patriarchy
The Future is Femme
The patriarchy is petrified of gender fluidity. Not only does the femininomenon threaten the modes of sex-based binaries, but it also undermines sexist hierarchies.
By Sindhu Rajasekaran
October 17, 2024
एकल जीवन की सराहना
Growing up, for me, has been about accepting that the loneliness and sadness woven into the fabric of my being do not go away with entering conventional arrangements like monogamous relationships or marriage.
By Siddhi Pandey
August 20, 2024
राख से सोना बनाना – कैसे मध्यम आयु वर्ग की महिलाएं यौनिकता और आध्यात्मिकता का जश्न मनाती हैं
The most satisfying spiritual and sexual experiences I’ve had were not in my twenties, thirties or even forties. They have been in my 50’s. The most insightful spiritual insights, and the most orgasmic orgasms have both arrived in middle age.
By Nighat Gandhi
Sexing the Digital
That offline patriarchal norms are travelling online – lock, stock and barrel. Digital technologies may appear to be gender-neutral, but floating below their waters is the whole kit and caboodle of patriarchy.
By Bishakha Datta
December 18, 2023
Patriarchy Won’t Let Me Masturbate
That’s all the big roles and ethics
All there to fulfil.
Another task,
Another box to tick
Another concrete path to rush
Quick, simple and straight.
By Shashwat
June 16, 2023
Shifting the Gaze: How women wish to experience desire
This awareness of the status ascribed to women – the status of being the objects of men’s desires – affects every aspect of a woman’s life. Desire then, in particular, becomes an aspect of a woman’s life where navigation becomes tricky.
By Gitanjali
March 17, 2023
What we don’t talk about when we don’t talk about kink
I realise that a lot of men want (and need) to dominate women not because it is mutually pleasurable but because it reinforces patriarchal hierarchies. The taboo around kink, as a larger space of exploration, and BDSM, as a part of it, only furthers the violence, intensifying the apparent mystery of these subjects.
By Trijita
March 17, 2023
Walks, Braids, Miranda, and Memories
This was the time we were growing up, learning new things, reading new books and discovering something new almost every day, and this all-women space provided an opportunity to do that without requiring any pretence or catering to the male gaze.
By Ambica Naithani
November 15, 2022
Obedience, the Greater Good and Self-Exploration
Years of control and suppression made their presence felt emotionally, mentally, and even physically. I would walk hunched up and was extremely conscious of how I should present myself physically, so as not to displease others. Those were very stressful days.
By Taniya Mondal
September 1, 2022
‘A Promise to Stand By’: The quiet feminism of Nathicharami
Nathicharami takes sexuality and sexual desire away from upper-class, Gucci-clad women and makes its viewers acknowledge its existence in the lives of women (middle-class wives and widows, in the case of this film) who are invisibilised, both in the society they live in and as subjects of popular content.
By Srishti Gupta
Of “unapologetically flawed” women and feminism-lite: A review of Four More Shots Please!
Four More Shots Please! moves in the right direction when it comes to women (of a particular social stratum), their lives, and feminism at large – even if it takes small, stumbling, baby steps towards it.
By Srishti Gupta
The Nun Within: Reflections on our self-care workshops with activists
I know that the lives of many human rights defenders are under continuous threat, that sometimes it is impossible to sleep or to enjoy a moment of peace because of the harassment coming from the outside. What I address in this text is our internal disposition as activists, and the ideas that stop us from taking care of and holding ourselves together.
By Rosa Posa Guinea
Review: What Does Clothing Have to do with Sexuality in the Media?
Attire and sexuality in the common imagination and approach as represented (and also as received) by the mainstream media tell us a lot about prevailing attitudes to both. Advertisements bombard us with all kinds of representations, negative and positive, of human sexuality, sexual expression and desire. In the creation and marketing of attire and fashion, there is a great awareness of sexual buy-in or rejection by the market – that’s us.
By Shikha Aleya
Brushstrokes: Dear Sex-Ed Textbook
Robot Hugs gives us a glimpse into the doubts and confusions they grappled with while growing up, and unravels the tightly wound preconceptions in culture influenced by, and at the same time, influencing scientific and medical imagination.
By Curated Content
June 15, 2021
Video: Kalki Koechlin: The Printing Machine | Unblushed
Sharp and evocative, Kalki Koechlin’s spoken-word poem The Printing Machine lays bare the cycle of ceaseless and desensitised consumption engendered by the media. Kalki’s short and hard-hitting sentences, keys tap-tap-tapping, and the chrrs and grrs of printing machines bring out the urgency and sensationalism media narratives embody, turning incidents of violence into a stream of headlines that make us gasp and forget, gasp and forget.
By TARSHI
June 15, 2021