Gender and Society – NICKELED AND DIMED

Savitribai Phule: The Relevance of the Woman who Fought for the Annihilation of Caste and Patriarchy

Savitribai Phule made a significant contribution to literature and culture in addition to playing a pivotal role in the social movement for the emancipation of women via education and against oppressive caste systems. This article aims to explore the birth of intersectional feminism in India through the life and contributions of Savitribai Phule and how…
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Sofia Coppola’s Room of Pinks: The Isolation of Femininity

Critically acclaimed director Sofia Coppola has brought to screen the most sacred place of all– the room of a girl. But behind the pale pinks and gleams of trinkets, she places a world full of dissociation, loneliness and isolation. This article discusses three films by Coppola that materialised these buried aspects of girlhood.
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Discussing the Deficits in Decent Work

As a part of Interlinked’s sub-series, Kitabon ka Karwaan, we held a book talk that explores a recent report published by the ILO on the “Deficits in Decent Work: Employer perspectives and practices on the quality of employment in domestic work in urban India”. For this podcast, We are joined by Dr Neha Wadhawan from…
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Forced Beauty: Plastic Surgery and the Korean Compulsion

This article deeply delves into South Korea, the world’s plastic surgery capital. It explores how unrealistic beauty standards affect women’s self-image and compel them to pursue plastic surgery to access basic professional and social opportunities. It further analyses the cultural and historical background of South Korea and why women have been subjected to the minute…
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Centuries of Brahmanical patriarchy: How caste controls Women, and their sexuality

by Ananya Bhargava Controlling women and their sexuality has been the bedrock of the caste system, which has emanated and maintained a hierarchical social order dominated by upper-caste upper men. This social order is legitimised through various Brahmanical texts and rituals, which necessitate the domination and superiority of the Brahman male over other women and…
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Politics of Censorship: China’s Dangai, A Promising Money-Maker

In China, which has repeatedly been the site of surveillance and censorship, the Dangai genre of dramas has been able to introduce a large viewership to the nation. This article brings up the inconsistent stance of censorship, with prospects of worldwide commercial success being the overarching goal challenged by orthodox values.
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Choice or Tyranny: Body Hair Removal Through the Lens of Bollywood’s Iconic Unibrow

This article aims to map out the trajectory of the perception of body hair removal and how, over the years, a hairless woman has become the feminine ideal. This paper isn’t restricted to what has been but also brings to light the changing conversation around body hair, body freedom and femininity. One of the major…
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Where are Bollywood’s Working Women?

This article examines the portrayal of women in Bollywood films, in the specific context of women’s careers. Through several archaic and sexist tropes, Bollywood keeps reinforcing the idea of a reality or at least the aspiration of a society where women either only have certain socially approved professions such as teacher or nurse or have…
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EXPLORING INTIMACY, SEX & FEMININITY IN DAS’S “AN INTRODUCTION”

Kamala Das’ “An Introduction” tackles a lot of coming-of-age themes such as intimacy, sex and femininity. This article tries to find a connection between these themes and explores how they link together in the context of the poem and generally. Here there are 3 viewpoints that are being used to explore this link; the what,…
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Queerbaiting: From a Marketing Tactic to Cancel Culture

As social media continues to tackle the problem of correct word usage, “queerbaiting” has become one of many such buzzwords. What is repeatedly ignored are the implications and consequences of shifting its inclusion in the discourse surrounding real people. This article looks at the complexities contained in this shift of “queerbaiting” as a narrative technique…
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Patriarchy, Capitalism and the Systematic Oppression of Women

The oppression of women is ancient and it predates any other form of oppression. Women of the world have since time immemorial borne the brunt of patriarchy which, due to its dynamism, has gradually and incrementally overlapped with newer and more universal forms of oppression i.e capitalism. Patriarchy and capitalism have together sustained and perpetuated…
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Gender Rights and Fast Fashion

The essence of fast fashion lies in its replicability and its ability to be of the moment. Their relevance is often short-lived resulting in countless environmental problems, consumerism and drained workers. They rely heavily on cheap labour and materials to produce quick clothing at low rates. This essay examines issues surrounding fast fashion from a…
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