Ultra Violet features a community of young feminists blogging on various issues, challenges, and triumphs that affect women in India today. This is a Hengasara Hakkina Sangha initiative. Write to us: ultraviolet.editor[at]gmail.com
WORLD OVER, tax is the highest source of government revenue. Even as the finance minister in India was raising the ceiling on taxable income for women, there was a petition in the Madras High Court questioning this. The petitioner alleged that the provision of taxing women less violates men’s constitutional right to equality. The HC, in turn, asked the Union Government to respond on why tax benefits should favour women. So why should men and women taxed differently? Read more »
ABOUT A MONTH back, we had an editorial meeting. Which is to say that the three of us sat around over chai and rusk at the HHS office and talked about UV, feminism, being women and other such. We took some decisions and tentatively started implementing them. Then some time back, we were approached by someone writing a book on international public relations who wanted to feature UV. Also, noted feminist writer Ammu Joseph informed me that she has written an article for Verve in which she has talked about UV — all good news that I was keen to share with you. This also gave me the impetus to share some of the changes that we’re hoping to make around here. Read more »
JUST POPPED IN to post this video from the Feminist Majority Foundation. The word ‘feminist’ comes with so much baggage and this is such a cool, smart way to dispel some ridiculous notions. It’s a simple concept but by visually representing the diverse kinds of people who are feminists, it busts some of the myths that swarm around us. I wonder what an Indian version of this would look like.
GIVEN ALL THE advantages of having the National Commission for Women (NCW) and the State Commissions for Women (SCW), what can one make of a news story such as ‘Operation Park’? The SCW Orissa, with cameramen and police in tow, went to a city park in Bhubaneshwar and descended on the boys and girls sitting there. The girls were roundly lectured and told that they should be sitting in class rather than wasting their time. They were also told that they could be victims of ‘cheat-rape’ cases. The news reports also quote the SCW Chairperson as saying she could not imagine how young boys and girls can be involved in such nasty and abhorrent activities in the open. Sounds familiar? Read more »
ON MARCH 28, Lalpari Devi, a 45-year-old Dalit woman was accused of being a witch by caste-Hindu, feudal villagers in Bihar who mercilessly beat her up, paraded her through the streets, tied her to a palm tree, cut her hair and smeared her face with limestone paste. She was saved from certain death by the timely arrival of the police. Lalpari somehow managed to survive the ordeal of social censure and hysteric, mob-driven humiliation. Many of her sisters have not been that lucky.
According to conservative (official, and outdated) estimates, 2,556 women were branded as witches and killed in India between 1987 and 2003. From 1991 to 2000, over 522 cases of witch-hunting have been registered in Bihar alone. Read more »
WHILE THE FEMINIST movement may have focused more on the right to abortion than other reproductive rights, there is a growing acknowledgment in the US and elsewhere that women’s right to safe, natural childbirth is being severely threatened by the imposition of the medical model. In the medical system, pregnant women are treated as ’sick’ and childbirth as a dangerous event deserving of any and all intervention designed to make the process as ’safe’ as possible. A spate of blogs and books written by moms, midwives and other reproductive health advocates indicates that women aren’t taking this lying down. Read more »
THAT VIOLENCE against women rarely grabs any attention except for in the presence of gruesomeness, sensationalism, drama and tragedy is already known. But more disturbing by far than the fact that the murder of a teenage tourist in Goa last month has been making headlines precisely due to its cocktail of all the above elements is the level of moral sanctimony that accompanies the media coverage, the ensuing debates, and even what are ostensibly the responses of those who knew Scarlett Keeling and her family. Read more »
IT WAS DURING the anti-Mandal protests that many young, urban women from universities held up placards saying that an increase in reservation for the Dalit and OBC population would harm their chances of getting qualified men as husbands. During the riots in Mumbai after the Babri Masjid demolition and in the Gujarat pogrom, many Hindu women from right wing organisations actively aided the men in their attacks against Muslim women. Read more »
MY FIRST BRUSH with feminist theory was at the ripe old age of 23, when, as a volunteer to a visually disabled PhD student, I read aloud portions of Black Feminist Thought and unabashedly displayed my ignorance. But way before that time of unknowing, began a journey of imbibing a belief system, questioning existing patriarchal norms and learning to negotiate for space in the world. Read more »
DR GAIL OMVEDT (1941) is an American-born Indian sociologist and human rights activist. Some of her notable books are: We Shall Smash This Prison: Indian Women in Struggle (1979), Gender and Technology: Emerging Asian Visions (1994), Dalits and the Democratic Revolution (1994), and Dalit Visions: the Anticaste movement and Indian Cultural Identity (1994).
In this short, email interview, Gail responds to questions on caste and gender. Read more »
WITHIN ME lies a paradoxical divide regarding housework which I’d imagine is familiar to many. On the one hand, cooking and cleaning provide a certain busyness and peace because of a sense of creating nourishment or a tidy environment. On the other hand, there are other hazy feelings leaning towards dislike and fear of “women’s work”. So there’s a conflict between wanting to respect the traditional realm of tasks which women have been doing through the ages and wanting to break free of the shackles and spend time on other things that are (construed) as more rewarding or valuable. Read more »
FROM BEING an issue that was considered almost ridiculous just a decade ago, the campaign for land rights for women has gathered momentum in recent times, especially since the 2005 Amendment of the Hindu Succession Act of 1956. The Amendment establishes the rights of daughters and widows of sons to a share in ancestral agricultural land and includes daughters as co-partners in the Mitaksara joint family property. This means that they will have the same birthrights as sons — to share property, to claim partition and to become “managers” while also sharing liabilities.
WORLD OVER, tax is the highest source of government revenue. Even as the finance minister in India was raising the ceiling on taxable income for women, there was a petition in the Madras High Court questioning this. The petitioner alleged that the provision of taxing women less violates men’s constitutional right to equality. The HC, in turn, asked the Union Government to respond on why tax benefits should favour women. So why should men and women taxed differently? Read more »
ABOUT A MONTH back, we had an editorial meeting. Which is to say that the three of us sat around over chai and rusk at the HHS office and talked about UV, feminism, being women and other such. We took some decisions and tentatively started implementing them. Then some time back, we were approached by someone writing a book on international public relations who wanted to feature UV. Also, noted feminist writer Ammu Joseph informed me that she has written an article for Verve in which she has talked about UV — all good news that I was keen to share with you. This also gave me the impetus to share some of the changes that we’re hoping to make around here. 
GIVEN ALL THE advantages of having the 
ON MARCH 28, Lalpari Devi, a 45-year-old Dalit woman was accused of being a witch by caste-Hindu, feudal villagers in Bihar who mercilessly beat her up, paraded her through the streets, tied her to a palm tree, cut her hair and smeared her face with limestone paste. She was saved from certain death by the timely arrival of the police. Lalpari somehow managed to survive the ordeal of social censure and hysteric, mob-driven humiliation. Many of her sisters have not been that lucky.
WHILE THE FEMINIST movement may have focused more on the right to abortion than other reproductive rights, there is a growing acknowledgment in the US and elsewhere that women’s right to safe, natural childbirth is being severely threatened by the imposition of the medical model. In the medical system, pregnant women are treated as ’sick’ and childbirth as a dangerous event deserving of any and all intervention designed to make the process as ’safe’ as possible. A spate of blogs and books written by moms, midwives and other reproductive health advocates indicates that women aren’t taking this lying down. 
THAT VIOLENCE against women rarely grabs any attention except for in the presence of gruesomeness, sensationalism, drama and tragedy is already known. But more disturbing by far than the fact that the murder of a teenage tourist in Goa last month has been making headlines precisely due to its cocktail of all the above elements is the level of moral sanctimony that accompanies the media coverage, the ensuing debates, and even what are ostensibly the responses of those who knew Scarlett Keeling and her family. 
IT WAS DURING the anti-Mandal protests that many young, urban women from universities held up placards saying that an increase in reservation for the Dalit and OBC population would harm their chances of getting qualified men as husbands. During the riots in Mumbai after the Babri Masjid demolition and in the Gujarat pogrom, many Hindu women from right wing organisations actively aided the men in their attacks against Muslim women. 
MY FIRST BRUSH with feminist theory was at the ripe old age of 23, when, as a volunteer to a visually disabled PhD student, I read aloud portions of 
FROM BEING an issue that was considered almost ridiculous just a decade ago, the campaign for land rights for women has gathered momentum in recent times, especially since the 2005 Amendment of the Hindu Succession Act of 1956. The Amendment establishes the rights of daughters and widows of sons to a share in ancestral agricultural land and includes daughters as co-partners in the Mitaksara joint family property. This means that they will have the same birthrights as sons — to share property, to claim partition and to become “managers” while also sharing liabilities.
