Author: Sujatha Subramanian

नकली या फ़ेक पहचान के साथ ऑनलाइन होना – युवा महिलाओं द्वारा एक से अधिक प्रोफ़ाइल बना, सोशलसोशल मीडिया पर आत्म-अभिव्यक्ति करना

·July 1, 2020
·Sujatha Subramanian
·0 Comments

अपनी एम. फिल. की थीसिस के लिए मैंने “सेल्फ़ी लेने और सोशल मीडिया की ओर युवा महिलाओं के आकर्षण” के विषय को चुना था। मेरे ऐसा करने के पीछे कई कारण थे। सबसे महत्वपूर्ण कारण यह था कि मैं युवा महिलाओं के मन में टेक्नालजी, आत्म-अभिव्यक्ति तथा शरीर के प्रति लगाव को समझना और डॉकयुमेंट…

Still from a video. A boy hugs a woman from behind. They look at each other in the mirror in front of them. The woman is holding a comb in her hand. The boy is wearing a checked black and white shirt.

Being Fake, Being Online: Young Women’s Self-Expressions through Multiple Profiles on Social Media

·July 1, 2015
·Sujatha Subramanian

My decision to study young women’s engagement with selfies and social media as part of my M.Phil thesis was influenced by a number of reasons. The most significant of these was the desire to understand and document young women’s relationship with technology, self-expression and bodies. This is crucial in a context where media discourses, including…

Poster for the film 'dirty picture', shoeing actress vidya balan leaning against actor emraan hashmi

The Dirty Picture

·October 1, 2014
·Sujatha Subramanian

The Dirty Picture, directed by Milan Luthria (2011) has ushered in various debates around sexuality through its representation of sexuality and the corpus of texts surrounding it, such as the public image of the actor playing the lead role. The film is widely believed to have been inspired by the life of Indian film actor,…

In Plainspeak publishes two issues with a theme every month.
A cross-cutting theme across all forthcoming issues in 2021 is how we can expand safe, inclusive sexuality-affirming spaces.

THIS ISSUE:

June – Representation and Sexuality, I Issue – June 15, 2021
Drawing from the oft-discussed conundrum ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?’ we ask: How might we be truly and meaningfully seen and heard, especially if we do not find accurate or adequate representation in mainstream discourse? Representation is a broad term – it might mean political legitimacy of our gender identity and sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion and so on, inclusivity in decision-making processes, highlighting narratives of identities and communities which are marginalised, and portraying sexuality openly and authentically. Our lived experience as well as what we are told by way of religious and/or moral tenets, popular culture, and even advertising, shape the way we look at and interact with our socio-cultural-political milieu. And, while representation may influence how we perceive things, we are not passive consumers of it – we can bring to it a critical eye, point to what’s missing, and if we don’t like what’s on offer we can demand or create other representations. In the June issue of In Plainspeak we explore how representation (and even misrepresentation, or none at all!) may affirm or violate our sexual rights and the assertion of our individual and collective identity.

July – Sexuality and Self-care
People in caring roles, people like us, activists, human rights defenders, home care providers, health care personnel, amongst many other care-givers, tend to work tirelessly. Immersed as we are in the immediate demands of care-provision, we often have very little time and energy to take care of ourselves. Public health emergencies like the current COVID-19 (and HIV and AIDS forty years ago, and still counting) and socio-political, human-made and natural disasters add to our already heavy burden. For those of us who work on fraught issues of sexuality and sexual rights, with the very nature of our work looked askance at, self-care can seem like an indulgence, a frivolity, especially given the current capitalisation of the ‘wellness industry’ (an oxymoron, to begin with). However, self-care, in its truest sense, is not a commodity, but a radical act rooted in the politics of inter-connectedness. If in doing the work that we do, we flounder in eddies of tiredness, hopelessness, dejection or apathy and consequently have nothing joyful left to offer to ourselves or to another, what’s the point? What’s the Point of Revolution, if We Can’t Dance? ask Jane Barry and Jelena Djordjevic in their 2008 book on sustaining the wellbeing of women human rights activists.
What is it that we do for ourselves to keep going, to take care of ourselves, to practice intentional self-care? Exercise? Meditate? Get enough sleep? Reach out to our friends? Practice saying ‘no’? Build solidarity with others? Enjoy the pleasures that our body gives us? What else? The July issue of In Plainspeak dares us to dance, to transmute dejection to delight, and to tell our stories of how in caring for ourselves we expand the possibilities of caring for others and realising our vision of a world where all people enjoy their rights.

For future issue themes, click here.

Would you like to contribute? Send an email to blogeditor@tarshi.net with your idea. Do take a look at our submission guidelines!

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