global feminism

I'd like to talk a bit about a feminist utopia written in 1905 called Sultana’s Dream by Rokheya Sakhawat Hossain. This short story is set in a place called “Ladyland,” where men are behind the purdah and women run the country much better than men ever did.

In this role-reversal fantasy, men are kept confined to the inner courtyards and kitchens, crime is eliminated (since dudes were the one who were creating all the trouble, obviously) and women are doing fantastically well, thank you for asking. Working in laboratories and flying planes, the women in Sultana’s Dream are charming, reaching far higher than women in 1905 were deemed capable of—and then the dream ends. The story is jarring in many ways, especially when you realize the women feel so little about confining men, thinking of them as lesser beings. Hossain has the last laugh when learn this unease does what it is supposed to: make us question power inequalities in gender relations, and how little things have changed in the last century or so.

Kitchen Sisters Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva debut The Hidden World of Girls on NPR with an interesting tale about Jamaican women obtaining beauty from an unlikely source.

On August 23rd, the New York Times Sunday Magazine will release a "special issue" about women in the developing world.

Last month I watched German electronic band Mouse on Mars light the crowd on fire at Soho, a posh nightclub in Kolkata, India. A hundred desi girls and boys bounced awkwardly around the tiny dance floor—beer in one hand, cigarette in the other—as the experimental techno screaming from the speakers deafened everyone temporarily. This is not the India you see in Bollywood movies.