Gender
Editorial: Literature and Sexuality
As we see through this issue of In Plainspeak, stories have in them the power of exposing brutal truths about society and therefore also bring with them the possibility of reform, change, and hope, and when not possible, temporarily escaping into other worlds.
By TARSHI
March 16, 2020
The Politics of Sexuality: Through Manto’s License
Manto’s writings reflected both his own context and more. His stories dealt with eternal issues like love, deceit, pain, friendship and materialism. They also dealt with the specificity of national liberation movements, partition and the class-caste-religion matrix influencing human relationships in the particular context of South Asia.
By Rashmi Gopi
March 2, 2020
Windows: My Introduction To Sexuality Through Literature
All these works have made me acutely aware of how gender, sexuality, and religion, are so deeply intertwined in the social fabric. Also, how conditioning can significantly influence one’s understanding of literature, or the lack of it.
By Asmi
March 2, 2020
Finding Lit’s Political Potentials
Fiction is often relegated to a secondary stow because fact-based forms of knowledge are becoming more and more valued. To be informed is to stay with the facts. Yet I think fiction allows us to stay just about as informed.
By Shweta Krishnan
March 2, 2020
Finding The Pleasure Point In Internet Policy Spaces
Someone called me a policy animal a few years back and I grudgingly agreed that indeed I’m one of those people who does get excited by the idea of influencing policy negotiations and policymaking
By Curated Content
February 17, 2020
Where Do I Go?
As renowned queer scholar Judith Butler said, “For those who are still looking to become possible, possibility is a necessity.” This is essential but also easier said than done.
By Smita Vanniyar
January 2, 2020
Issue in Focus: Sexual Rights
It may be useful to visualise sexual rights as a large tree with deep roots and a vast canopy of leaves. Or as a giant umbrella. Or a big tent. Whatever tickles your imagination and allows you to see it as a conceptual and practical tool to make claims for any aspect that relates to how we express sexuality.
By Radhika Chandiramani
December 2, 2019
Video Page: What is Intersectionality?
If feminism is about fighting for equality, then how can we ensure that our feminism is truly inclusive and equal? Does it feature only a certain kind of voice or experience, and not take into account the multiple axes of oppression that another group of people may face?
By Curated Content
December 2, 2019
Transgressions And Public Displays: Chronicles Of A Metrocommuter
As a young woman, I feel powerless to do much more than get disturbed by this issue, write about it and talk about it with as many people as I can, with the hope that more of us will get disturbed by it and become more accepting of diverse expressions of gender and sexuality.
By Shivangi Gupta
December 2, 2019
Sacred Sonic Constellations: Abida Parveeen and Falguni Pathak
Sounds of Abida Parveen and Falguni Pathak’s force move me to other frames, that foreground unforgiven settlements. They provide me with what Jacqui Alexander has so beautifully called “pedagogies of the sacred.”
By Sara Shroff
November 1, 2019
As a Transman, The Pressure to Fit in the Masculine Role is Immense
Masculinity once upon a time was just a word we studied in school, whose sole purpose was to differentiate binary gender in the society. Now masculinity is a criteria of a certain job that a person has to perceive to be called or termed as one.
By Curated Content
October 15, 2019
Video Page: Moustaches Unlimited
Is a moustache synonymous with the socially established understanding of what makes a ‘man’, is it what marks the degree of manliness, or rather, the degree of male privilege, and is it something that defines the kind of relationships men share with each other?
By Curated Content
October 1, 2019
Keeping It All Secret
In a society that restricts one’s expression of sexuality and perpetuates patriarchal gender norms, there is little room offered for open exploration. With no Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in schools and no conversation about sexuality with parents, children are ill-equipped to navigate their puberty as adolescents, and dating and relationships as young adults.
By Shubhangi Kashyap
September 2, 2019
‘Freedom From Unauthorised Intrusion’?: Interrogating Privacy In Relation To Intersex Bodies
For intersex people, privacy or the ‘freedom from unauthorised intrusion’ is constantly violated in which many a times knowledge about their bodies and the interventions carried out on their bodies are not made known to them.
By Arpita Das
Who Can Touch My Privates? When? Where?
Marking the genitalia as ‘private’ is somehow expected of parents who want to make sure that their kids don’t allow predators in. However, this duty should be followed at the right time with a conversation about sex, which will open the door to speaking about sexuality
By Abdullah Erikat
September 2, 2019