{"id":21000,"date":"2021-03-15T09:45:12","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T04:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/?p=21000"},"modified":"2021-03-16T00:41:08","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T19:11:08","slug":"the-aunty-body-and-all-that-follows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/the-aunty-body-and-all-that-follows\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Aunty\u2019 Body And All That Follows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Anmol Nayak<\/strong><\/p>\n

I went to a five-year old\u2019s birthday party recently. As an adult who could see the mother profusely sweating through the party, I decided to help out. As the kids sat down to eat, I served them\u00a0Chole Puri\u00a0<\/em>and waited on them. I was making small talk with some of the 11-year olds when a five-year old shouted, \u201cAunty, I want another Puri.<\/em>\u201d I served the kid and was checking if anyone else needed anything. That\u2019s when one of the 11-year old replied to the child, \u201cShe is not Aunty, okay. She is Didi.<\/em>\u201d This girl thought that there was something wrong with addressing a younger woman as \u2018Aunty<\/em>\u2018 and made all efforts to make sure it doesn\u2019t happen. I didn\u2019t know what to say to this 11-year old girl.<\/p>\n

Young women, especially unmarried ones, either do not want to associate with the term or are expected to steer clear of it. In the Indian imagination, an \u2018Aunty\u2019 is a middle-aged, usually fat woman who is married and has children. I am fat and look older than my actual age of 22. I, even though unmarried and childless, am considerably older than the 10 and 11-year olds the five-year old addressed as\u00a0Didi<\/em>; so I couldn\u2019t be a part of that group and hence the child, within his faculties, clubbed in the group of the people he calls \u2018Aunty<\/em>\u2019. Makes sense.<\/p>\n

But then why was the five-year old \u2018corrected\u2019? Why was \u2018Aunty\u2019 not an acceptable term for me?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Image Source:\u00a0IFORHER<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The issue with the \u2018Aunty\u2019 body arises from a deeply misogynistic and dehumanising understanding of women. In this imagination the woman, whom the world now addresses as \u2018Aunty\u2019, has basically served her purpose of marriage and child bearing, and is hence rendered\u00a0useless<\/em>. Every other faculty of a woman is deemed irrelevant. The postpartum body is considered unattractive and thus, useless in the patriarchal society. The \u2018Aunty\u2019 imagination reinforces the dehumanisation of women \u2013 reducing a woman to a conventionally understood attractiveness.<\/p>\n

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Young women, especially unmarried ones, either do not want to associate with the term or are expected to steer clear of it. In the Indian imagination, an \u2018Aunty\u2019 is a middle-aged, usually fat woman who is married and has children. I am fat and look older than my actual age of 22. I, even though unmarried and childless, am considerably older than the 10 and 11-year olds the five-year old addressed as\u00a0Didi<\/em>; so I couldn\u2019t be a part of that group and hence the child, within his faculties, clubbed in the group of the people he calls \u2018Aunty<\/em>\u2019.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

The \u2018Aunty\u2019 categorisation doesn\u2019t stay limited to the body though. It spreads over to clothes, shoes, hair clips and every other category of women\u2019s styling. If a younger woman chooses to adorn any of these styles, there is a fair chance that she would be shamed for dressing like an \u2018Aunty<\/em>\u2019 \u2013 which is of course, an established stereotype in India. Thanks to the content on Indian television and our multiple film industries. Well, may I also add\u00a0Netflix<\/em>\u00a0to the list with its\u00a0Never Have I Ever<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>portraying a similar depiction of \u2018Aunties\u2019 on the show.<\/p>\n

Also read:\u00a0Aunty, Didi, Bhabhi, Tai: How Indian Women Politicians Are \u2018Domesticated\u2019 So\u2026<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I would have been happy to conclude it here but the \u2018Aunty\u2019 image transcends the mind-body duality. All of the \u2018Aunties\u2019 also think a certain way. In films and TV, she is superficial, narrow-minded and meddles in other people\u2019s business way too much. There is a good chance that if a writer wants to include a character with the aforementioned traits, it would almost always be an \u2018Aunty\u2019. All of it points to our misogynistic understanding of middle-aged, married women with children. The prevalence of such character in our movies and TV series tells us that even in the age of progressive feminist movements, we find it difficult to shake off our dehumanising understanding of women.<\/p>\n

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Image Source:\u00a0Dribble<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Now, talking about the other end of the \u2018Aunty\u2019 imagination spectrum \u2013 I ache to say that the \u2018Aunty\u2019 body is also one of the most fetishised bodies in male sexual fantasy. When I googled to see if there was anything written about the \u2018Auntification\u2019 of middle-aged Indian women, to my dismay I found pages and pages filled with links to porn. Patriarchy had yet again, after shaming women to have become \u2018Aunties\u2019, turned the same people into a source of their pleasure and nothing else.<\/p>\n

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The issue with the \u2018Aunty\u2019 body arises from a deeply misogynistic and dehumanising understanding of women. In this imagination the woman, whom the world now addresses as \u2018Aunty\u2019, has basically served her purpose of marriage and child bearing, and is hence rendered\u00a0useless<\/em>. Every other faculty of a woman is deemed irrelevant. The postpartum body is considered unattractive and thus, useless in the patriarchal society. The \u2018Aunty\u2019 imagination reinforces the dehumanisation of women \u2013 reducing a woman to a conventionally understood attractiveness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

In this case, the \u2018Aunty\u2019 body is objectified, sexualised and fetishised in every way possible. The woman is ripped off the autonomy over her own body and is used for the sole purpose of sexual gratification. There is no person left in such an imagination of the middle-aged female body. And again, one thanks the portrayal like that of\u00a0Aunt May<\/em>\u00a0from\u00a0Spiderman Homecoming<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 the sexualisation of \u2018Aunties\u2019 is reinforced.<\/p>\n

It seems like middle-aged married women with children have no way out of these misogynistic and dehumanising ideas. Unless, obviously, we strip the word\u00a0Aunty<\/em>\u00a0of such connotations and treat women as full persons. There is no reason to squirm over or correct a child calling you\u00a0Aunty<\/em>, there is no reason to judge a middle-aged married woman and box her into a stereotype and there is no reason to take away a woman\u2019s autonomy over her body to fetishise her for your sexual gratification.<\/p>\n

Also read:\u00a0On Aunty Shaming And Why It Matters To Feminism<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Given the patriarchy we live in, it sounds almost ambitious but guess what? Womxn are full persons \u2013 all womxn; and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity \u2013 as is the right of every human being.<\/p>\n

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Anmol is a freelance writer with a postgraduate\u00a0degree in Communication from the University of Hyderabad. She can be reached at\u00a0nayak.anmol7@gmail.com<\/a>. You can find her on\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Featured Image Source:\u00a0Bangles and\u00a0<\/a>Bungalows<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The issue with the \u2018Aunty\u2019 body arises from a deeply misogynistic and dehumanising understanding of women. In this imagination the woman, whom the world now addresses as \u2018Aunty\u2019, has basically served her purpose of marriage and child bearing, and is hence rendered useless. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":21001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2662,85,1],"tags":[229,2663,1731,1518,2664,2687,2688,1795,2413,503,97,66,2028,2469,402,2582,1001,71,296,303,373,2600,2665,2689,135,48,2690,349,1486,2670,2691,2310,1675,1935],"class_list":{"0":"post-21000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ageing-and-sexuality","8":"category-blog-roll","9":"category-categories","10":"tag-activism","11":"tag-ageing-and-sexuality","12":"tag-ageism","13":"tag-agency","14":"tag-aging","15":"tag-aunty","16":"tag-aunty-body","17":"tag-authenticity","18":"tag-bodily-integrity","19":"tag-body-image","20":"tag-consent","21":"tag-desire","22":"tag-fantasies","23":"tag-fetishisation","24":"tag-friendship","25":"tag-fulfillment","26":"tag-lgbtqia","27":"tag-love","28":"tag-marriage","29":"tag-mental-health","30":"tag-misogyny","31":"tag-non-conformity","32":"tag-older-adulthood-and-sexuality","33":"tag-older-women-in-india","34":"tag-patriarchy","35":"tag-pleasure","36":"tag-raising-children","37":"tag-romance","38":"tag-self-care","39":"tag-sensuality","40":"tag-sexualisation","41":"tag-sisa-spaces","42":"tag-spirituality","43":"tag-vulnerability"},"menu_order":187,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21000"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21018,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21000\/revisions\/21018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}