue to grow.”

Khosla is taking the board seat of Gideon Yu, a former Facebook exec, who has now become the chief strategy officer of the San Francisco 49ers football team.