The world is changing faster than we can understand. It is changing in ways that are complicated. The cultural climate is shifting in interesting ways, particularly for women. Have you noticed that there are still not enough representations of women in todays changing times?
We have flawed, stereotypical and commodified representations of women in movies, music and literature, and not to forget the persistent rape culture. However, in the same space there are spurts of voices that do matter.
For instance, during one of the recent Wimbledon matches we saw one reporter mention Serena Williams as “one of the greatest female athletes of all time”; and Serena responded to that by saying that she would prefer the words “one of the greatest athletes of all time”.
Another empowering thing I saw is the recent “Da Da Ding” Nike song which shows many of India’s top woman athletes training in their respective sports, ranging from hockey and basketball, to cricket and boxing! This representation powerfully challenges the gender stereotypes. It reminds me of the many all girls school that dedicate a few square metres of playground area to the girls, silently conditioning them to play soft games, making them internalise that the hard core sports are meant for boys!
On realising how skewed and myopic the representation of women in India is, we decided to dedicate the next two months to all the women of Queer India, and invite you to send in your stories, experiences, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, interviews, role models, illustrations, photo essays, and art that documents these changes and reflect how you navigate in this shifting cultural climate.
While we may get drunk and dance crazy on songs we know are terrible for women, continue to love pink, enjoy cooking in a world of fast food delivery, deliberately drive rash on Mumbai roads just to show some asshole driver that we are women who are born bad drivers, and let our macho male colleagues win arguments with meaningless logic because our battles are different; It doesn’t invisibilize our awesomeness.
Your voice is important. We hope you believe that it matters, even in this world where there are so many voices demanding to be heard. [Write to gaysifamily[at]gmail.com].
