Too many cooks
Cooking has always been a gendered activity, and the arrival of gourmet foods as part of globalised lifestyles and cooking as a glamorous spectator sport on TV, has done little to alter the politics around food, writes Manjima Bhattacharjya
Compensation is the last mile in recognising rape as a crime
No amount of money can restore the dignity and confidence of a rape victim, and certainly compensation is meaningless if the guilty are not punished. But monetary compensation does at least recognise rape or sexual assault as a crime, writes Manjima Bhattacharjya
After the Slutwalk
Sheila, Munni and popular culture replete with sexual and sensual references notwithstanding, the debates around Delhi’s Slutwalk reveal that we’re still hypocritical about acknowledging women’s sexuality, says Manjima Bhattacharjya
Molly's story
This April, which is Child Sexual Abuse Awareness month, a story about a searing summer of violations, to crack the wall of silence around the issue and remind us that over 53% of India’s children have experienced sexual abuse
Doing the dirty work of a globalised economy?
The globalised economy of conspicuous consumption requires the outsourcing of domestic labour to migrant women – the Thai, Filipina and Ethiopian migrant in Europe, the tribal in India. Low wages and exploitative conditions are recognised problems, but what about the ethics of passing domestic work ‘down’ to another oppressed category?
We are only halfway to understanding women's 'agency'
Feminism’s deepest belief is that women’s voices must come to the fore, but when they do, we find these voices often scuttle our assumptions about what should be the right/legitimate form of ‘agency’. How do we account for the agency of women returning to violent partners, of women who decide not to throw off the veil but put it on, of women who want to be mail-order brides or sex workers? Manjima Bhattacharjya explores
Redefining rape
Women are increasingly reporting sexual violations/exploitation within the home, workplace, friends’ circle or university that don’t quite match the strict requirements of ‘rape’ or the loose connotations of ‘outraging her modesty’, the two broad types of sexual violations that the law recognises. Will the long-pending Sexual Assault Bill help?
Moving beyond legalisation
The Supreme Court of India recently asked the government why they don’t legalise prostitution if they can’t curb it. But do women in sex work really want a piece of paper called a license? Or police reforms that may lead to freedom from extortion, convictions against traffickers rather than new laws, directives and campaigns that make discrimination against women in prostitution legally punishable and socially condemnable?
Rumble in the desert
On May 17, 2009, four women were elected to the Kuwaiti parliament as MPs for the first time ever, spelling progress and change in the region. Indeed, the Middle East has been a black hole in the history of feminism, says Manjima Bhattacharjya, and we have only just begun to understand the unique issues and positions of women here
Cosmetic changes on violence against women?
For 15 years the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women has helped bring VAW into the public domain as something more than a ‘private issue’. But have all these conceptual breakthroughs trickled down to the ground, asks Manjima Bhattacharjya
