Shikha Aleya
Look sharp. Consent is tricky, hiding secrets behind the empowerment toolkit and all our good intentions. Why? Because we activate this value-loaded word in a world where many, or most things, are still about the first-mover advantage. A world that holds typically narrow views of capacity, ability and success.
I think we are still in a trap of a heteronormative, youth biased, light skin biased, sizeist, ableist culture and until we consciously snap out of it we are throwing a cloak over a human being’s ability to really find what their sexuality even looks like.
I feel that parents, teachers and CSE can make room for these disparate realities of adolescents by first acknowledging the limits of formal sexuality education, that the curriculum imparted formally fails in providing the kind of learning that happens through other sources.
Here’s to some quiet time listening in to what people are saying, and consuming, on the Internet, particularly on social media, on the subject of gender and sexuality.
The larger question is, who gets to bring all of themselves to the workplace, and who is either not allowed, or feels scared, or is bullied for doing so?
काम और यौनिकता? इस तरह से देखें तो यह आपकी पूरी ज़िंदगी है।
We need to expand the way we look at work, the workplace and the human being, understanding our approach to sexuality, society and each other.
In this interview with Shikha Aleya, Maya speaks with a deep knowledge of ground realities about the increasing informalisation of labour and its implications for gender and sexuality, and about what labour rights and inclusion mean in real terms.
Queering to me is thinking, being, living and loving outside societal norms.
In this great repository of the human collective consciousness and exposure lies a wealth of tacit knowledge of COVID-19 that is independent of the subject expert.
Getting to know who I really am has been a game changer. Prejudice, anger, control and violence all emerge from fear.
Entertainment should aim to inspire, comfort, reflect and express. Even if something violent earns big at the box office, it doesn’t justify its creation.
What we lack are digital spaces and infrastructures that are informed by the needs of their end users, that prioritise safety, comfort, joy and care.
Fashion is a language that expresses survival, rebellion, freedom, visibility and invisibility, identity, representation and inclusion.
Clothes for me are our first line of defence. They are also our first act of providing relief.