Every woman has a story, the man who ‘accidentally’ touches her in the metro, the schoolboys who chase her in the park for sport, the masturbating pervert late at night on the bus. We learn to ignore it – rule #1 of the street: never, ever make eye contact – but sometimes it spills over […]
December 16 gangrape: Five years on, why the streets don’t belong equally to women Read More »
Delhi’s well-off function as independent city-states with their own security, water filtration and supply, power back-ups and, now, air purifiers. Our kids don’t study in government schools, we don’t use public transport, we don’t seek treatment at government hospitals. With no stake in public services, we don’t demand better quality or, for that matter, any
We, the elite of India, are to blame for the state of our cities Read More »
Behind an outsourced list of sexual predators is the story of a law that often doesn’t work in favour of the women it is supposed to protect. I don’t like anonymous lists, that is lists that purport to name sexual predators compiled by one person on the say-so of other unnamed persons. I don’t like
Understanding why an anonymous list of sexual predators exists Read More »
The price of speaking up is simply too high. We have a law, but most companies remain mindful of hierarchies that make it easy for powerful men to prey on subordinate women. When it comes to the crunch, who’s more dispensable, the boss or the one who reports to him? Did you know he…? Oh,
No naming names: India’s Harvey Weinstein moment is passing by in deafening silence Read More »
In reinterpreting the meaning of consent in two recent cases, judges are creating a dangerous precedent: Future rapists can plead that their victims either didn’t say no, or didn’t say it strongly enough. Perhaps the judges forgot that good girls never say no and that we bring up our daughters to ‘adjust’ and never complain.
Treat women as independent adult agents, not as children Read More »
Among the dozen women extraordinary women awarded for transforming India is an amputee mountaineer, an acid attack survivor, an educator and India’s first blade runner. Before she left her village to catch a flight to Delhi, Sunita Kamble’s grandmother had some advice for her: Don’t talk to strangers, follow instructions and, above all, don’t wave
Women achievers open paths to achieve what was perceived as impossible Read More »
The fact that the battle was fought and won by determined Muslim women themselves should help alter the narrative of the singular stereotype – the shadowy figure behind the burqa, illiterate, dis-empowered and left to fend for herself. The Supreme Court judgment on triple talaq has achieved many things, but the one that has received
Triple talaq verdict: What empowerment of Muslim women really means Read More »
In the 70th year of our Independence, a new generation of women, unwilling to be victims, is speaking up and saying ‘enough’. The Chandigarh stalking has received more than usual attention, some of it because one of the two men accused, Vikas Barala, is the son of the state’s BJP chief. But much of it
Whether it’s Varnika Kundu or Gurmehar Kaur, the fightback from women has begun Read More »
College campuses must breed productive citizens – not by placing battle tanks on their premises but by teaching students to question authority. I’m trying figure out which one of the two is more outrageous: that a university should be considered an appropriate location for an Army tank, or that the suggestion should have come from
Why an Army tank in JNU and not a farmer’s plough? Read More »
In India, the intersection between morality and medicine can make a visit to the gynecologist harrowing for unmarried women. She panicked when she thought she might be pregnant. She couldn’t tell her parents; had heard horror stories about doctors. “I was too scared to even buy a DIY pregnancy kit,” says the unmarried, final year
Gynecologists are doctors, not nannies Read More »
Governments, like citizens, need to be brave. If one woman in a wheelchair can speak up then surely countries must step up. A nation’s progress is not merely measured in terms of GDP but also in terms of inclusion and acceptance. She has five tattoos and, under her baseball cap, hair coloured ash blue. Born
Paralympian Goh shows the way for queer athletes to be themselves Read More »
Removing GST from sanitary napkins and menstrual hygiene products is only one of many issues we need to address when talking about menstruation. Hay, dried leaves, straw. Nature’s bounty? Hardly. These are just some of the innovative blotters used by many Indian girls and women who menstruate. That word itself; so troublesome, so awkward. Perhaps
Remove the cultural baggage, awkwardness about menstruation Read More »