#Indian feminism

[homosexuhauls]

By Vidya Krishnan

GOA, India — My niece was just 4 years old when she turned to my sister-in-law in a packed movie theater in Mumbai and asked about gang rape for the first time.

We were watching the latest Bollywood blockbuster about vigilante justice, nationalistic fervor and, of course, gang rape. Four male characters seized the hero’s sister and dragged her away. “Where are they taking Didi?” my niece asked, using the Hindi word for “elder sister.” It was dark, but I could still make out her tiny forehead, furrowed with concern.

Didi’s gang rape took place offscreen, but it didn’t need to be shown. As instinctively as a newborn fawn senses the mortal danger posed by a fox, little girls in India sense what men are capable of.

You may wonder, “Why take a 4-year-old to such a movie?” But there is no escaping India’s rape culture; sexual terrorism is treated as the norm. Society and government institutions often excuse and protect men from the consequences of their sexual violence. Women are blamed for being assaulted and are expected to sacrifice freedom and opportunity in exchange for personal safety. This culture contaminates public life — in movies and television; in bedrooms, where female sexual consent is unknown; in the locker room talk from which young boys learn the language of rape. India’s favorite profanities are about having sex with women without their consent.

It is the specific horror of gang rape that weighs most heavily on Indian women that I know. You may have heard of the many gruesome cases of women being gang-raped, disemboweled and left for dead. When an incident rises to national attention, the kettle of outrage boils over, and women sometimes stage protests, but it passes quickly. All Indian women are victims, each one traumatized, angry, betrayed, exhausted. Many of us think about gang rape more than we care to admit.

In 2011 a woman was raped every 20 minutes in India, according to government data. The pace quickened to about every 16 minutes by 2021, when more than 31,000 rapes were reported, a 20 percent increase from the previous year. In 2021, 2,200 gang rapes were reported to authorities.

But those grotesque numbers tell only part of the story: 77 percent of Indian women who have experienced physical or sexual violence never tell anyone, according to one study. Prosecutions are rare.

Indian men may face persecution because they are Muslims, Dalits (untouchables) or ethnic minorities or for daring to challenge the corrupt powers that be. Indian women suffer because they are women. Soldiers need to believe that war won’t kill them, that only bad luck will; Indian women need to believe the same about rape, to trust that we will come back to the barracks safe each night, to be able to function at all.

Reports of violence against women in India have risen steadily over the decades, with some researchers citing a growing willingness by victims to come forward. Each rape desensitizes and prepares society to accept the next one, the evil becoming banal.

Gang rape is used as a weapon, particularly against lower castes and Muslims. The first instance that women my age remember was in 1980, when Phoolan Devi, a lower-caste teenager who had fallen in with a criminal gang, said she was abducted and repeatedly raped by a group of upper-caste attackers. She later came back with members of her gang and they killed 22 mostly upper-caste men. It was a rare instance of a brutalized woman extracting revenge. Her rape might never have made headlines without that bloody retribution.

Ms. Devi threw a spotlight on caste apartheid. The suffering of Bilkis Bano — the defining gang rape survivor of my generation — highlighted the boiling hatred that Indian institutions under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, have for Muslim women.

In 2002 brutal violence between Hindus and Muslims swept through Gujarat State. Ms. Bano, then 19 and pregnant, was gang raped by an angry Hindu mob, which also killed 14 of her relatives, including her 3-year-old daughter. Critics accuse Mr. Modi — Gujarat’s top official at the time — of turning a blind eye to the riots. He has not lost an election since.

Ms. Bano’s life took a different trajectory. She repeatedly moved houses after the assault, for her family’s safety. Last August, 11 men who were sentenced to life in prison for raping her were released — on the recommendation of a review committee stacked with members of Mr. Modi’s ruling party. After they were freed, they were greeted with flower garlands by Hindu right-wingers.

The timing was suspicious: Gujarat was to hold important elections a few months later, and Mr. Modi’s party needed votes. A member of his party explained that the accused, as upper-caste Brahmins, had “good” values and did not belong in prison. Men know these rules. They wrote the rule book. What’s most terrifying is that releasing rapists could very well be a vote-getter.

After Ms. Bano, there was the young physiotherapy student who in 2012 was beaten and raped on a moving bus and penetrated with a metal rod that perforated her colon before her naked body was dumped on a busy road in New Delhi. She died of her injuries. Women protested for days, and even men took part, facing water cannons and tear gas. New anti-rape laws were framed. This time was different, we naïvely believed.

It wasn’t. In 2018 an 8-year-old Muslim girl was drugged and gang raped in a Hindu temple for days and then murdered. In 2020 a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped and later died of her injuries, her spinal cord broken.

The fear, particularly of gang rape, never fully leaves us. We go out in groups, cover ourselves, carry pepper spray and GPS tracking devices, avoid public spaces after sunset and remind ourselves to yell “fire,” not “help” if attacked. But we know that no amount of precaution will guarantee our safety.

I don’t understand gang rape. Is it some medieval desire to dominate and humiliate? Do these men, with little power over others, feeling inadequate and ordinary, need a rush of power for a few minutes?

What I do know is that other men share the blame, the countless brothers, fathers, sons, friends, neighbors and colleagues who have collectively created and sustain a system that exploits women. If women are afraid, it is because of these men. It is a protection racket of epic proportions.

I’m not asking merely for equality. I want retribution. Recompense. I want young girls to be taught about Ms. Bano and Ms. Devi. I want monuments built for them. But men just want us to forget. The release of Ms. Bano’s rapists was about male refusal to commemorate our trauma.

So we build monuments with words and our memories. We talk to one another about gang rape, keeping it at the center of our lives. We try to explain to our youngest, to start protecting them.

This is how the history of the defeated is recorded. That’s what it all boils down to: a fight between forgetting and remembering.

[apoptosisofthestars]

मर्द का तसव्वुर हमेशा औरतों को इस्मत के तने हुए रस्से पर खड़ा कर देता है।

~सआदत हसन मंटो

[fems-pov]

Little Indian 🇮🇳 feminist history lesson:

Savitribai Phule was a pioneer in providing education for girls and for ostracized sections of society, and the founding spirit of Indian feminist movement. She became the first female teacher in India (1848) and along with her husband, Jyotirao Phule a man of social reform himself, opened a school for girls in 1848.

She also established a shelter for widows (1854) and destitute women and child brides who were cast aside by their families (1864).

Her journey was not an easy one. She was abused and had cow dung thrown at her on her way to school by orthodox people. Savitribai simply changed into the spare clothes she carried with her everyday and continued on her journey.

In 1873, Savitribai started the practice of Satyashodhak Marriage, where couples took an oath of education and equality

Oppressed castes were forbidden from drinking water from the common village well. Jyotirao and Savitribai dug a well in their own backyard for them to drink water from.

She opened a clinic for plague victims in Pune, India in 1897 where she herself contracted the disease and breathed her last.

[balkanradfem]

(I just realised how long this is after typing it out. my bad, i have a habit of yapping too much 😭. Feel free to ignore this if you want. I love your posts btw i learn a lot thanks to you)

radfems seem to be more successful in korea compared to other regions. they are good at organising and have done public protests where they absolutely don’t hold back, Here’s some footage from a korean feminist protest: https://youtu.be/O4vWycy0sDI?si=2KmBUQ7Jpp9prt_q

The way they don’t care about what people think and just start all out screaming at men is refreshing. They have many radfem forums and groups and the discussions in these websites is so much more practical than what I’ve seen here.

They are very focused on self improvement and achieving economic, political and social success compared to radblr which is more communist and promotes living in a little wooden cabin in the woods with some other women to be more eco friendly. Nothing against communism i just think while we’re already living in a capitalist society promoting communism in female spaces will just lead to women becoming poorer and oppressed further by rich men. And nothing wrong with being eco friendly either but I don’t think women living in a hut will do anything when men still at large continue to destroy the world. 

the main website korean women use to organise is called womad. It’s so much better than any feminist forum I’ve ever seen. It’s anonymous and usernames are automatically generated and change every hour or so so that no one can be recognized anywhere. The police have been trying to crackdown on them because of extreme misandry for a long time but all attempts have failed. 

From reading their posts it seems almost all of them have a good understanding of politics and economics. Their discussions are productive and they don’t have any infighting like radblr and they don’t let any other social issue distract them from the real enemy which is men. What do you think could be the reason behind this? Are korean women just intellectually superior? I personally feel like korean women have the highest iq of all women. I look up to them a lot and womad has taught me a lot.

They even have a women’s party in korea and they won around 200,000 votes which isn’t a lot but it’s still a huge achievement. Check out womensparty.kr 

I wish indian women would catch up. I’m sick of indian moids taking up every inch of space in this country. Every street in india is filled with moids, it’s so dystopian there are no women in sight. One would think only men live here. This is also the reason there’s so much fucking trash in the streets. These overgrown manchildren who have their mommys clean up after them go out and throw trash wherever they see fit and do not bother cleaning because that’s a woman’s job. Women can’t go out to exercise because every public space is occupied by men. I’m so so sick of them. 

Power to the korean women! I'm glad you're finding guidance and inspiration in the feminism they lead and that they're so successful, I admire it as well!

I'm standing by indian women and hope they manage to gain freedom! And until they do, we need to prop them up and also be on their side. Only males are our enemies :)

[kathai-kavithai-kadhal]

புதுமைப் பெண் - The Modern Woman

நிமிர்ந்த நன்னடை நேர்கொண்ட பார்வையும்,

நிலத்தில் யார்க்கும் அஞ்சாத நெறிகளும்,

திமிர்ந்த ஞானச் செருக்கும் இருப்பதால்

செம்மை மாதர் திறம்புவ தில்லையாம்;

அமிழ்ந்து பேரிரு ளாமறி யாமையில்

அவல மெய்திக் கலையின் றி வாழ்வதை

உமிழ்ந்து தள்ளுதல் பெண்ணற மாகுமாம்

உதய கன்ன உரைப்பது கேட்டிரோ!

A woman who walks with her head held high, and meets everyone's eyes,

Fearless in her pursuit of living by her ethics and values,

And is proud of her wisdom, because of which

The revolutionary woman does not look back.

"To be unwilling to drown in the darkness of ignorace,

And give in to the tragedy of a life without knowledge (I'm not very sure if that correctly translates "kalayindri")

To push such a life away is the duty of a woman,"

Do you hear the woman who is rising up saying this?

[imperfectorange]

National Girl Child Day

For centuries in India, daughters have been worshiped as forms of the goddess Laxmi, while ironically, it is sons who have been regarded as a guarantee for economic security- the source of wealth and prosperity for the family. They are considered the ideal inheritors of one’s accumulated capital. Sons are expected to take care of their aging parents, and carry forward family businesses. Meanwhile parents start preparing for their daughter's 'vidhai' from the moment she is born, concerned about paying dowries, and expecting to ship her off to another home where she will take care of someone else's family. Due to this, many families have not wanted to invest in the care and keeping of a girl child, leading to historically high rates of female infanticide in the Indian subcontinent. With the onset of modern technology, such as ultrasounds, there has also been an increase in female foeticide.

Gender screenings and sex-based abortions have led to unnatural selection through social factors as opposed to physical ones. Generations of these practices have led to an incredibly skewed sex ratio in the country- as per the 2011 census the figures stood at 943 women per 1000 men, reaching as low as 800 in some states. Although a law was put in place to prevent female infanticide in 1870, under British India, it didn’t do much to curtail the practice. An act prohibiting pre-natal sex determination was passed in 1994, which has criminalized this process and helped reduce it to some extent. This has led to the strange concept of reproductive tourism taking rise in India, as citizens travel to countries where sex screenings are not banned to determine what their future holds.

Similarly, the government has started a lot of schemes such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao to increase focus and divert funding towards female education. In the modern world, more and more women are leaving the house to work, a result of families that have prioritized their education. The dependency that families feared from their daughters is no longer as great a cause for concern in many families in urban spaces. However, for many rural or poorer families, a girl child is still considered a curse, as funding her marriage becomes a great source for stress. Alternatively, funding her education is not even considered a viable option as they do not expect to see the return on their investment.

Due to this, National Girl Child Day and other recognitions of women are vital in nations like India, to celebrate the achievements of women and show the citizens that they are just as capable as a man, well worth the time and effort it takes to raise them. Especially when women are born into a society that already presents them with a series of obstacles to achieve success based solely on their gender, celebrating and empowering them from birth is vital to their development and that of the nation.

- Shreya, 24th January 2023.

[everything-is-crab]

😐😐

I see why Western feminists tokenize idolize Korean feminism sm but why can't Indian online feminists fucking stop saying shit like this because ik for a fact these people don't know a single shit about the feminist movement/branches in India.

Probably because all their information about feminism here comes from mainstream media which is currently dominated by libfems and MRAs. But just because libfems have the loudest voices in our media doesn't mean they make up the majority of women leaders and feminists here (the reason they're the loudest is because they're richer and only talk shit instead of do shit).

Not only is the feminist movement here much more active compared to Western countries but women are lead activists in so many other fields. The anti NRC and CAA protests? Yeah they were led mostly by women especially Muslim women because are affected more by those amendments than Muslim men. But ig your upper caste Hindu ass is too busy ignoring that.

The eco movement here? That's led by women too especially tribal women.

The abortion laws that were recently changed (for the better)? Yeah Indian women did that while American feminists lost a major reproductive right and had a meek reaction.

Our feminists are fighting in court against MRAs (who are increasing in popularity everyday) to get marital rape criminalized.

And all of this despite all the police brutality in our country against women. Women are raped,killed,beaten up by police for protesting even though it is illegal for male officers to even touch the women.

Have some fucking respect for the women risking their safety for your rights while you shit on them on tunglr.com and think you're superior because you refuse to date men.

Korean patriarchal culture is also much different from Indian patriarchal culture. Our current priorities are obviously not going to align with them when our struggles are so different even if there are common ones like rape and pornography.

Also South Korean women live under much better economy than Indian women. These women have the choice to focus on this movement and I am glad they're doing so. But I don't think many of you realize how much economy has got to do with the condition of women in a country.

I haven't seen a single fucking Indian feminist on here even mention that one of the worst things Indian women are facing today is dowry, female infanticide, cultural abuse and restriction because of in laws, right wing men trying to restore traditionality to build Hindutva or anything.

Why don't you log off Tumblr, YouTube and other bakwaas sites and apps filled with neoliberalist and pomo bs and maybe try to actually learn what the feminist movement here looks like. I am not saying we're perfect but we are far from "spineless".

[mottamadhan]

Interesting article I came across.

[ishq4jhumkas]

The Genius of Lajja

In 2024, we still have movies like Animal that are universally agreed to be misogynistic, become global hits. Yet, I haven't heard anyone talking about the movie Lajja, which was way ahead of its time despite not doing well in India.

Wikipedia describes it as "satirizes the honor with which women are placed in society and the restrictions imposed on them", which can't be more truthful.

Lajja is over the top in its violence against and its portrayal of men, but there is a light of truth behind the film that depicts real-world situations like rape, extramarital affairs, the prejudice against women in society, and domestic abuse.

In fact, even the names of the characters are a social commentary. The four main women in the story, Mahili, Janki, Ramdulaari, and Vaidehi, are all named after versions of Goddess Sita, which is the ideal name for Hindu women. You can fit right into a stereotype, do everything perfectly, match all the criteria for a perfect wife, yet there's no woman who can escape the brutality of man.

[rosaj1890]

A 23 year old medical student working as an intern was stabbed to death in my locality today . Her name was Vandana and she was a studious child with a bright future ahead of her . Instead of actually mending the laws and increasing the security in hospitals the bloody politicians and judiciary are sucking each other's dicks . I don't want this news to be stuck in my locality . I want everyone in the world to know about this . About a fellow medical intern who was murdered mercilessly by a random drug addict in the break of dawn while she was stiching up a wound that was in his hand .

This young lady was the only daughter in her family she was about to be engaged in a month and was all set to pursue her post graduation preparation. She was doing her night shift yesterday . Around 3 am in the morning 3 policemen came with a criminal who was intoxicated with alcohol. This man was not restrained in any manner . The police officers were not equipped in any manner .

Vandana was the casualty duty doctor that time and she proceeded to stitch up a wound in his hand . During the procedure, the criminal took the surgical scissors and stabbed her to death . She had 8 stab wounds in regions including her neck and chest and upper back which lead to severe injuries and internal bleeding following which she died .

The tragic story of a medical intern in India .

[dbunicorn]

There shouldn't be a spicy shiny Indian woman who ever says shit to me given the state of gender roles in your own country. How are you not more disgusted at this WRONG. I loathe weak women whose lives are made comfortable by the sacrifice of others.

A decade later have you NO shame for YOUR failures you fucking embarrassment. Go home. STFU.

Don't parrot what your phone tells you, you fucking trained useless stupid animal.

https://indiaforensic.com/certifications/video-learning/laundering-real-estate/#:~:text=The%20real%20estate%20sector%20is,potential%20to%20increase%20in%20value.

Read a book, on a mattress, with a yellow umbrella while you don't raise yours sons. Idiot.

As a culture, learn boundaries. Learn boundaries.leaen boundaries Learn to respect other people's cultures.

Like your husband disrespects you daily. That's true for Punjabi women asshole much to my disgust.

PS - I've only begun to be a bitch. 💋

[taylor14firefly]

by Mudit Kapoor and Shamika Ravi

February 10, 2014 "Within a democratic system, policies are implemented by a government that is formed “by the consent of the governed.” In India, even though fair elections are held at regular intervals for State Assemblies and the National Parliament, they do not reflect the true consent of the people because a large number of women voters are “missing” from the electorate. We estimate that more than 65 million women (approximately 20 per cent of the female electorate) are missing and, therefore, these elections reveal the preferences (or the will) of a population that is artificially skewed against women. Worsening sex ratio The phrase “missing women” was coined by Amartya Sen when he showed that in parts of the developing world, the ratio of women to men in the population is suspiciously low. The worsening sex ratio (number of females per 1,000 males) in countries such as India and China reflected the gross neglect of women. He estimated that more than 100 million women were missing due to gender discrimination. It was commonly believed that “boy preference” at birth and the mistreatment of young girls were the main reasons. Some careful and subsequent data work by Anderson and Ray showed that excess female mortality is a more universal phenomenon which holds for all age groups in these countries. They provided detailed decomposition of the missing women by age and cause of death and a particularly sinister observation was that the number of excess female deaths from “intentional injuries” or reported violence was disturbingly high in India. [...] [I]n the last 50 years of Indian democracy, the absolute number of missing women has increased fourfold from 15 million to 68 million. This is not merely a reflection of the growth in the overall population, but, rather, of the fact that this dangerous trend has worsened with time. As a percentage of the female electorate, missing women have gone up significantly — from 13 per cent to approximately 20 per cent."

[everything-is-crab]

Hey guys

If you're an Indian Marxist or Dalit feminist you should read about Anuradha Ghandy and her work :)

I might make a long post about her but I am very busy atm.

Ik there is a lack of Marxist feminists here so I found and read about one who was a woman ahead of her time.

The Indian government labeled her as a Maoist terrorist because of her role in Marxism and because she wrote really well about how the call for Hindutva relies on the patriarchy in her article "Fascism, Fundamentalism and Patriarchy".

She also called for the unity of feminist, anti-caste and Marxist movements and thought ignoring role of imperialism in women's oppression is counterproductive.

Please read about her. It might make Indian feminists realize how much more focus we must put on resisting violence against Dalit women and right wing Hindu men's dream of Hindutva.

Honestly I haven't gone deep in this country's Marxist feminist movement but I doubt I will find someone as intelligent and brave as her. But I certainly hope I do.

I haven't read her book yet but I am meaning to someday.

If anyone has or will read it soon then please drop a review :)

[mottamadhan]

So this was supposed to happen for real in a city in my country but the event got cancelled.

On one hand, I wanna laugh at how pathetic the organisers are to bootlick a human trafficker who'd be racist af to them but on the other hand, it's horrifying how many men are following this sick POS's words and treating it like gospel and acting like men are more oppressed than women when in reality, EVERYTHING is made for males and women are merely an afterthought.

I never had much hope for men in my country and tbh I'm not surprised they'd do something like this.