A Complete Guide to Gymming in Delhi for Girls

 

[For someone who blindly loved Delhi all her life (See https://thefeministmarshmallow.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/allow-me-this-for-i-am-sentimental-about-my-city/), coming back after living away for a while has just led to everyday being a slow painful realization that the capital of our country, despite its outward liberal appearances, treats its women as second-class citizens. That realization, it seems, needs a lot more posts for me to vent out the anger it has generated, but this post is confined to how hard the simple act of going to a gym has become here.]

Selecting a Gym: This category strictly depends upon your location. Are you living in a relatively posh, or at least a ‘modern’ locality? If no, please retreat back to the kitchen, your 9-5 job isn’t going to automatically generate round rotis. If yes, then you need to ask around in your circle about which gym is considered to be a relatively woman-friendly gym. If you assume that in a locality where most people are educated, this question is trite, I assure you that it is not. There is no dearth of creepy starers and stalkers in this city, and there are entire gyms where a woman would be a rare sight. However, you will chance upon a couple of (usually the most expensive) gyms in the area where women do venture to go out (if they can afford them, that is). There you go, you have now selected a gym.

Attire: Now that you are in an expensive, posh gym with the latest equipment, you would assume that normal gym wear would be completely acceptable. Again, silly girl, you are wrong. This is Dilli, the informal capital of Haryana. Please throw away all of your running shorts. Nothing less than three-fourths would do. If you think I am exaggerating, you must know that everything in this post has been experienced by yours truly; the naïve Bangalore-educated yours truly who turned up in normal gym shorts in a ‘good’ gym only to notice, day after day, that she was the only girl who wore shorts in there, period. But this is insane, one may think. It’s 40 degrees outside and I have to walk to the gym. All the other guys wear shorts openly (showing off their skinny legs, comically disproportionate to their bicaaps). Nope, throw such rational thoughts away, all rationality must be saved for acting quickly when you’re assaulted out of nowhere while coming back from the gym at 10 pm (see Timings).

Interesting side note: Not sure how many women have noticed that all major sports clothing outlets (at least Indian) Always have comfortable airy knee length shorts for men, but only three-fourths or hot pants-length shorts for women. Why? I need my comfy mid length shorts too dammit. I’m sick of having to search vigorously for them, or to resort to buying men’s shorts. It’s time for an open letter to those damn companies reinforcing the Madonna-or-the-whore syndrome, I say.

What to Expect Inside the Gym: After you’ve gotten over the shock of seeing women covered up even as they’re sweating profusely, you will happen to look across over to the occasional guy sitting at the opposite machine openly staring. Or some gym staff or the other (most gym staff is male) gawking at your ass through your tights. Oh, how did I forget. Don’t wear tights if you want to avoid this. Women must do everything to be invisible, to hide their women-parts. Except you can’t look too much unlike a woman either, if you don’t want to be the butt of some misogynistic gym humor over your well-defined muscles or presence of body hair. Be ready to face trainers who will either flirt with you, or, depending on how icily you respond, depict the in-built ready-to-kick-in-any-time-a-woman-doesn’t-respond-as-desired misogyny.

You can attend the gym with a guy, sure, but best to ensure that you’re married to him. Else be ready to face more stares and sneaky murmurs of gossip. This is true of everywhere in Delhi I guess, but it’s amazing how the most elite gyms in educated colonies aren’t immune from such an atmosphere.

Timings: Duh. Nothing before sunrise and nothing after sunset, if you want to be (relatively) safe. If this is not possible because you have a full-time job and a household to take care of (because equal responsibilities in a marriage? Lol), then unfortunately, gymming is not for you. Unless you have a male chaperone (i.e. husband or brother, obviously – See What to Expect Inside the Gym) waiting to receive you as you walk out of the gym. Then, with a related male, your presence outside the confines of your home at dark is validated, and your ‘goodness’ affirmed.

Non-Disclaimer: If you live in Delhi and have not experienced any or all of the above, don’t bother replying or arguing. I am not going to put in the usual disclaimer saying This was my personal experience and I acknowledge people have varied experiences etc. etc. That much should be understood, and frankly, the mere fact that even one person had to experience this should be bad enough. I’m sick of being politically correct enough to not feed the bile of the enthusiastically non-tolerant. So keep your indignation to yourself.

FemTalk#2: #TB: Sheeba Aslam Fehmi on Islamic Feminism and the Challenges it Faces in India

 

(This interview was conducted way back in February 2012, while I was interning with Tehelka. However, I believe its importance has only increased since then, given the current political climate. Some of the questions I asked then seem almost silly when read today, but do keep in mind the context. Anyway, here is a re-print of my fabulous meeting with a very inspiring woman: an Islamic scholar, an activist, a writer and a journalist.)

 

Q. What do you think about the apparent lack of an Islamic feminist movement in India?

Well. This is very interesting. My hunch about this particular aspect of Islamic feminism in India is that because, in India, we have been so much mired by this whole discourse of being the minority, that the intra-group inequalities, I mean inequalities within the group, within the cultural community of Muslims, haven’t been able to shape up their arguments, their movement, and this is one of the reasons. Like, each time Muslim women want to assert their own rights, they are always faced with this dilemma of going for their gender rights or working for their community rights. Because of the siege mentality and the mentality that Islam is endangered in India, or that Muslims are highly persecuted, and after the Sachar committee report you have seen that, what it shows. So the whole thing is, that it becomes clan versus constitutional framework.

Q. About that. Do you think that the threat to the Muslim community in India is very real, and not just in terms of numbers? (Note: SILLY QUESTION, 19 YEAR OLD NIVEDITA!)

No, no, see, persecution is there and we know that. Government report has already stated that very clearly that persecution is there, people are not treated equally or fairly in India, Muslims are not treated fairly, and these things are there. But it is very difficult to say something like this in black or white. It has to be a very qualified response on this. Because, here Muslims have done extremely well in certain fields, particularly if you see in the entertainment industry, and even in journalism also. So there are certain areas where merit counts, where the personal endeavour is taken in, the Muslims are doing very well. So I think it’s a big grey area for India.

Q. And especially since India is a land of different communities, just singling out the Muslims and saying that they are endangered would be too much as the same threat applies to other communities as well?

Exactly, we have to see the socio-economic conditions of communities as well. But there are several marginalised identities in India, not only Muslims. Muslims are one of them. And since we are addressing all other marginalised identities as well, we are addressing this issue too. So the biggest problem is for regional minorities, and for the Adivasis. Then you have the Dalit issue. Then you have overall gender issues. And then you have the cross-cutting disadvantages. Like, if somebody comes from a minority community, or a marginalised community, like Manipuri, and also incidentally comes from the lower strata of the community in terms of caste, as well as class, then… you have multiple and cross-cutting disadvantages. So, every Muslim is not as disadvantaged as a Dalit, or as a, maybe, Adivasi. So we have to understand and keep qualifying on this also. Marginalisation is not a singular term.

Q. So getting back to the topic. If you think that there is a prioritization of community rights over gender rights among Muslim women in India, do you think this makes them more religious than they would have been otherwise, as they need to establish their religious and communal identity?

I don’t think this statement is right, because you may be devoted to your community cause and may not be religious at all, it is also possible. So I would not say that being religious… but yes, they have to keep on asserting that they are practicing Muslims, so that the traditional leadership within the community do not delegitimize them. That is one strategy which we are very conscious of. We, from the very onset reject the feminism of western white Caucasian middle-class urban educated women of U.S. or Europe. So Islamic feminism, particularly in the third world, is very conscious of this difference. Islamic feminism in diaspora communities is also there, in Canada and U.S.A., but that is altogether a different discourse. In the third world, we are very conscious that our feminism is home-grown, indigenous, and rooted in our cultural particularities.

Q. But still, the umbrella label of feminism must warrant some similarities, cutting through cultures?

The three principles on which feminism, as an umbrella category functions are, justice, equality and freedom. These are the three major values on which any assertive movement or reactionary movement in today’s time, whether it is the Dalit movement or any general movement has to function. Umbrella category is there, very well. But after that we depart from this first step, from that discourse. And Islamic feminism has really got a stronghold all over the world: in Egypt, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, in diaspora communities all over the world… these identities have really excelled in bringing out the problems within the community, and how they can be addressed within the framework of the community.

Q. But all the newspapers seem to suggest that the transition to democracy in countries such as Egypt have affected Muslim women the most. Do you think the feminist movement even in those countries is not so well-developed as to hold its own when it comes face-to-face with an increasingly religious leadership that these countries are now witnessing?

Exactly, in fact I have been very vocal about this particular issue, in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, where women were the ones that started the whole movement, and  then they were side-lined. See, number one, that any such violent transition is not easy. It is painful for everybody. It is just because when we see certain visuals which have women as the victim we are more sensitised over that. Men are also badly treated over there, it is not just women. So I reject this whole claim that it is women. But those who are trying to usurp power… it is a power discourse, it is a power tussle, they would bring in many categories, not only gender, the Caucasians are also persecuted there, being Christians, so just because we are concerned with women’s issues right now we are looking at it through this prism. Secondly, women in Egypt are very very strong, and whatever they have achieved in their earlier decades, it was not given to them as a gift, they fought for it, they articulated, they came up with the right articulations, that is why they got those rights. They are not going to give them up just like that. In India, we hardly had any movement, if you compare it. it was by the very virtue of having a modern democratic liberal framework, we got all the equal rights, so we don’t value our rights. In such societies such as Iran, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, women are fighting tooth and nail. So they value their freedom, whatever they’ve got, and they’re not going to just give it up like that. They are very strong women and they will continue fighting.

 

 

FemTalk#1: Prof. V. S. Elizabeth on Feminism, NLS, and Armchair Activism

(FemTalk is a series of conversations with various women whose views on feminism I think are interesting and highly relevant. This is the first talk in the series, with Prof. V. S. Elizabeth. Prof. Elizabeth teaches History at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and also occassionally offers seminar courses that have their roots in feminism. A self-proclaimed feminist, her thoughts have influenced endless NLS students, including yours truly. Luckily, I got a chance to ask her some questions I had always wanted to. Read on!)

1. What lead you to you becoming a feminist? Was it triggered by a life event or a sudden realisation, or was it much more gradual?

I don’t know if there is anyone defining moment when I decided to become a feminist. I think it was a more gradual process and partly because my father never silenced me but always tried to answer the questions and he was always conscious of trying to treat my brother and I fairly and equally. When I have looked back on my life I realise that I started asking questions when I was probably in my early teens. One of the questions, which I often mention in my talks and lectures, was why are there so few women role models and in such few career options. My father’s reply was I could be anything I wanted to be and that there had been women in history who broke the gender stereotype like Rani Lakshmibai, Chandbibi etc. There are a few such incidents from my childhood days. I started reading feminist literature – works of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison etc, when I went to Mangalore University to pursue my doctoral studies. The English Literature books were just behind the History racks and I had friends in the hostel who were pursuing their post graduate studies in English  or in Kannada literature and who were studying feminism. I have always loved reading particularly fiction and in these books and in the discussions we had in the hostel, in our rooms, I found echoes of my thoughts and feelings and so I guess before I knew it I was an ardent feminist.

2. What are your thoughts on feminism within the NLS student community? Has there been some sort of change in the kind of feminism you see among students? I’ve personally always felt that even here, a lot of people are reticent to come out and boldly embrace feminism, and the feminazi jokes are still aplenty. Further, I have also often wondered whether most NLS students only concede to some form of liberal feminism, with many choosing to be ignorant of the complicated intersectionalities that Indian feminism has to deal with. What are your thoughts on that?

I think in NLS there has always been only a small, probably, a tiny group of students who have openly been feminist. In the first five years I think it was difficult for someone who called herself a feminist to make arguments from the feminist perspective and be heard.  Prabha Kotiswaran from the 1993 batch comes to my mind. Most of the women students have been hesitant to openly proclaim that they are feminists fearing the backlash or worried that they will not be so popular with their male classmates and friends or because they just don’t think anything is wrong with the world as it is, having accepted the inequalities as a given. There  used to be a time when there was a Gender Study Circle and many interesting articles used to be shared and discussed. Sometimes I think people just carried out with the isms and forget that they are dealing with human beings, human beings who disagree with them and maybe are even hostile, but nevertheless they are human beings and when we forget that and the ideology becomes more important it creates too much of conflict.  This too has happened in the past. And yes, most people in NLS are ignorant of the fact that there are such diverse feminist perspectives. Most people think of feminism in terms of the most radical feminists and most students who call themselves feminists would prefer a liberal feminist perspective, something that doesn’t radically change the world they live in and are familiar with.So forget about the intersectionalities of Indian feminism.

3. What are your thoughts about feminism and the administration and faculty? Have you felt any discrimination in an institution that commands such respect in India? Further, and more specifically, do you think there are any feminist policies that must be in place in NLS? I know that there was some talk of introducing legal subjects from a feminist perspective that was shot down, not sure if that was specific to NLS though.

Law School is quite a perplexing place. On the one hand at an individual level you can subscribe to any perspective you want, preach and practise it. But the moment you have to engage with the administration from that place then it can be difficult. Law School is not the most gender friendly place.  For a long, long time I was the only female faculty, even though there were quite a few when I joined Law School in 1991 but all of them left. Then gradually as a part of a deliberate policy a few women faculty were recruited during Prof. Jayagovind’s time because almost every visitor to Law School commented on the gender imbalance in the faculty.

So far as discrimination is concerned yes I have felt quite often that I have been discriminated against both as a woman and as a non-law faculty member. Though I have proven over and over again competency and capability I have been sidelined when it has come to promotion and selection to some of the important positions in the administration. Excepting the Registrar’s position I have  occupied every other position that involves a lot of work and administration but had no perks at all.  Some of my colleagues got promotions without even having a Ph.D. Many of them got their Ph.d’s only before they got promoted as Professors where as I along with other colleagues who have taught or continue to teach non-law subjects had to have a Ph.D. to even get regularised.  Atleast one of them who had joined after I and the other non-law faculty had joined have gone on to become my seniors in Law School. So whether this discrimination has been because I am a woman or because I teach History I am not sure about.

The kind of responsibilities given also demonstrate the gender inequality. A simple example is the convocation, the duties allocated to women faculty have been flower arrangements, stage decoration etc. Not one of us, to the best of my knowledge, have ever been given the responsibility to receive the CJI or the Chief Guest and escort them to Law School.

I am who I am in Law School because I have fought at every stage for every promotion, and to carry out my work- whether as warden of the women’s halls of residence all those years ago or simply to teach what I do teach in Law School. Simple thing like wearing jeans and Kurta to class and not dressed formally in sari or churidhar-kurta.

Regarding teaching a special course on Feminist Jurisprudence it was not a Law School thing, it was an initiative that the then member of the NCW Ms Poornima Advani suggested which was not accepted, though a syllabus was designed by a group of women teachers from different institutions. Within Law School I have taught the course both to graduate and undergraduate students in the past, though now there are no takers for the course in the student community.

4. What are your thoughts on armchair activism – in this case, armchair feminism, that is, the present generation’s activism being limited to online activities and often nothing more. Do you think that is a step towards the radical feminist goal of consciousness raising, or do you feel that it is somewhat futile without any concrete real-world action? This is of particular interest to me given that I have a feminist blog .:) 

Armchair activism of any kind is often criticised. I, however, feel to each her own and we need diverse approaches to change the way people think and to engage in a discussion with a very different kinds of people. When I was younger I was more proactively involved in marches and protests but now I don’t even write so all my activism in on facebook and through my lectures within NLS and outside, wherever I am called to speak. The most important thing though is to walk the talk. I have been challenged so many times by, mostly, my students about the contradictions in what I say and do or think.  So it is a continuous process of growth. The one thing I do know is that if one is passionate about justice and equality then it will show through one’s personality.  Not everyone is cut out to be a grassroots activist and definitely not all through one’s life. I used to wonder how people can stop being so actively involved but having seen that change in my own life and attitude I know that it does happen. So more than activism I would say that it is more important to internalise these values and walk the talk.

 

Same Difference

So this term, one of the optional courses I have chosen to take is called Violence Against Women. While the focus of the course was to understand and decipher the various ways in which violence against women is perpetrated, their rationale, and the way out of this violence, soon enough, the course became more about feminism, the different feminist schools, feminist jurisprudence and feminist legal methodologies. I found this course took on a discussion-based pattern that allowed me to ask the questions I had always wanted to ask when it comes to feminism, areas which are still sort of icky in one’s mind, despite one’s loyalty to feminism.

 

One of these questions was whether, scientifically speaking, the brains of men and women indeed do work differently, and whether that difference can be used to justify the popular stereotypes that have come to be associated with their gender roles (you know, men are logical simpletons and women are complicated, overthinking creatures – just an example, but I am assuming everyone is familiar with the endless list of characteristics that continue to occupy all our dominant narratives, from the arts to popular culture to sciences to law).

 

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to ask my question of the sciences or of the humanities. I made a half-hearted attempt of cursorily Googling about studies that shed some light on the issue. I found some studies that said that the brains of men and women were, in fact, wired differently: that their brains developed in a different manner even during their fetal states, that they each used different parts of their brains throughout their lives. Some studies, of course, contradicted this, stating that no such generalization could be made that justified these stereotypes, and that many more factors, such as race, ethnicity, and one’s sheer genetic make-up, also played an equally important role that cannot be overlooked or oversimplified. Perplexed, and trying to make my way through the technical language, I realized I just didn’t know enough about science to understand what to make of it, and wondered, if it was true that their brains really do work differently, what implications did this have on feminism and on the way we view the present social structures.

 

I next turned to the humanities for the solution, asking our course teacher what she thought about the whole issue, and the implications of science ruling either way. Her answer was interesting, so much so that I thought I better blog about it, and maybe try to continue learning more about the issue. She said that even if it were true that the brains of men and women were different, our complete and unquestioning acceptance of the fact causes more harm than good: it leads to there being a check-list of sorts for each gender, a long list of boxes to tick (for women: feminine, loving, docile, sincere, making efforts to maintain herself and stay pretty,  bad at fixing things around the house, bad at math, science and technology, bad at driving and directions in general, loves cooking, babies, flowers, teddy bears and pink, overthinking, dramatic and bitchy, ruled by her emotions, wanting marriage and kids, her family always coming first etc. etc.) . The problem with such a characterization is that, she said, people being the complex myriad of experiences and emotions they are, and each located in different societies with differing values, races, castes, economic status, et al, most of us then do not fit squarely into these boxes. For example, I may like putting on make-up, but I may also love coding. I may be the biggest gossip in the world, but I may also be the best driver there is – most of us don’t exist in dichotomies, but in a combination of endless characteristics that makes each of us unique. Sure, some of our features may tally with what science says girls are more likely to be like. But it will never be a cent per cent match. Thus, when we accept how we are supposed to be like as the absolute truth, those of us who stand out have a much harder time. This is why, in the 21^st century, male scientists remain wary of working with female scientists, calling them “distracting” and “counter-productive to the atmosphere” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/06/10/the-non-apology-of-the-year-award-goes-to-nobel-scientist-who-thinks-women-just-cry-all-the-time/). This is why a confident, assertive woman leader is labelled a “cold-hearted bitch”, women who don’t want children as “unnatural”, and women who choose to dress in an un-feminine way or have visible armpit hair, “manly”.

 

I listened to our teacher explaining all this attentively. At the end of it, I still had a few questions. Sure, I said, there are exceptions to every generalization. But that does not nullify the generalization as long as most people even sort of behave that way, that’s enough of a basis for a generalization to rise. So for example, if I go to a garden where there are sixty per cent roses, and the remaining percentage is a combination of different kinds of flowers, and even the sixty per cent roses are not that similar to each other: some of them are pink and some of them are white, and some of them are pinkish-white: most people would still refer to the garden as rose garden, and understandably so. (It’s a bad analogy, I know, but I hope it illustrates, albeit very crudely, what I’m trying to say).

 

It was then that she laid down her second point. She said that patriarchy is a complicated, self-sustaining system, and we are all so immersed in it, we don’t even know how to distinguish it from who we are anymore. So if the bulk of the women tick some of the boxes on the how-women-are-supposed-to-be-like list, it is worth asking if it is not because that is all we have learnt, seen around us, imbibed, from straight out of the womb till we die. Do all woman really, really want to get married, or have they been heavily fed on healthy doses of popular culture, family atmospheres and the society’s expectations of them, to the point that they can’t envisage a happy future for themselves where they stay single throughout their lives? Are all of them bad drivers, or is it just that every bad move by a woman driver is always picked on and criticized and commented upon to the point that it shakes their self-esteem about driving, making them believe that probably they just don’t have the skills of a man when it comes to navigating a machine? What she said reminded me of a line from one of the articles we were reading – identifying patriarchy is like being in a red room all your life and seeing no other colour, and then being taken out of that room and being asked to describe the colour red. It made me wonder, when I get dressed to look good and claim that I’m doing it for “myself”, whose idea of “looking good” am I adhering to? The brainwashing is so successful that it’s hard to know.

 

It was an interesting conversation. It resonated with what I had thought all through the years, seeing so many different types of women around me: people are complicated, period, and your gender does little to tell one about the person who you are. For all the people who are still going to grumble about hormones and differing brain structures and whatnot after reading this, I believe a famous feminist quote must be put to use here: your biology is not your destiny. Human beings are highly evolved creatures who can distinguish between what evolution dictates you be and what you want to, through your intelligence, become. That’s the difference between human beings and animals. Just because a woman can become a mother does not mean that each and every woman on earth is a naturally maternal and empathetic being. (This stereotype is why courts have a really hard time understanding numerous instances of mothers killing their own children, suffering through post-partum disorder or some other form of depression which makes it impossible for them to associate themselves with the idea of being a mother. Courts don’t just see these cases as instances of murder, admittedly particularly gruesome because it is committed by someone in a fiduciary position; instead Courts believe such women must be psychopaths of sorts – what mother does it to her own kid! – and better admitted to an institution.) Just because evolution dictates that we find a mate to reproduce does not mean we spend our lives waiting for Mr. Right, hoping for a validation that society does not let us find internally.

 

It’s important that both the sexes understand the full implications of such generalizations: women, so that they can do full justice to the faculties that they possess, and men, because, they too need to break away from the impact of the generalizations even for themselves, the idea of a “rational”, self-possessing, machine-fixing, unemotional, never-crying in public, never choosing professions seen as “feminine”, violent ‘man’. Also, men, do you want to fall in love with or interact with or work with or have a bond with a real, interesting person with diverse characteristics, or are you just okay with half the world’s population emulating your idea of them to the point that they lose their identities? Are you not even curious about, if not concerned for, half of the planet day-in and day-out killing themselves to play a fake role in our real, shared lives together?

 

Think about how much freer both the sexes will be, if all they had to be was themselves. Think about how much better our society will be, if we can be brave and ready to accept the sheer range of diversity that exists in human beings. A heterosexual man could be a ballet dancer and wear pink all day and talk about his feelings and a woman could never have kids without facing censure and not worry about not having shaved her legs as she’s sitting in a high-level meeting as NASA’s head. World, we need this.

Lost & Found

It struck me suddenly, out of nowhere.

I was sitting in a guest lecture, half-listening to the speaker, a celebrated lawyer, while my mind wandered about in idyllic loops of thoughts in a manner that is characteristic of a final year been-there done-that student. But as the talk became more interesting progressively, I felt myself becoming more engaged, caught in the issues that the speaker was talking about.

And suddenly, as the old feeling of the activist inside me getting angry at injustice snuck in, I realised how unfamiliar it was. I was not used to feeling the depths of social issues anymore. Somewhere along the road, I’d changed, become the ‘normal’ amount of interested – interested enough to debate about issues, that is, and maybe read a few thought-provoking pieces every now and then, but not interested enough to persistently work towards a cause I believed in (did I really believe strongly about anything, anymore?). Since then, I’ve been reminiscing, trying to see myself as the hot-blooded thing I once was, trying to figure out how it all changed.

During my first year, I volunteered for Slutwalk Bangalore. The city was completely unfamiliar to me then, and travelling alone was discouraged for first years, especially for girls and especially at night, but I disregarded all that I guess, and went about the city, trying to find strange-sounding streets to reach meetings at strangers’ houses, and coming back at night alone in shady autos. I happily took part in flash mobs, promoted the event aggressively on social media, and defended it vehemently in front of anyone who argued against it. It wasn’t just this one event though. I remember this phase as being one of learning about things I had no exposure to at all. I would go visit slums alone just to see how it was all like, talk to people who lived there and realise that their world was so different from what is the popular conception. During my college holidays, I was interning at Tehelka, the news magazine, and was given a pretty free hand as to what to cover. I used this opportunity to research on Islamic feminism, something that had interested me a lot, and tracked down and ended up interviewing one Muslim woman who was an Islamic scholar, and another Muslim woman whose relatives were wrongly imprisoned for ten years. One of those interviews was published I think, in a small insignificant corner somewhere, but the knowledge and exposure I’d gained was the real reward there.

It all felt so terribly empowering, I remember, and yeah, also kind of kickass. It didn’t all end there though.

In my second year I felt the strong yearning to actively do something about things apart from just sharing posts on Facebook. I wanted to do something tangible, something that would make a difference…no matter how small. Therein lies the origin of this blog. For the next three years, sometimes regularly, mostly irregularly, I’d often take an everyday phenomenon I could talk about with my limited competence, and try to analyse it from a feminist perspective. While most of my posts went about unnoticed, some of them, much to my astonishment, became big on my campus and outside, and were even picked up by other sites at times. I was…satisfied. I felt confident that I was doing something I could handle, long-term.

I remember, in the same year, when the infamous incident of the NLS student’s rape near campus took place, I was shocked at the stance our administration took. They (surprise) blamed it all on the victims of these crimes, and ensured that a strict curfew was imposed on all of us. While I was angry at the thought that this was how authorities of the premiere law school in India reacted to the situation, what truly made my blood boil was the fact that most people on campus didn’t care enough to voice their opinion about it. Out of this anger originated one of my first posts on this blog, We The Victim Blamers. But this was not enough – I wanted this post to haunt the campus to the point that no one could escape into their sheltered lives. So I and a couple of my friends went around the campus, sticking print outs of the post Everywhere – from the hostels to the corridors to even the Vice Chancellors office (had to do that sneakily at night). Again, I don’t think it made much of a difference either way; it was just me acting on a strong impulse to do Something.

That very year saw me becoming a part of the Law & Society Committee at our college. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Committee at a time it included some very strong-willed, motivated individuals who weren’t afraid of taking on controversial political issues. Through a mixture of movie screenings, talks, events, study circles etc., we tried to get students in law school to engage with different social issues. What I didn’t realise at that point, and only learned in hindsight, was that what was really happening was that *I* was getting to engage with different social issues for the first time, getting the sort of exposure that would stay with me through the years. It’s funny to think as I’m writing this today that I (secretly) cried when we screened the movie Matrubhoomi in one of the classrooms, and when, post the movie, in the middle of a discussion, one of the students said that she doesn’t voice her feminist opinions publically because she doesn’t want to get in more trouble with the authorities than she already is, I just walked out – without a word or an explanation – shaking with anger at the fact that most of us are cowards, really.

In the next year, apart from trying to keep up my blog, I was involved in something much bigger. I ended up, almost inadvertently, volunteering for Kranti. Kranti was the name we used for this series of events – talks, screenings, dances, etc. – that took place across various cities. Its nature was very political – from caste issues to tribal rights – the government was attacked from every front. We actually managed to get some famous activist groups to come to Bangalore and perform/speak here. It was all…too big. What had started as a schoolgirl interest in feminism had culminated into being embroiled in a student-lead movement that wanted to challenge the entire neo-liberal framework. I volunteered, did all the small things that needed to be done here and there, and just tried to observe what was happening, taking in as much as possible, witnessing the world of activism up close and personal.

What after that? Nothing. At all.

Why?

Well. I’m probably writing this post to figure it out myself. After Kranti, I sort of moved onto other things – did a lot of editorial stuff, presented academic papers, engaged with the student academic council… but nothing that even touched the kind of work I’d been doing earlier. I even stopped blogging completely. It’s not that I didn’t want to – my desktop is full of ideas I would want to write about and would even start working on before leaving off midway– but I just…didn’t.

What do I think happened? Just, life.

Maybe it’s just easier to get lethargic about issues as you grow older. A part of it is to do with the increased responsibilities you face in your own life I think – there’s just lesser time with every passing year to muse about things as we all once did in our free earlier years. Then of course, there’s the other good old reason of losing your idealism with age, seeing everything more realistically (or cynically?). It was all this in my case, but it was also more.

I underwent a lot of changes in my personal life, and I think the more complicated things in my life became, the harder it felt to care about social issues. Which is kind of sad, because it makes it sound like social issues, or feminism, are something external, more abstract, than everyday life, but that was how it was. I guess when you’re young, and troubled, and lost, and can’t handle things, you don’t stop to think that there are some things bigger than what is happening in your life that you shouldn’t stop caring about. But humans are self-centred, and selfish, and on some level, we all want our unadultered moping. I see it all as a vicious cycle – the more lost I became due to what was happening in my life, the more out of touch I was with the things I cared about, which in turn lead to me becoming even more lost.

Sadly, what made me return to this blog to write this post was this idea I had – of trying to talk to juniors about activism in law school before I graduate. As I thought more about that idea, it felt all the more necessary to examine what had gone wrong in my case.

I think I’m still lost, but with the knowledge that some things are still capable of stirring the old activist inside. And I’m trying to hold onto that feeling, that feeling of things moving you. It’s a beautiful feeling, and if nothing else, I’m glad that so many years of my life were full of it. I hope you, dear reader, experience that feeling as well. That feeling when your blood boils and you are moved to do something to fix this broken world of ours. It may not change the world, but it sure does change you.

Workday Bloody Workday

In the middle of a busy internship, working for 10 hours a day while on my periods seemed like death. I kept wondering why women don’t get extra leave for menstruation every month – surely, these bloated, tiring, crampy, uncomfortable, painful days require some extra leave? In fact, research shows that taking leave during menses prevents problems during later pregnancy and childbirth, including miscarriage and premature labor (A. J. Dan, 1986). The problem is much more acute when one thinks of labour-intensive sectors, where often women work under poor conditions without adequate (or any) sanitary facilities. In fact, I thought, menstrual leave could be seen as a form of maternity leave- maternity protection shouldn’t just extend to the brief period after a child is born; menstruation is in fact very much a part of the process, and hence women should be given some privileges. The need seemed so obvious to me after two minutes of brainstorming, I wondered what the world was doing, not even debating about it.

But some research on the topic in fact revealed a fascinating and very pertinent debate. Needless to say, I wasn’t the first one to think of the genius idea. Menstrual leave has been a topic of constant debate for decades now. In fact, many countries such as  Korea, Japan and Indonesia already have in place a system of menstruation leave, where they are allowed one or two holidays per month while they are menstruating. These holidays are often optional, so the women can choose not to take them if they don’t feel the need to. Many more countries such as Russia and Canada are increasingly seeing a demand for menstrual leave. In fact, even Nike includes menstrual leave in their Code of conduct, and obliges its business partners to follow the code as well!

But not all women are for it, due to several legitimate reasons. Firstly, they believe that this may reinforce sexism and notions of women being weak, inefficient, moody, and in need of additional protection. Such women believe that periods are just another hardship of life they need to go through every month, and the thing to do is to pop a pill and get to work. While I do understand their concern of menstrual leave setting us back a few generations with respect to gender equality, I still cannot completely agree with them for two reasons.

Firstly, I don’t think this would be a move towards sexism or a form of reverse discrimination. Women shouldn’t need to downplay or simply bear what they go through to appear as strong as men. Maybe I don’t want to subject my body to pills to control period troubles, maybe I want the legislature to acknowledge this as a professional problem half the country faces and thus give me benefits. I can already hear some people talking about the contradiction between asking for equality and then demanding special treatment. However, a move like this should not imply that women are less capable and hence ought to be given certain relaxations, it is in fact a way to acknowledge that women and men are differently made, and hence a work environment must be receptive to their different body needs. Menstrual leave is a form of substantive equality.

Secondly, I think such a criticism needs to take into account that while many of us may face periods that are reasonably bearable, for some menstruation is no joke. Apart from first hand accounts of menstruation woes I have been privy to, a perusal of the many many comments online on articles on the topic depicted a huge number of women who face great discomfort during their menses and would greatly welcome such a move. “I bleed at least 84 days out of the year. Men don’t. How would it be unfair to not have to work for 12 of those 84 days,” one reader demanded to know.

A huge critique arises from most women worrying that such a move will affect their employability at workplace – why will an employer hire a woman taking 24 days more than men as holidays, when there are endless men waiting to step into their shoes. The capitalist logic of efficiency clearly doesn’t advocate such a move. Menopause is another important concern – assuming that women will need to inform their employers when they hit menopause – in practical reality one can clearly see situations where women will continue to lie for a plausible time in order to get more holidays. Again, an argument that is linked to the importance of work efficiency.

Some answers have been put forth: many believe that women will be far more productive working within the comfortable confines of their homes on these days, as opposed to coming to office for long hours. Hence, in fact, granting menstrual leave can be seen as a way of enhancing efficiency, and not reducing it. But this answer only applies to work that can be done from home, not solving the problem of women working in labour, transportation, textile and other such industries, where the need for menstrual leave is in fact much more; a desk job will obviously entail more comfortable working conditions anyway.

Another alternative put forth to menstrual leave states that critiques of lessened female work productivity and reverse discrimination will be greatly lessened if both men and women were granted additional sick leaves every year, to be used however they like. Even this doesn’t seem like an ideal solution – not only do I not see business lobbies ever letting the government make such a move, but also, this idea doesn’t seem very fair; women can be sick as often as men can be, and the menstruation period is something beyond that to be endured. Why conflate the two into a single category, and give men additional holidays for nothing?

These are not the only problems that need answering. In the Indian context particularly, a new set of problems arise. In a country where menstruation is talked of strictly in hushed tones, to be hidden from the male members of the family, in a society where women still refrain from religious ceremonies while bleeding, bringing such a debate to the forefront will prove particularly problematic. It must be clarified that this problem isn’t distinct to India- In Korea, for example, while a system of menstrual leave is prevalent, women still hesitate to take it because, among other reasons, they don’t necessarily want their entire office to know about their menstruation cycles every month- however, I do believe that such issues will be greatly aggravated in the Indian society. Further, one can easily contemplate a move like this increasing the isolation of menstrual women in India from workplace, not for their well-being, but as a means to continue the practice of keeping the ‘impure women’ away from the mainstream society. Even implementation seems to be a messy problem in India: how important is such a measure in a country where most women who need it are working in the haphazard unorganized sector outside of government purview?

I am well aware that this article raises more questions than it attempts to answer, but it does so because these questions need to be asked. To those who wonder why this debate is pertinent, I’d just like to quote an extract out of Gloria Steinem’s classic essay ‘If Men Could Menstruate’.  

“To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali’s Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields- “For Those Light Bachelor Days.”

Statistical surveys would show that men did better in sports and won more Olympic medals during their periods.

Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation (“men-struation”) as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat (“You have to give blood to take blood”), occupy high political office (“Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?”), be priests, ministers, God Himself (“He gave this blood for our sins”), or rabbis (“Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean”).

Male liberals and radicals, however, would insist that women are equal, just different; and that any woman could join their ranks if only she were willing to recognize the primacy of menstrual rights (“Everything else is a single issue”) or self-inflict a major wound every month (“You must give blood for the revolution”).

TV shows would treat the subject openly. (Happy Days: Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still “The Fonz,” though he has missed two periods in a row. Hill Street Blues: The whole precinct hits the same cycle.) So would newspapers. (Summer Shark Scare Threatens Menstruating Men. Judge Cites Monthlies In Pardoning Rapist.) And so would movies. (Newman and Redford in Blood Brothers!)

Medical schools would limit women’s entry (“they might faint at the sight of blood”).

Of course, intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguements. Without the biological gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets, how could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics– or the ability to measure anything at all? In philosophy and religion, how could women compensate for being disconnected from the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death and resurrection every month?

Menopause would be celebrated as a positive event, the symbol that men had accumulated enough years of cyclical wisdom to need no more.”

 

It is important to remember, at all times, how different the menstrual discourse would be if  it was men menstruating instead. It is important to remember that sick leave policies are not gender neutral – they were written with men’s needs in mind and did not take into account that women may need something different. In fact, I couldn’t help chuckle when I read a brooding women muse on the net: “If the tables were suddenly turned and men were the ones who had to deal with having their period, I can’t help but think not only would they get more sick days, they’d also find a way to get health insurance to cover the cost of tampons.” 

Two Thoughts

In the middle of a very very very busy week, I still couldn’t stop my brain from wandering around, amused at this world for how it functions…

—

I looked around in the class, randomly observing people. Most girls were sitting with their legs crossed. Now, I’ve always been fascinated by this, seemed like such a sophisticated mannerism when I was a kid! But then I was thinking concurrently this time…none of the boys were sitting this way. Boys never sit this way. It’s a distinctly “feminine” way of sitting.

Random old stories came to my head. Of a million mothers telling their daughters to “sit properly”, “handle themselves well”, “cover themselves”. So is this posture, in which many of my learned classmates sit in quite inadvertently, a relic of the Feminine Tradition of Demure?

—

Read this in an article in a supplement of The Hindu today. Said by a damn cool woman: Radhika Vaz:

“I open the show with my opinion on cleanliness and how that is a big part of being feminine. From a moral perspective women have always been moral gatekeepers of society, keeping every one clean. I tie it to housework and explore how it is a natural instinct for us to take care of a home whether we need to or not. And though I understand where and how that happens, I have a problem with that being tied to our role as a woman.”

Got me thinking. Is it more acceptable for men to be unkempt and not bathe for days? Well, if not acceptable, I’d say it was certainly more…expected of them, as compared to women. I have heard parents often say how their daughter is neat and tidy, and their son’s a wreck.

I’m not sure if this ties in with notions of women being these beautiful, clean creatures, sincere and neat and tidy. Something worth thinking about someday, definitely, when the week isn’t quite this busy…

The Nagarbhavi Paradox

Nagarbhavi is a small area lying on the outskirts of Bangalore city. Surrounded by hilly terrain and thick vegetation at one point, it slowly succumbed to urbanization, in large part due to the construction of the Mysore highway in the region. Today, it is like any other small urban centre in India: picture small, scattered shops, roadside eateries and tiny congested roads, shabby beauty parlors and a small bank, and that faint scent of festivity in the air during evening, when the market is thronged with people everywhere: eating, drinking, laughing, lingering….

Except Nagarbhavi isn’t quite like any other small urban centre in India. It is an educational hub in its own right, being home to Bangalore University, Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Institute for Social and Economic Change and National Council for Teachers’ Education. However, it can be said with some degree of assurance that Nagarbhavi is most famous for housing the “Harvard of the East”, the “mecca of legal education in India”, National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Established in 1987 and the first of the National Law Universities located all across India, NLSIU is consistently ranked as the most prestigious law school in India. NLSIU has made a mark internationally as well, winning several acclaimed competitions, and its students routinely studying further at the topmost law colleges in the world.

As a student at this elite institution, you get to hear all about liberal theories and ideas. About women’s rights, gender mainstreaming in the Constitution, globalization affecting the feminist discourse, yada yada. In my class, the gender ratio is distinctly skewed towards the women. The institute has produced various eminent women lawyers, activists, leaders, hotshot corporates, and will continue to do so in the future, I am sure.

However, once you step outside of the four walls of the college and into the very real-world Nags (as we address Nagarbhavi), it is understood that all liberal ideas are to be left behind. For Nags is notorious for its rowdy men, for its unsafe atmosphere at nights, for the occasional crime one hears about being committed. Men will ogle at you, sitting in groups on the edge of the street, some of them on bikes will be more generous and probably try to touch you as they rush by, maybe even whistle and engage in a word or two. Abduction cases are not unheard of, and last year’s brutal rape committed near NLSIU campus only highlighted the levels of women’s safety here. Thus, we are advised (first year girls specifically) to not go out unaccompanied at night. There is a general understanding that wearing short clothes must be avoided in Nags.

Except I’m sick of how ridiculously paradoxical it all is. One moment, I’m reading a treatise on women’s empowerment, and the next, I’m changing into full sleeved clothes because I need to go out and buy groceries. There we are, preaching people about how we must stop blaming victims, and there too, advising juniors to not attract attention in Nags?

It keeps coming back, striking me, how a university that is expected to influence the country and drive change cannot even touch the atmosphere of its own adjacent surroundings. How we are expected to draft laws on women’s safety in the future when we couldn’t do anything about what is happening right outside of campus. Classic case of not practicing what we preach. Being good only on paper. But bothers me so very often. The prestigious NLSIU being helpless against its very own surroundings.

 , 

Women Only

Thanks, Delhi Metro, for letting women know for sure where their compartments are by putting it in bright pink with flowers. Otherwise we could never have known. 

What If She Didn’t Want To Be Called Nirbhaya?

 

The Delhi rape seemingly awoke something in the social media-friendly citizens, something that was hidden during the endless rapes committed before. They decided that they could not stand this anymore. Their conscience seemed to – unfortunately, understandably – speak up more for a girl who was so much like them, than for, say, a tribal girl into whose vagina and rectum policemen inserted stones.

This connect was, as I said, understandable. She was a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, hailing from a small family, and trying to support her family at the same time as fulfilling her ambitions. The empathy is natural for the middle-class: it may as well have been any of their stories. And maybe that’s why the shattering of the story hurt them so much – the brutality of rape finally (FINALLY!) brought home the fact that it could Really have been any one of them.

The media played on this connectivity aspect well, and soon a revolution-of-sorts could be felt in the Delhi air, where everyone was fighting against the culture of rape. But for whom were they fighting?

The Times of India, very generously, stated: “She has come to symbolise rare courage, an inspiration for a movement demanding respect for women and much more. Such a symbol deserves a name. We will henceforth call her NIRBHAYA (the Fearless One).” Another newspaper christened her Damini. A T.V. channel preferred the name Amanat. Oh look, it was a baby shower sit-around session of sorts!

The media carefully chose names laden with optimism. They seemed to imply that there was something positive in the incident, something that would give others hope and courage. I for one fail to understand the optimism in men gang-raping me and shoving a rod inside me, and later dumping me on the roadside, from where I was ‘rescued’ much later than I should have, thanks to my brave fellow brethrens of he country. But maybe to each their own.

It almost seems like a way to get rid of the emotional guilt, an escape mechanism to reduce the horror of the situation prevailing around us. We can’t seem to digest the idea of calling her ‘the victim’, ‘the violated’, ‘the sufferer’, because that would make us squirm every time in our comfortable sofas while sipping tea as we watch the news channels fleshing out entertainment in the form of real people’s tragedies.

Who gave media this sort of a power? What right did they have to do this to a rape victim? The laws in India prohibit the name of the rape-victim from being released to maintain her privacy. But was her privacy maintained at all? Her family explicitly requested the media to not come to them looking for interviews or reactions. In fact, soon after her death, the family lamented that only a few immediate neighbours and relatives knew their plight, and that the visits of VIPs had revealed their identity to everyone.

The purpose of the anonymity was Not to create an empty space for Which-Newspaper-Hits-On-The-Most-Popular-Name competition. Or did the media really, in fact, need these names to create powerful sounding slogans; ‘Rape Victim Lives on in Memories,’ doesn’t sound all that catchy, nay?

She was not a public figure, she did not choose to do this. It ought to have been hers or her family’s decision to come out as and when they wanted to. But now, there are widespread references to her as Nirbhaya without even quotes around the name, as if that were her real name. “It’s strange to think that a name that is not her own will now become a Google search term for this young woman.” (See http://newamericamedia.org/2012/12/why-does-media-want-to-give-delhi-rape-victim-a-name.php.)

Now, Nirbhaya has become a cottage industry (See http://www.firstpost.com/india/dont-make-nirbhaya-a-cottage-industry-please-652903.html for the brilliant phrasing). South Delhi Municipal Corporation has named its science museum in RK Puram after her. There’s a Nirbhaya Women’s Safety App on the rounds. A new flyover in a suburb in Mumbai should be named ‘Nirbhaya’ in memory of the brave Delhi girl who died of injuries after her gang-rape, a Congress legislator demands. The finance minister announced a Nirbhaya fund in the 2013-2014 budget.  And now, even the US Government is honoring the “Delhi Braveheart Nirbhaya”. The Times of India must be proud.

 

 

Imagine, impossible as it might be, how it would feel to be lying on a hospital bed, trying to recover the last bit of life in your body, knowing in some pit of consciousness that the external world had very conveniently decided to name and describe you according to what they thought best (more accurately, what they thought the readers thought best), and create a label out of you and your tragedy. Who gave them the right to rob her of her identity? Is it not the worst kind of patronization?

Are you honouring her by giving her a name cooked up to suit popular tastes, a name that is not hers, a name that she had no role in deciding?  A name is a huge part of an identity. I will always be Nivedita Mukhija, proudly and individualistically, and no one has the right to take that away from me.

Yes, she was brave. She resisted vehemently, and she paid the cost of her resistance, many times over. Yes, she reported the crime and narrated the entire incident to the attorney, not once but twice. She still wanted to live, she said. But she wasn’t a martyr. She did not have any special powers. In fact, that was the whole reason why the public connected with her, as I noted before. She was one of us; an ordinary woman who wanted to board a bus to home after watching a movie at night with a male friend.  

But being brave does not mean being fearless. As a fellow blogger puts it,

What exactly about the entire incident was “fearless”? Are we assuming that she did not feel fear when six drunken beasts of men attacked her, sexually violated her and left her to die on the side of the road? Isn’t that a gross trivialization of what the girl must have gone through that night? What living being (man/woman/animal) would not feel fear at not only being violated but also living the next few days in hospitals with severely damaged intestines facing the prospect of losing their life? The name itself reeks of how we choose to oversimplify all problems, paint them in black and white, and pass them off as “all’s well in the end”. It’s almost like saying – “well what happened was bad, but she was quite fearless and that kind-of makes up for it” (See http://santanu.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/nirbhaya-whats-in-a-name/.)

Let us never forget that above all rhetoric and drama, she was, at the end, a victim. It could’ve happened to a woman who was not extraordinary brave, and an extraordinarily brave woman couldn’t have prevented the crime in all probability. Let us open our eyes to the grotesque-ness of the world.

 

This is not a parable, this is twenty-first century gender violence for you.

 

 —————-

 

(Meanwhile, the father of the victim has given permission for her name to be revealed. Badri Singh Pandey said he wants the world to know the name of his daughter Jyoti, who died in a Singapore hospital 13 days after the brutal rape in New Delhi. “I am proud of her. Revealing her name will give courage to other women who have survived these attacks,” said Mr Singh Pandey. “They will find strength from my daughter.”)

 

Image from : http://www.touchtalent.com/post/30748/dedicated-to-NIRBHAYA