THE RECENT Michael Arrington post on why women mustn’t blame men for their lower numbers in technology is eliciting reactions, fast and furious. While I don’t think Arrington’s tone helps, I am not going to get into the subject here. Instead, I’d like to refer you to Shefaly Yogendra’s excellent post, “Women in tech: What gives?”, where she puts forth many actionable ideas on what we can do to get more women into science and technology. [Read More]
HERE’S A PART IMAGINARY, part real email thread of conversations among faculty members at an elite law university in India. Two developments are being discussed simultaneously – one is a weekly cricket match, and the second is the establishment of a women-only Women’s Law Society. The names of participants in the conversation have been changed to maintain anonymity. I have identified the professors as male and female to pronounce the genderedness of the conversation.
…YOU MAY WANT TO take a look at this invite:
Anyone want to get me that yummy t-shirt in red? 
A FEW DAYS AGO, when I thought about the conflict parents face when their daughters become “too liberal”, I was really thinking from my own perspective as an educated, young, urban professional. When a commenter mentioned that liberalism does not yet extend to accepting choices such as homosexuality, I was, at first, a bit startled. This was because, frankly, I had not thought about the issues faced by people different from me. Though I do support the rights of people to their own sexual preference, I honestly hadn’t given it much thought. In a sense, I am guilty of looking at the holy grail of equal rights through a very narrow prism. [Read More]
WESTERN FEMINIST movements in the early 1970s confronted an uncomfortable truth: the notion that God was male dominated every aspect of religion. As feminist philosopher Mary Daly summed up, “If God is male, then the male is God.” The question of gender, religion and faith has been a very contentious one. Feminists have looked into histories of ancient civilizations and various religious traditions to understand different notions of power, and they have despaired that religion and tradition are so entangled with patriarchy that they can never be a source of liberation. [Read More]
IT WAS DURING the anti-Mandal protests that many young, urban women from universities held up placards saying that an increase in reservation for the Dalit and OBC population would harm their chances of getting qualified men as husbands. During the riots in Mumbai after the Babri Masjid demolition and in the Gujarat pogrom, many Hindu women from right wing organisations actively aided the men in their attacks against Muslim women. [Read More]
