At the heart of the Supreme Court marriage equality hearings lie a host of patriarchal anxieties over the challenge to the definition of family Nobody can predict which way the courts will rule. But to listen to the proceedings, is to hear the story of a nation where people fall in love and dream of building lives and setting up their own families. It is to hear of what senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal calls “lavender marriages”, where gay men are married off to women under family pressure. (Biplov Bhuyan/HT PHOTO) So far, the objection to marriage equality has been roughly…

Couples who wish to marry under the Special Marriage Act must serve a 30-day notice during which their personal details are on public display. This violates their privacy and leaves many vulnerable to parental and community reprisal. The police met her, her partner and her father to conduct an ‘inquiry’. Why get married in court? Was the father ok with her decision? Fortunately for ‘S’, he was, even though the Act does not require parental permission, only consenting adults. “In Uttar Pradesh it is routine to call couples and often their parents to the police station, particularly in cases of…

Arguably the most significant hearing on LGBTQI rights since the Supreme Court decriminalised sex against the “order of nature” in 2018, here’s what the case being heard by chief justice DY Chandrachud and justices SK Kaul, Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha has thrown up so far. Under discussion are adoption, majoritarian opinion, fundamental rights, marriage and the definition of family itself. It’s clear that the ramifications of this case will have an impact on all citizens. A question of rights Opening the arguments for the petitioners, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said the logical step after decriminalising homosexual relations by reading down section…

( Image source: https://www.theknot.com/) Marriage, insists the government of India through solicitor general Tushar Mehta, can only take place between a biological man and a biological woman. It is a religious and social construct over which Parliament and not the courts have jurisdiction. Allowing marriage equality will cause “complete havoc” with the country’s personal laws. At the time of writing, the Supreme Court is yet to announce the names of the five judges of the Constitution bench that will begin to hear arguments on Tuesday from as many as 18 petitions that have been clubbed together. But here’s what we know so far: Taking…

There’s never been a better time for women athletes in India The first time Anne Aiza Khan wore a pair of shorts was at a football tournament in Kolkata. (Courtesy: Anne Aiza Khan) The first time Anne Aiza Khan wore a pair of shorts was at a football tournament in Kolkata. The year was 2016 and although Anne, now 25, had begun playing the game three years earlier, it was always in long pants.

According to a 2015 Dasra report, 23% of girls eventually drop out of school because of a lack of menstrual hygiene facilities (HT PHOTO) At three of the four schools I attended, including a co-ed one, the uniform was a dress or skirt. Teachers were obsessed with the length of the dress, and let me say that in both the all-girls schools and the co-ed one, the girls never gave up trying to hack the one-inch-above-the-knee rule. Decades after I left school, most had switched to salwar-kameez-dupatta for senior students. But skirt or salwar, the one idea that had endured was modesty for girls.

“I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved.” Dr BR Ambedkbar A painting in Madhubani Style by Delhi-based artist Malvika Raj, also the cover of the book Spotted Goddesses: Dalit Women’s Agency-Narratives on Caste and Gender Violence. (Image source: Glasgow Women’s Library) From the time of Savitribai Phule, the self-taught feminist reformer and India’s first woman teacher who fought for girls’ education and campaigned for widow remarriage, Dalit women have been at the forefront of change. These include warriors from 1857 like Jhalkaribai who tricked the British by disguising herself as Rani Lakshmibai,…

Mumbai Indians skipper Harmanpreet Kaur along with teammates celebrate with the Women’s Premier League 2023 trophy. (Source: ANI) By Sharda Ugra Not sure how many noticed, but in his introduction of the captains on the opening night of IPL 2023, Ravi Shastri called out Hardik Pandya’s name as, “captain of the Gujarat Giants.” Pandya is captain of a Gujarati team, defending IPL champions, Gujarat Titans. The Giants are another squad from Gujarat who just played in the Women’s Premier League (WPL). The same mistake is highly unlikely to happen again over the next two months, but the Giants owners can…

Shailendra Singh (Image source: thenewsminute.com) Like many stories of its nature, this one begins anonymously on social media. On March 16, an unidentified person on Instagram’s Women of the Wild India handle posted allegations of a “history of sexual harassment” against Shailendra Singh, a top wildlife conservationist and the director of the Turtle Survival Alliance India (TSA India), a non-profit that works to conserve and protect wild tortoises and freshwater turtles under the Wildlife Conservation Society. Like many stories of its nature, that first revelation paved the way for similar accusations against Singh by at least three other women who used their names.…

“And ladies,” she said accepting the Oscar for best actress “Don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up.” Michelle Yeoh (Source: Getty images) Michelle Yeoh, who will be 61 in August, had reason to celebrate many firsts. The first Asian to win an Oscar. Only the second woman of colour after Halle Berry in 2002, to take home the prize. Dressed in white, which also happens to be the colour of the suffragettes, Yeoh did reference “all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight” before she delivered her knockout punch.…

There’s a unique opportunity for the five-judge bench that will start hearing arguments on same-sex marriage from April 18. What it will decide will send a signal to India and the world What is the havoc that solicitor-general Tushar Mehta fears? If personal religious laws don’t recognize same-sex marriage, then there’s the Secular Special Marriage Act of 1954 that allows interfaith couples to marry. A government that talks of a common civil code can easily extend this common law to sexual minorities. It’s hard to imagine that Armageddon will be unleashed by extending marriage rights. (HT PHOTO) The lines for…

Source: Feminisminindia.com Ok, imagine this. Every now and then, you get a godawful migraine where the slightest sound or teeniest bit of light leaves you in absolute agony. Would you go to work? Could you? Or put it another way, would you expect an employee to report to work in that condition? Now imagine, that employee is a woman, not one who gets the usual uncomfortable menstrual cramps but the one with acute pain—abdominal cramping, nausea, diarrhea, pain in the legs, lower back and lower abdomen, fainting, headaches–that up to 29% of women experience. Would you really expect her to turn up to…