Gender
Trans Act 2019: The continued misunderstandings about transgender as a gender category
The data continues to misrepresent the realities of transgender persons, reiterating the existing confusion about transgender individuals.
By Brindaalakshmi K
Toxic Soup
Even her talking to other men elicits a growl from these men, and it’s all supposed to be okay because they’re billionaires and 6’5 feet tall or something, oh and did I mention the abs?
By Aradhana Phadke Sardesai
April 17, 2025
To the Beat of Activism on Gender and Violence in India
As someone who was surrounded by the sounds of music at home from my early childhood and with a parent who worked in rural education programmes, forming connections between art and (social) change wasn’t too difficult, albeit extremely challenging to explain to many other people who didn’t necessarily see the power that art has to deliver a message or be used as a tool for change.
By Pattie Gonsalves
December 5, 2016
To The Beat Of Activism
The rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi on December 16, 2012, left the Indian public consciousness…
By Pattie Gonsalves
July 1, 2014
Three Poems: “I dreamt…”, “The day…”, and “Wedding Album”
I always thought I’d get married in a white mekhla-sador, the paht soft and warming, so in cool weather please.
By Unmana
October 17, 2024
Thoughts While Reclaiming The Ladies’ Seat In Metro: Space, Accessibility, and Entitlement
I said “excuse me”, walked past them and then never looked back to see the look on their faces. And then without a thought, I reached the destination and said loud and clear, “Woman’s seat”, which was a gesture to say “give me the seat, because it is a woman’s seat and you are a man sitting on it.”
By Feminism in India
The Unqueer Classroom
I remember realising that ‘gender’ was a construct when I was 9 or so, that it wasn’t real. I was…
By Aradhana Phadke Sardesai
July 22, 2024
The Union of Our Inner Masculine and Inner Feminine
Feminine energy is supposed to be yin, receptive, gentle, intuitive,and fulfilling. Masculine energy is supposed to be yang, active, fast, fierce, emptying, goal-oriented and focused.
By Pallavi Barnwal
The Silent Theft of Consent: How Patriarchy Undermines Women at Every Step
When a woman, in her own house, is told by her family members, to always seek their consent before doing anything, and to always keep them informed of every activity she engages in, or even to seek a job in her chosen field, her freedom is taken away from her. She is expected to take their consent for anything and everything, but her own consent is taken away from her.
By Aanya Narula
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
The Paradox of Principles
I do not feel the need to fight the feminist war within these spaces all the time, now that it has become my home. I have come to terms with the idea that certain contradictions can co-exist peacefully like the yin and yang. But still, sometimes, my mind is roiled in conflict, with me cautiously trying to balance my two identities – the feminist and the army officer’s wife. Nevertheless, I am unwilling to give up one for the other (even if I might be perceived as being less of one of them). So I continue to be an individual with two seeming contradictions: a feminist army-officer’s-wife!
By Ramya Anand
July 1, 2017
The Motherhood Dilemma
The idealisation of motherhood is crucial to our culture; it is important that the mother is self-sacrificing. This sacrificial instinct isn’t limited to women’s behaviour. It goes on to encompass the entirety of her corporeality and the way she performs it.
By Vinky Mittal
March 17, 2023
The Masques Of Masculinity
Z is forced to wear the mask of masculinity, a mask made of the various tropes of stereotypical masculine energy…
By Hardik Jain and Shrusti Mulgund
April 17, 2025
The Language of the Eyes – Speaking Through Signs
Because we also understand and acknowledge the power of a single step forward, we decided to deep dive into working with sign languages for people who are deaf or hard of hearing and including them in the safe abortion rights dialogues.
By Nandini Mazumder, Ayesha Bashir and Suchitra Dalvie
June 17, 2025