Apu’s World

The word “adjustment” figures very often in the advice handed out to Indian women. Learn to adjust. If you adjust for some time, everything will be alright.

To what point does one adjust? Should everyone in a new relationship learn to adjust rather than it being expected mostly from one person? Are women by nature more ‘adjustable’? How does one decide if it is worth it? And what should be non-negotiable?

On that theme, is our new contest at Women’s Web, ‘The Great Adjustment Story.’ Go on and participate - Flipkart vouchers await the winners!

apu Women & Feminism

Recently, I have been coming across news articles that discuss (with much figurative hand-wringing), the casual use of emergency contraceptives and abortion pills by young women. No doubt, serious health effects can arise due to the improper use of such pills for regular contraception - they are to be used very sparingly.

Many of the articles however mistakenly cite easy access to the pills as the reason for their too-frequent usage. Over the counter availability at the neighbourhood pharmacy may indeed help women buy them more easily, but that is not the fundamental reason for their misuse.

Read the rest, over at Women’s Web…

apu Women & Feminism

Loss of control over bodily functions, pain, depression, indifferent doctors - childbirth is not easy at best, and for some women, can be very tough. Blogger R’s Mom shares her painful childbirth experience with amazing honesty.

Warning, it’s not an easy read, and some readers may find her honesty hard to stomach; I know some people believe that there is no point ’scaring’ pregnant women with the gory details, but I feel that it’s better to be prepared. Everyone associates the labour and delivery process itself with pain, but the other details are not as widely discussed. So, if you feel like reading a totally honest (and helpful) account, do proceed!

apu Women & Feminism

Being a voracious sort of reader, and having been one ever since I was 8 or so, it’s difficult for me to talk about a single female character that I really like.

But - we have a contest up at Women’s Web, the My Favourite Female Contest, where we’re asking readers to talk about their favourite fictional female character and - win prizes for it! So, that got me thinking about my own favourites (no - this post is not eligible for the contest, just a chance for me to talk on the subject :))

I’ve liked so many of the girls and women in all the books I’ve read over the years - Heidi (of the eponymous novel), Jo of Little Women, many of the Jane Austen heroines and from more modern writing - Offred of The Handmaid’s Tale, Kinsey Millhone from the Sue Grafton alphabetical mystery series, Mma Ramotswe from The No. 1 Ladies detective agency series, Kathy H from Never let me go, Briony Tallis from Atonement…and many, many more.

Among all these women though, I guess I’d have to choose Offred from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, if I had to choose just one. I read this novel when I was about 15, and it was my first introduction to dystopian fiction. The warped world it presents is the very anti-thesis of feminism; here, women are subjugated and their role tied up with their ‘duty’ to procreate. Yet, the novel is feminist since this world is clearly dystopia.

Offred is not heroic. Chosen to be a ‘handmaid’, i.e. one who’s sole duty is to bear a child for a childless couple, she naturally has no liking for the new republic. But she is not an active member of the Resistance and mostly, focused on her own life rather than directly with the politics around her. At the same time, she manages to display resistance to the new ideology with the few tools available to her, such as using butter to moisturise her skin (women are not allowed cosmetics) or playing scrabble (women are not allowed intellectual pursuits), and later, having a potentially ruinous affair with the handyman.

Perhaps one of the reasons I liked Offred so much is that she is not a symbol. She is a person with all the ambiguities, doubts and many dimensions that it involves. For those of you who haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale, do give it a try - it is among my favourite novels.

And - if you haven’t yet seen the My Favourite Female contest, go have a look! And participate - we’re giving away Flipkart vouchers, and who doesn’t want those!

apu The Literary life, Women & Feminism

Coincidentally, two much covered rape cases have both had verdicts handed down today - two different verdicts and two different courts. In the Pratibha Srikantamurthy case, where Pratibha, a young BPO employee was raped and murdered by a cab driver, the accused has been found guilty. In the TISS case, where six men were alleged to have raped an American national, all accused have been acquitted on grounds of insufficient evidence.

I don’t want to speculate on the judgements and whether they were right, particularly in the second case, but it is a good time to point out on what slender threads the prosecution of a rape case in this country hangs

Read on and share your thoughts at Women’s Web…

apu Women & Feminism