Apu’s World

The last maid who worked at our house - her husband abandoned her, while she was pregnant with her first child. Then, when she stopped working at our place, we got a young woman with two children under 5; she was friendly but feisty - she bargained hard and laid down a strict list of tasks that she would do and not do. She worked with us for a month, after which she had to stop. Because, her husband didn’t like her working; it injured his prestige, you see. If you think you are the boss, you work and support the family, I’m not going to contribute anything, he whined. And that was that - she had to stop. In the interests of maintaining some peace at home.

Read the rest of my new post, over at Women’s Web.

apu Women & Feminism

It’s very, very early yet, but have received pretty encouraging responses to Women’s Web. We’ve also managed to solve the problem with registration that some users had, so those of you who faced initial problems, please do try again now.

We have two new features up, on Financial Lessons from the 2008-09 recession and on Writing your resume after a break. Plus, there is an interview with Bhavna Chauhan, debutant author of ‘Where Girls Dare’, a novel around women in the Indian army. The first of our bloggers (apart from me), chimed in with a post on mother-daughter bonding.

I’m trying to set up a feeds link here so that it automatically gets updated, but right now, there seems to be some problem with feeds. I’m also trying to figure out how best to use social media to get the site to a larger audience. Women’s Web is on twitter, and that is being regularly updated, but I haven’t done much beyond that. Suggestions from savvy folks are welcome!

Update: We have a Facebook group for Women’s Web now. Sign up!

apu Media-Movies-Ads, Women & Feminism

Cross-posted on Women’s Web

Until the cut motion in Parliament and the possible fall of the Government upstaged it, it looked as though the saga of Lalit Modi would be ‘breaking news’ on every TV channels worth its salt. Well, one good thing that’s possibly emerged from the IPL hoopla is that cheerleaders may no longer be used at the games. I say ‘possibly’, because the decision isn’t yet clear.

Now, when the cheerleading thing first started 2 years ago, most of the objections that came in were from the perspective that they were ‘against Indian culture.’ By that logic, Rakhi Sawant and the legion of item girls who work in Hindi movies should have been banned a long time ago, but then logic is not the strong suit of Indian politicians.

No, my objection to cheerleading is nothing to do with Indian culture or even with the outfits the cheerleaders wear. It is simply an objection to the whole premise behind the practice of cheerleading, which is that men play, and women cheer. My friend Rashmi, who’s started up this group on Facebook, ‘Say No to Cheerleaders’ explains it very well - so I’m just going to quote her here. She is talking about an exchange she had with her daughter.

Me: “S, do you want to attend the Cricket coaching camp with your brother ?”

S: “Is that where they teach girls to dance when the boys play cricket ?”

And please, don’t point me to the few, token male cheerleaders - we all know what the focus is. (And really, are the male cheerleaders even around anymore?)  Don’t forget the ads in small print that give out a number where you can call and talk to a cheerleader. Is this anything at all to do with cricket or even cricket-as-entertainment? No, just peddling of women.

This is one Western import we don’t need. We have enough sexism of our own, thank you.

apu Women & Feminism

Women’s Web, a new web mag and community for Indian women (the venture I discussed in my last post), is now live! Please do go visit, read and register (in order to participate).

It’s early days yet, so there may be a few glitches - please excuse us for this - the tech team is working hard to address them. Among the articles we’ve put up for launch, I like many (I’m biased of course!), but two of my favourites are this piece on Bollywood’s working women and an interview with Anouradha Bakshi, the founder of Project Why, an organization doing some very good work with the underprivileged.

As I said earlier, I’m excited but nervous too. I do hope those who’ve enjoyed reading this blog will find the site of interest as well.

apu Women & Feminism

Phew, it really has been quite some days since I managed to spend time here. In my defence, I have been busy with a new project that’s been in the wings for some time now (really, in the wings for so long that at times, I’ve despaired of ever getting it off ground). Finally, it does look as if we’ll be able to launch soon, so I can now talk about it here.

So, what is this New Project?

The New Project is a new website/magazine/community for Indian women.

Wait a minute, don’t we have some of those already?

Sure, but I do think there is space for more quality original content  - and without raining on anyone else’s parade, I’d like to say that at times, I feel as if the content specifically targeted at women is overwhelmingly about beauty, weight loss or celebrity gossip. Surely we are interested in more than these?

One thing which has amazed me for, for instance, is that, given how more and more women are entering the paid workplace, why is there so little focus on that?

So, one of the objectives of this new website is that a good part of the content is geared to working women. Now, by working women, I don’t necessarily mean someone who has a 9 to 6 job in a shiny office. Working women could be full-time workers, part-time workers, work-from-home moms, the self-employed, retired workers or - it could even be someone who is right now on a break, but would like to keep in touch, or, someone who’s never worked outside the home but wants to start. And who is to say homemakers don’t want to discuss many of these things too? (Not to mention that most women’s magazines in India also have a significant percentage of male readers).

The idea is to have interesting and intelligent content for women - feature articles on current topics, profiles of women who’ve done interesting things, a Q&A session with industry experts plus I’ve got some really cool bloggers who’ll be writing on the site. Other sections such as a forum and newsletter should follow soon, though the plan is to start small and grow with our readers.

It’s not a solely feminist website, in the sense that the content is not structured around activism and what we usually call ‘women’s issues’, but on the other hand, while it is going to be a commercial website, I do visualize it as a women-friendly space with two important values : to be supportive of women and their choices, and to talk to women as intelligent users.

Getting the site development through has been a huge challenge, considering that I don’t have a technology background myself; while things can always improve, it looks like we’ll be ready to go with Version 1.0 in a day or two, and I’ll announce the url here then.

I’m looking forward to support and encouragement from you folks, my dear blog readers - and of course, feel free to offer suggestions once you’ve had a look at the site. I hope to continue blogging here (and regularly), although I may use some posts at both locations.

apu Women & Feminism