Hema Gopinathan left a blight of a corporate career to homeschool her two children. A teacher trained in the Waldorf/ Rudolf Steiner pedagogy, a writer, an artist, a crocheter, Hema spends half her time in the manic Mumbai waiting impatiently for her teens to fly the coop and the other half in the sylvan Himalayan foothills where she lives the quiet, sustainable life on her farm. She can also be found at youareanothing.com
Saudagar (1973), the Nutan-Amitabh-Padma Khanna starrer shows how women's work is not just invisibilised, but also how it is used by men to uphold patriarchy to benefit themselves.
So much of patriarchy is about controlling women, their behaviour, their bodies, their choices. A Chudail, or as in Roohi, a Mudiyapairi, is the way Hindi films often deal with this.
Can the unnamed but spunky heroine of The Great Indian Kitchen help to finally put away all the adarsh naaris on the Indian screen, like Suman from Maine Pyar Kiya?
Mumbai HC judge Pushpa Ganediwala rules that "mere groping is not sexual assault, unless it is skin on skin contact", setting back the struggles to define sexual violence against children.
By glorifying the sexual harassment the female protagonist faces in the film Sir, Is Love Enough, we've made life more unsafe for domestic workers. Just note the power differential.
The Great Indian Kitchen. A movie that can only be made by a Malayali director, who takes on patriarchy and religion, with such gumption.
Women farmers, especially from the farming communities of Punjab who are in the protest, cannot be 'kept' anywhere without their consent.
Karnataka State Government to provide 'bride price' for poor Brahmin brides with Arundhati & Maitreyi schemes, but with a few caveats that make us wonder.
Kangana Ranaut yet again puts her foot in her mouth by taking on those she calls 'housewives', dictating that they do all unpaid labour just for 'love'.
Why do we need to use tropes of mental illness, addiction, violence that breaks a woman, to show her as a strong character that then 'rises' from these ashes to avenge herself?
The kitchen is made to be the battleground where women are pitted against each other, by a patriarchy that benefits from it. Time for a change?
Indian Matchmaking. Made me wonder if we have progressed at all since Independence, in our attitude towards women, their education, and their place in society.
The whole point of pressure cooking was to keep the pressure in and not release it multiple times thereby wasting time and fuel. But...
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