For men to share the housework Thanks to the 2019 Time Use Survey by the National Statistical Office we know exactly how men and women spend their time. Women, across India spent an average of five hours a day to men’s hour-and-a-half to cook, clean, wash, and care for children, the elderly and the sick. That’s a […]
What women really, really want Read More »
1. Droupadi Murmu was appointed India’s first tribal, and second woman, president. Of which state was she earlier the governor? 2. “Women, life, freedom” is the slogan of Iran’s ongoing women-led protests sparked by the death of a 23-year-old woman while in the custody of the country’s so-called morality police. Can you name her? (Source:
The Year-Ender Gender Quiz Read More »
In the summer of 2017, five judges of the Supreme Court (SC) sat down to answer one question: Was the practice of triple talaq — where a Muslim husband could divorce his wife by saying the word for divorce three times — “fundamental” to the practice of Islam? The hearing was long overdue. India’s personal laws allow different religions to follow their customs in marriage, adoption, inheritance and divorce. While Hindu law reform began in the 1950s (to great protest by status quoists), Muslim personal law proved trickier.
Muslim women are smashing stereotypes Read More »
Anjali* was 15 and was raised by her widowed mother when she met 19-year-old Shahid. She was drawn to his soft-spoken nature and the fact that he had a steady job at a fast food outlet. She knew her mother would never accept her relationship with a Muslim man. So when she decided to marry
Teenage sex is a crime with a 10-year prison sentence. This is the law Read More »
In the decade since data has recorded a rise in numbers not just of rape but also of all crimes against women. Ten years ago, we claimed ownership of the 23-year-old as “India’s daughter”, bestowing on her an unasked-for martyrdom by calling her Nirbhaya. (File Photo) We were so angry then but so full of
10 years after the Delhi rape case, we need a new rights blueprint. Read More »
Back when Rahool was not fully a man, he believed, like so many of his friends, that an occasional slap to his girlfriend was no big deal. “I thought she’s my property, why should it be anybody else’s business?” he said. Pradip, now 25, was one of the boys who hung around the by-lanes of
Hello boys! We need to talk to you Read More »
I’m going to let male readers of this newsletter into a long-held secret of the sisterhood. Ask your women friends about the one indispensable accessory they carry, or think they should, while using public transport. Their answer might surprise you. It is the humble safety pin. Last week, Hana Mohsin Khan, a pilot, started a
The secret weapon women use to navigate the mean streets Read More »
Caption: Representational image Image Credit: Unsplash 1. Gender-based violence begins before birth with pre-natal sex selection and abortion and continues through child and forced marriage, honour killing, sexual violence, sexual harassment at work, cyber crimes, and domestic violence. 2. Worldwide, 45,000 women and girls – five an hour – were killed by an intimate partner or family
Ten facts about domestic violence that should chill you Read More »
For as long as girls are taught that marriage is their only goal, they must compromise and a bad husband is better than no husband, they will continue to remain in abusive relationships. Until the monstrosity of his alleged crime, Aaftab Poonawala was your average abusive neighbor. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo) When R, then 19, fell
The insidious prevalence of domestic violence in India. Read More »
Credit: HT Print Shraddha Walkar had cut ties with her family when she walked out of home to move in with her boyfriend, Aaftab Poonawala in 2020. When a friend, Lakshman Nadar told her father in mid-September this year that he hadn’t heard from her for months, the father got in touch with the police. It was
A horrific murder in Delhi exposes the dark underbelly of domestic violence Read More »
At 9.18 pm on February 9, 2012, a 19-year-old woman working with a call centre at Gurugram’s Cyber City got off the bus to walk the remainder of the remaining 10-minute distance home at Chhawla Camp. Suddenly, to the shock of two friends who were walking with her, a red Tata Indica pulled up and
Why did the Supreme Court acquit three men sentenced to death for gang-rape and murder? Read More »
For too long, too many of us have remained silent about just what it takes to be an employed mother, believing the lie that if we lean in enough, it will all magically work out. It won’t It won’t. If we want workplaces and society to acknowledge, if not understand, what it takes to be
Motherhood and job, not an easy balance Read More »