How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb? That’s not funny. How many men does it take to tile a bathroom? Two. If you slice them very thinly. Well, that’s how Nivedita Menon, author and professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) started with jokes when asked if we live in post-feminist times and if feminism is dead.
The trigger was pulled by another JNU professor Mohan Rao, also the moderator for a discussion on the “Future of Feminism and The F Word” that was to accompany the launch of Granta 115-The F Word, dedicated to feminism and women’s writing on the topic. The other panellists for the evening at the India Habitat Centre included Vrinda Grover and Urvashi Butalia, who has contributed to the latest edition a piece on a male-to-female transsexual in India. Mona’s Story, from which Butalia read out excerpts for the audience, is an account of her friendship with a hijra, who discovers all the obstacles of her adopted sex.
For the uninitiated, Granta magazine was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, a periodical of student politics and literary enterprise, named after the river that runs through the town.
After a discourse on the state of feminism in the present day world, the reasons why feminism shouldn’t and can’t die, and how it’s not that threatening a word, the discussion veered toward the most talked about and soon-to-happen SlutWalk aka Besharmi Morcha, (the re-branding is quite distasteful and grammatically incorrect, feels Butalia) and the Delhi Police commissioner B.K. Gupta’s advice to women in the capital not to venture out alone late at night.
While Rao is pretty comfortable with idea of a slutty walk, he still feels it’s a pornographer’s dream come true. Whereas Menon says it’s not a new way to protest as even students in the past have come down on roads to voice their angst. “First of all, the word ‘slut’ is not relevant in India. Nobody really uses that word here. Secondly, the SlutWalk is only reiterating what women’s movements and feminists have always said: ‘Stop blaming the victim for what happened to her.’ You can’t tell her it’s her fault because she was out till late, as Mr Commissioner likes to think. Even men are unsafe. But he can’t tell men to sit at home. He can’t tell vacationers to be at home as their houses could get robbed. He can only tell women not to step out of their homes at devil’s hour,” remarked Menon.
Butalia could not agree less and said, “What the police commissioner said is shocking and completely irrelevant. So till 2 am you are safe and suddenly after 2 am you become unsafe, how ridiculous is that? He really should resign. It’s his duty to ensure that the city is safe for women as well as men.”