India

Some books are easy to read, yet stay with you long after you've finished the last chapter. Nivedita Menon’s Seeing Like a Feminist (Penguin/Zubaan, 2012) is a timely work that explains a complicated subject without over-simplifying it.

In Karen Sander's dystopian young adult book Tankborn, the world is a stringent caste system where race and origins determine all status. Tankborn was a hit and the sequel, Awakening, just came out this April, which means now is a great time to discuss the race and gender angle of the book. 

Happy May Day everyone! Here's what's on our radar.

• "Latina feminist," not just "feminist." On why today's modern, "mainstream" feminism has yet to prove its commitment to anti-racist projects and transnational movements. [The Feminist Wire]
• Five-year old girl in India is killed by rape. Trigger Warning.[The Guardian]
• For more extremely depressing news, read here about the recent murder of Ci Ci Dove, a trans women in Cleveland.[Advocate]
• Have you been looking for a body-positive magazine written by feminist, queer-friendly women who don't take themselves too seriously? Welcome to Ms. Fit. [Autostraddle]
• Ok, we're still talking about it cause it's so ridiculous. Female athletes have been out for decades: and here's a timeline to prove it. [BuzzFeed]
• The pursuit of more representation of diversity in comics - an admirable, intersectional attempt or just plain old tokenism? [Policymic]
• Help back this project and kickstart Assigned Sex, a documentary film tackling gender role stereotypes from trans perspectives. [Kickstarter]

 

 

Happy Thursday everyone! Here's some feminist news to start your day.

• Consent is sexy. Say it a thousand times. And read this article on why the “silence is sexy” model is a huge part of what sustains rape culture. [Queer Guess Code]
• Tired of people hating on fat? Here are some myth-busting facts for you to whip out next time someone makes a fatphobic comment. [Everyday Feminism]
• Horseback heroics aren’t necessary to be an ally, and don’t expect a medal. But if you are committed to justice and want to offer up your solidarity, MSNC’s Melissa Harris-Perry gives us some tips on how to be a good ally. [Colorlines]
• If you are in NYC this month you are really lucky. Why? Because there are some really sweet events coming up including: A conference on The Politics of Solidarity: Gender, Sexuality, and Transnational Organizing, A Conversation on HIV Criminalization and Trans Politics, and a Conference on the Future of Online Feminism. [Visual Aids] and [Barnard Center for Research on Women]
• Did a white writer from Slate really just post a piece titled “Bring Back the Afro?” Did that just happen? On why white writers should check their privilege before asking black people to wear their hair a certain way. [Jezebel]
• Meanwhile, in India people are bringing self-defense from rape to a whole new level with electrified underwear. [Death and Taxes]
• Do we need more laws to keep us safe? Attorney and trans activist Dean Spade contests the idea of the state as protector of rights and safety, and offers a critical trans politics that challenges enhanced criminalization as a means to achieve justice.  [Against The Grain]

Stay tuned!

 

Today, six men accused of gang rape in India head to court. If that sounds eerily familiar, it's because just two months ago, six other men also went to trial for gang rape in India in a high-profile case involving a woman fatally assaulted on the bus in New Dehli. 

After these terrible crimes come to light, we all want to see them result in major change. Harvard University is sponsoring a policy task force “to offer recommendations to India and other South Asian countries." But the group received a critique from Delhi blogger Nivedita Menon, who wrote in a post called "Harvard to the Rescue!" that Harvard would be better able to discuss rapein South Asia not from the ivory tower, but by consulting with feminists on the ground in India.

Talking sex—especially about the Kamasutra—is progressive, but discussions of the political economy of the text don’t get the same pedestal. How can I claim and embrace queer liberation (as much as I may want to), when it silences someone else?

While we might scoff at the spray-tanned guys of "Jersey Shore" and their year-round pursuit of bronze, skin lightening isn’t so easy to laugh off. First, skin lightening is far more globally and culturally pervasive than tanning, with pressure to lighten being highest for those of Asian, Latino, and African ethnicities. For instance, baseball star and native Dominican Sammy Sosa made headlines in 2009 when he copped to using a nightly skin bleaching cream that had noticeably whitened his face. A couple weeks ago, Jamaican dancehall artist Vybz Kartel sparked controversy regarding his forthcoming cosmetics line that includes a skin lightening solution called "cake soap."

This is the last week to catch the Portland International Film Festival, which the Northwest Film Center has been running since February 10th, screening several films a day in venues around Portland. One of the films on our radar here at Bitch was Pink Saris, a British documentary about a gang of women in Uttar Pradesh, India who wear hot pink saris to demonstrate their revolt against tradition and patriarchy. See the trailer and read what we thought after the jump...

This week's Feministory subject, Phoolan Devi, had a life that read like an action movie screenplay. In fact, her life BECAME an action movie screenplay. But integral to discussions of Devi and her harrowing story is the search for truth. Who knew the truth about her? Did she tell the truth? Did the books and movie about her tell the truth? Who WASN'T telling the truth? And which truth were her assassins following when they shot her in front of her home in 2001?

Shobhaa Dé came to the Indian publishing scene in the late-1980s like a South Asian Jackie Collins and has been credited with paving the way for a new generation of female Indian writers who represent a subsection of modern India that doesn't receive enough international attention: the über elite. Dé’s cheeky, Bollywood-inspired chick lit novels feature storylines set in Mumbai’s high society that have captivated the imaginations of the country’s newly emerging and rapidly growing middle class—male and female alike—who fantasize about being able to live like their favorite Hindi film stars. Fifteen bestselling books later, Penguin India recently announced a new addition to its roster that will start making its way into bookstores next year: Shobhaa Dé Books.