Mind the Gap

A weekly gender newsletter

How unrealistic ideals of body image are harming young women’s health

Alia Bhatt, Kate Winslet and 12-year-old me facing utter mortification when the pimply boy in my class commented on my “muscular” legs—a stray remark that meant that for years I just couldn’t bring myself to wear dresses and shorts. I was lucky because unlike so many women today, particularly women in the public eye, there […]

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What explains the shockingly bad behaviour of some Indian male passengers?

While details of the assault by a male passenger who urinated on a 70-year-old woman on a New York-Delhi Air India flight are still emerging, there’s news of another incident, also concerning a male passenger, a woman and urine. The first incident took place on November 26, but came to light only recently. The second also took

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What women really, really want

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

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The Year-Ender Gender Quiz

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:

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Ten facts about domestic violence that should chill you

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

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Why did the Supreme Court acquit three men sentenced to death for gang-rape and murder?

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

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WHY WE NEED TO NORMALISE THIS

Credits: ONMANORAMA In a country where the “motherhood penalty” leads to young mums quitting jobs in droves, one working mother decided to take her three-year-old son with her to a public function to which she had been invited. The valedictory function of a film festival was held on a Sunday, October 30. In the video, Divya

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The wrath of women: How the battle was won when women protestors took to the streets

On the 40th day after Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody for being ‘improperly’ veiled, thousands ignored road closures and marched to her grave in Saqez, Iran. The protests are being led by women. They are burning hijabs, cutting their hair, dancing and chanting: “Women, life, freedom”. Despite a brutal crackdown that has, according to one estimate left 222 dead,

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