Same-Sex Love: In Conversation with Dr Ruth Vanita

DR RUTH VANITA (b.1955), is a renowned academic and author specializing in lesbian and gay studies. Some of her acclaimed books include Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society (2002), Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India and the West (2005), and Gandhi’s Tiger and Sita’s Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and [...]

Matters of Maal

a.k.a. The Day Feminism Crawled Out The Back Door “Sahi maal hai” they said, as they walked down the street, breezing by me waiting patiently for a dear friend.

Childbirth and Choices

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’ [...]

The Shaming of Scarlett Keeling

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 [...]

Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: Abortion in India

NOT ALL OF US may agree on whether or not abortion is ethical. Some may feel that it is sinful, but a subjective choice nonetheless. Others may approve in theory but with a dose of “abortion guilt”, to use Naomi Wolf’s term. Still others, I realise, may condemn it altogether. But wherever we stand personally [...]

How to Eat A Wolf

Does all lust start and end like this? Don’t get me wrong. I loved my wolf. I held him tethered like a pussycat. I nursed the rumble in his belly with hands gentle as a burglar’s. He lived on milk and blood and ocean. He had violets for his furs.

The Immorality of Saying ‘No’ to Sex Education

OVER THE YEARS, sex education has been debated either in the context of concerns about population control or AIDS prevention. Does education about sex and sexuality have to be perceived only within the confines of these two arenas? In the wake of the Central Government’s attempts to introduce sex education from Class VI onwards, the [...]

‘Look Ma, No Stains’: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

DIRECTOR PRADEEP Sarkar seems to be suffering a hangover from his earlier movie Parineeta, which was based in pre-Independence times. What else can explain his deplorably regressive ideas and sensibilities in Laaga Chunari Mein Daag? For while the film vociferously proclaims its understanding of the “quintessential modern Indian woman”, its storyline falls back on simplistic [...]

Curtains at the Workplace and Gloria Steinem

TAKING OFF from Dilnavaz’s post on menstruation and the shame surrounding it, what I find particularly irritating are the practical implications of this at a workplace. In most offices, men and women work in close quarters and it can get really awkward because one is expected to hide something that’s so integral and, well, regular. [...]

Under Wraps: Drawing the Curtains on Female Sexuality

THESE QUESTIONS go out to the ladies who have lived any part of their lives in India: Ever been sanitary napkin/ tampon shopping? Ever had your purchases wrapped up in a newspaper/ bag, “safe” from the eyes of the world? Now here’s my gnawing question: Why? Menstruation is a topic that is very rarely talked [...]