Men & Emotions
What I am about to say might infuriate the feminists here. But be patient and stay with me awhile. Sympathy is easy. Empathy is hard. Harder it is to empathise with someone who has suffered from things too atrocious for one’s imagination. Harder still is to empathise with the perpetrator. And it is this that [...]
"But he didn't abuse you physically…or sexually?"
#16DOT blogger, Neha Sharma, writes about her experience of emotional abuse in a relationship and the sympathy she received from no one (forget empathy) only because he didn’t lay a single hand on her.
Women in Red Corridors
Mahima Singh retraces the roots of her understanding of violence and expresses how the opportunities for women are dismal, perceivably non-existent, in the red corridor regions of the country.
For the women, the valley is no paradise!
Rhythma Kaul recounts a few memory flashes from her childhood spent in the Kashmir valley.
Reflection on the Montreal Massacre
December 6, 1989. Marc Lepine arrives at the Universite de Montreal with a semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife. He kills fourteen women. He is fighting feminism. Lepine entered an engineering classroom and ordered the men and women to separate onto opposite sides of the room. He ordered the men to leave and asked the women if they [...]
'Mein Kampf' with Feminism
Are women today retrograding back to the societal ways of the Victorian era?
First Hindi Entry: Rights Reporter, Ashish shares Ram Devi's account
Breakthrough’s Right Reporters share the account of Ram Devi, a vegetable seller, who appeals for change in the way society treats and perceives girls.
Employers Tolerate Sexual Harassment
Why has sexual harassment reached epidemic proportions at the workplace?
What does it mean to really help, make a change
A year ago My maid is an illiterate woman from Bihar, Muslim by religion, but with relatively fair IQ for her being and upbringing. She is single-handed bringing up her 5 kids and taken steps to ensure no more babies all by herself. In response to her act, the husband went absconding for good 2 [...]
Regulation of Disabled Women’s Sexuality
In general, women’s voices for their specific rights in the disability rights movement in India are hardly present. Voices of disabled women is almost absent in the mainstream women’s rights movement. The politics of ‘normal’ or ‘able’ bodies and minds is further complicates disabled women’s identity. Societal norms with regard to the ‘ideal’ womanhood and the ‘ideal body’ render physically disabled and mentally challenged women invisible. They become objects to be hidden, never to be seen, heard or felt. Since feminism is a politics of the oppressed against being pushed to the margins, disability, in my view, is a feminist issue. As an oppressed group, disabled women and men face challenges related to educational and training opportunity, inclusion, occupational attainment, economic status, and social outlets. But disabled women face particular issues of reproductive rights; control over their bodies; physical, sexual and emotional violence; and sexual rights and representations, which are considered taboo topics by the disability movement. It is important, therefore, that feminisms in India change towards inclusiveness and support the disabled women in rejecting the traditional subservient and invisible role. There is a need for a new emancipatory politics for the disabled women, which is led by the disabled women from the centre of the Indian women’s movement.
