Month: January 2018

All over the world, the responsibility of bringing up children lies disproportionately with women. A 2015 report by McKinsey Global Institute found that 75% of unpaid care-work – cooking, cleaning, washing, caring for children and the elderly – is done by women.

All over the world, the responsibility of bringing up children lies disproportionately with women.(Getty Images)

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tweeted this past week that she and her partner Clarke Grayford will “join the many parents who wear two hats. I’ll be PM & a mum while Clarke will be ‘first man of fishing’ & stay at home dad”. The idea that a Head of State is going to experience what countless women in the free (and unfree) world go through is not new.

Benazir Bhutto, once disparagingly referred to as the ‘permanently pregnant prime minister’ — the acronym dovetailed neatly to the party she headed — had three children in and out of office. Her second child, a daughter, was born while she was Pakistan’s prime minister. Perhaps to prove that she was asking for no special concessions for being a woman, Bhutto, who delivered that child by Cesarean section, returned to work the very next day.

Back then, women with jobs took it on the chin and carried on. I remember a former woman colleague telling me about how she was headed for an important meeting when she got a call that her son had had a bad fall and was being taken to the hospital. Naturally, she said, she went ahead with the meeting.

Things have changed, mercifully, since that dreadful time when a woman, even a new mother, was under pressure to prove she could do the job same as a man.

Today’s working women can be assured that asking for maternity leave is no longer asking the boss for a ‘favour’. A new generation of women sees no conflict between giving birth, becoming mothers and just getting on with the job. Just this past week, AAP MLA Sarita Singh showed up to work at the Delhi Assembly with her two-month-old baby.

And yet, this new generation of marvellous multi-taskers still doesn’t have it easy.

All over the world, the responsibility of bringing up children lies disproportionately with women. A 2015 report by McKinsey Global Institute found that 75% of unpaid care work – cooking, cleaning, washing, caring for children and the elderly – is done by women. In India, the burden is much heavier. One study estimates that on average, a woman will spend over 351 minutes a day on unpaid care work. Another study says we are the second worst country when it comes to men contributing to housework. (Relax Indian men: Japan is the worst.)

We tout exceptional stories as the norm. And, so, a woman who chucks up her job in order to take care of her kids is just another mom. A man who does it is, well, a superhero.

Exacerbating the problem is workplace culture – though this is slowly changing too – that takes pride in employees being available 24/7. If you talk to mums in jobs, most will tell you that the only meaningful time they get with their kids is between 6 and 8 pm on weekdays. If you’re going to push employees to routinely put in 14-hour days, you’re going to end up with a lot of stressed out mothers (hopefully some fathers too) who will at some point wonder if it’s worth it and who will at that point quit, or be tempted to.

Increasing maternity leave from three to six months, as the government did last year, is great. But it also serves to reinforce a stereotype: Childcare is a woman’s job.

Since being a parent goes beyond maternity leave, what working mums need is a workplace culture that can adjust for exams, illnesses and the odd sports day.

What working mums need are dads who chip in with the PTAs and the special projects and, yes, it would help if they made the lunch dabbas or bought groceries or just did the damn laundry.

Ardern plans to take six weeks off after she gives birth. When she goes back to the office it will be with the knowledge that her partner, a TV presenter with his own career, is going to be the stay at home dad. Every woman should be that lucky.

Namita Bhandare writes on social issues and gender

The views expressed are personal

Padmavat has been cleared for release; its attempted censorship and ban comes from non-state actors and Vasundhara Raje’s decision to block its release in Rajasthan out of respect to the ‘sentiments of the people’ is meek acquiescence to these non-state actors

I am not a fan of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and yet, watching his latest movie is the only way I can think of that I as an individual citizen can mark both my protest and my support: Support for the right to make films, write books and voice opinions without being brow-beaten into submission and protest against the craven abdication of state to such bullying.(PTI)

I’m not a fan of advocating mass suicide by women as a method of safeguarding some male notion of honour, but I am going to watch Padmavat.

I am not a fan of Sanjay Leela Bhansali either, and yet, watching his latest movie is the only way I can think of that I as an individual citizen can mark both my protest and my support: Support for the right to make films, write books and voice opinions without being brow-beaten into submission and protest against the craven abdication of state to such bullying.

Even by the standards of our perennially outraged nation, the sustained protest over imagined offences in a film as yet unseen about a character whose historical authenticity is not established is unprecedented.

From vandalism to assault and threats; from inviting erstwhile royals for their stamp of approval to parliamentary committees, the controversy has ranged from the absurd to the scary.

Incredibly, despite the upheaval, the film is now, one minor title change and four notifications later, ready for release, cleared by the Central Board of Film Certification.

The censorship of movies and books is no longer new or, even sadly, shocking.

Film-makers are routinely asked for ‘no-objection’ certificates from the subjects they portray – the makers of Modi Ka Gaon, a tribute to Narendra Modi’s development policies were asked to get a no-objection from Modi, according to The Hoot.

A documentary on Amartya Sen was denied certification when its director refused to excise the words ‘Hindutva’, ‘cow’ and ‘Gujarat’. Sexy Durga becomes S. Durga, and still cannot be screened at the Goa film festival. And on it goes.

But Padmavat has been cleared for release; its attempted censorship and ban comes from non-state actors and Vasundhara Raje’s decision to block its release in Rajasthan out of respect to the ‘sentiments of the people’ is meek acquiescence to these non-state actors.

This is the office of the chief minister acting as a super-censor, abrogating to itself the powers to decide what citizens in a democracy should or shouldn’t see.

This is about an elected government bowing to majoritarian force; about a group that makes open threats and gets its way because it has muscle and political patronage. This is, quite simply, failure of governance.

Equally shameful is the silence by Congress, but then, let’s not forget, it was the Congress that began the slide with the banning of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.

And what do we make of the silence of the Bollywood fraternity – with a few honourable exceptions? If a powerful industry is so shaken, what does this tell us about a chilling effect?

In 2015, after weeks of sustained threats over his book, Madhorubagan the Tamil writer Perumal Murugan announced his exile as a writer. A year later, the Madras High Court ruled that the author ‘should be able to write and advance the canvas of his writings’. Last year, saw the assertive resurgence of the writer with the launch of a collection of poems and short stories.

No civilised society can advance by silencing the voice of its poets, writers, film-makers, photographers, chroniclers. “Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life,” the American writer E.B. White once said.

Recent events have shown just how easy it is to silence that voice, metaphorically, and even literally. The murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh last year is a frightening reminder to all of us of what could happen to those who voice inconvenient opinions. There is no room for dissent or an alternative view.

How can one individual stand up to this, particularly when the state fails to deliver justice, fails to apprehend those who break the law, fails to stand up for the rights of individual citizens?

Padmavat is not a political film and, yet, seeing it can become a political act, else how do we as individuals take a stand against the muscle of bullies and the might of a complicit state?

Sometimes, the simple act of watching a movie can send a message. It’s time we sent it.

Namita Bhandare writes on social issues and gender

The views expressed are personal