Gender Agenda newsletter Time to frolic

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It has been a particularly tiring couple of weeks at work and home. I’ve found myself telling friends and family that I’d like to abandon my dream of being a somewhat decent journalist and instead transfigure into a well-fed cow in the chrome yellow barley pastures of the Scottish highlands.

My mother hears me out and launches into a rant, one we’ve debated for years. She says that my generation (of millenials and Gen Z) lacks the grit she and the sisters of her generation have. “I worked tirelessly to raise you girls,” she says, referring to her single-parenting years. I have no choice but to declare war.

The thing is, I have data to prove her wrong.

Sambavi Parthasarathy and Vignesh Radhakrishnan from The Hindu’s data team analysed the Time Use Survey released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation this week. They concluded that more Indian women are entering the labour force than ever before. Among urban women the share increased from 15.5% to 18% — a 2.5% point rise — while among urban men it increased from 58.1% to 61.2%.

Another piece they had written stated that young Indian women between ages 15 and 24, who are working professionals work 55 hours and only have about seven to eight hours of rest. In Germany, for instance, women in IT and media work for 32 hours, and in Russia, for 40 hours.

Despite this solid increase in the number of women toiling in the workforce, there is little respite at home. The share of women doing unpaid work (household accounting and management, purchasing goods, preparing and/or serving meals, waste disposal) increased from 79.3% to 81% in the period, while the share of men increased from 23% to 28.5%.

“When we analysed the data, we saw that women continued to bear the burden of domestic chores and caregiving. While men are contributing more, the gap still remains. Old habits have clearly lingered and traditional gender roles continue to persist,” says Sambavi.

I ran into Arthi Matho, a ring trapeze artist who is a part of the Gemini Circus, earlier this week. She said that she has worked regularly since she was 11. Today, she is a 30-something (she is unsure of her age), and tends to her son’s education, while also taking care of elders back home. “I’ve been on the road for a long time now. Although it may seem like I do not have a steady home, I have to send money to my parents and rush if there is a health emergency. Who else will do it,” she asks.

I wonder if my mother’s glorification of the grind will ever allow me and other women of my generation, the space to frolic. I’d like to rest, you know. I’d like a nap, a chat with my friends, some time to shop and doom-scroll online. Mostly though, I’d like to take time to transfigure and become that well-fed cow in the chrome yellow barley pastures of the Scottish highlands. Even if only for a few hours.

Why is the world taking away my time to frolic?

Toolkit

Telugu feminist Joopaka Subhadra would be irked by us recommending How Are You Veg: Dalit Stories as essential reading for Dalit History Month this April. She does not believe that literature by Dalits should be classified under a bucket. But it is a book that one must not miss. How Are You Veg speaks of the lives of Madiga women whose oppression, poverty, and alienation is so immense that they are invisibilised. In 23 short stories, we read about how eating practices in a Madiga household, particularly during marriages, deaths, and other functions, are influenced by a patriarchy deeply rooted in Brahmanism. Upper caste Indians speak of the specific cuts of wagyu beef they eat without any ostracism. Can the same be said of Dalits and Muslims who are lynched for this exact same meat in a kozhambu?

Wordsworth

Manosphere: The words ‘manosphere’ and ‘incels’ (involuntarily celibate) have now entered common parlance thanks to Netflix’s smash hit show Adolescence. In this piece by writer Ayaan Paul, the manosphere is described as a loosely connected network of misogynistic influencers, incel forums, and self-proclaimed alpha males. This online subculture claims that there is a “reality” where women run the world without taking responsibility for it, and that their male victims are not permitted to complain, according to an early analysis of the culture, according to this article in The Guardian.

Somewhere someone said something stupid

“The country’s (India’s) GDP is being destroyed because of three women — a boy’s mother, his wife, and his wife’s mother. When a man begins to show dominance over a woman in his life, in 99 of 100 cases, another one of these women will be involved.”

Marital consultant Amit Sangwan on the Vaad podcast

Women we meet

Shalini Rao, a therapist and educator, says that we are currently experiencing the golden age of questioning gender. “What would it be like when gender is an individual choice,” they asks. Their practise involves working with clients who are at the intersection of gender, disability and oppression. They say that the simple act of more people today using the they/them pronouns when addressing someone whose gender they are not sure of, is a huge leap forward. As someone who sits with their identity as a non-binary person, Shalini says that they hope that womanhood and feminism is seen as a lived experience and not a constructed identity. “Am I a woman just because the identity was assigned to me at birth? To answer this question, it is going to take work, time, effort and a whole lot of unpacking,” they say.