7/28/2019 TCRM_2013_4_13_4

1/1

womensGroup

meetingRe

soLu

tion

We are Feminists!We are against all HEIRARCHY!

But yes, sometimes, there is someANARCHY in our group! !

oh! so thatswhy you

get higher

wages?

COVER STORY 4

A JEST CAUSE THE TIMES OF INDIAThe Crest Edition

MALINI NAIRTIMES NEWS NETWORK

W

ho says feminists copy? Our work is

seminal, original, uri... Kamla

Bhasin clamps a hand over her

mouth in mock consternation be-

fore she completes her scatalogical

punchline. She is a feminist, 67,

and on stage at a Delhi theatre doing a very un-femi-

nist thing stand-up comedy. Actually it is sit

down comedy because a fall has left her walking

on crutches. The jokes come fast and furious: How

many feminists does it take to fix a bulb? Five. One

to fix it, two to write about the process and two to

make a video. Once the jokes end, she sits down

with her friends for a session Punjabi tappa and

qawwali remixed.

Dour and drab. Jholas and starched tangails.

Broom and belan raised in fury. Feminism every-

where, and in India, has an image problem. Attribute

it to the rage of the early 70s street protests against

dowry and wife beating, the passionate polemic of

academic circles or the skewed depiction of women

libbers as breakers of marriage and wreckers of fami-

lies. Whatever the reason, the de facto image of a

feminist has become that of a humourless, man-hat-

ing shrew. So much so that even women whove

gained most from the freedoms the movement has

won go, Umm, Im not sure I would call myself onewhen asked if they are feminists.

Could fun feminism some humour, a little self

deprecation, and healthy doses of mockery be the

way out?

Bhasin, founder member of feminist group

Jagori, admits she is worried that humour hasnt

been used enough in the feminist movement. We

are portrayed as women who take themselves too

seriously. But it is a myth that feminists dont laugh.

And the truth is that laughter is the best way to

diminish fear and fight tyranny, says Bhasin, who

recently released a motley collection of jokes and

cartoons,Laughing Matters, at an event marked

with a lot of hilarity. Up on the stage to release the

book published by Jagori were four girls and a boy,

all from Delhi colleges. I didnt want the same old

women from commissions and committees up

there, quips Bhasin.

Bhasin has seen Indias feminist movement pass

through many stages since the first wave in the 50s.

A lot of what the post-feminists take for granted,she tells you, are hard-won freedoms (I would like to

see how many non-feminists will refuse to take their

husbands names or fight for family property). Her

earliest memories are of fighting to be allowed tohave pockets in her salwar so she could store her

marbles like the boys.

Then came the leftist, women-centric movements

of the 70s. The 80s were marked by fiery morchas,

streetfights and writings on labour issues, dowry

deaths, domestic violence and sati by feminists

groups such as Manushi, Jagori and Sakhi. Today, in

this age of social media-driven Pink Chaddi and Slut-

walk campaigns, it all seems like history.

It is time then, Bhasin says, to move from all-con-

suming anger to more subtle means. All enemies

dont deserve rage. There is a time for the danda, a

time for logic, a time for humour, she says. Besides

women who are angry all the time are very boring.

The loudest laughter at the Delhi Jagori event

came from jokes the feminists aimed at themselves,

poking fun at the conference circuits, the infighting,

and the disconnect between theorists and housewives.

In the West, feminist lite, as the idea is often referred

to, arrived some years ago. Today, the best known

feminists there are wild, wacky, edgy, sexy, highly in-dividualistic and shorn of heavy ideological baggage.

The F word has come to mean different things to dif-

ferent women. As the reigning queen of fun feminism,

Caitlin Moran, puts it, Being a feminist isnt like theDuke of Edinburghs Award Scheme. You can actually

be quite a shallow feminist if you want. Its not just

for women whove spent 30 years debating gender-

specific social structuring on Newsnight.

The Moran brand of feminism is not without its

critics who say its for a privileged audience. But

there is no denying that feminism with a smiley is

likely to win more friends and supporters than femi-

nism with a frown. In fact, feminists point out, you

dont have to work all that hard or even fake it to

elicit the laughs. I find it difficult not to be hu-

mourous when I write or talk on feminist issues.

Look at how absurd and ridiculous the notions of pa-

triarchy are, they defy reason. And how can you fight

the lack of reason with only anger? asks academic,

author and translator J Devika, whose writings on

Keralas deep-rooted sexist mindset invariably drip

with delightfully dark humour. Besides everyone

likes to hear a good joke, even non-feminists.

Devika points out a fact few know that Indian

feminist writing in vernacular languages from wayback in the late 1930s rippled with black humour. It

was so sharp that it almost felt like a whiplash, she

says of Keralas women writers who influenced her

style. Of these women, K Saraswathi Amma was one.

The other contemporary feminist writers from Kerala

like KR Meera and Sara Joseph liberally lace their

writings with humour. As Nilanjana S Roy, a journal-

ists who writes regularly on gender issues, says, the

revolution should be fun. You arent fighting for a

glum, dour future, she says.

Sarah Joseph, 67, whose works are full of wit,

satire and barely veiled allegories, believes that the

only way to poke fun at chauvinists is to land a sharp

punch loaded with humour. Her story Dimwittitude

is about a scientist from a conservative Kerala village

who qualifies for a trip to space. The villagers raise

many horrified questions: if she goes up to space,

wont she need a husband who has travelled even

higher? And what if she is molested there? Well, says

the girls sister, at that height when gravity is off kil-

ter the men will have trouble groping her.

Parihasam (ridicule) is a very strong weapon,stronger even than sarcasm and I find it excellent

when I deal with female stereotypes, says Joseph.

Given the horrors of everyday living on the streets

of urban India today, this humour may seem out of

place. But as Bhasin puts it, humour diminishes fear,

reduces its place in our lives and stumps the enemy.

Nivedita Menon, a professor at JNU and the author of

Seeing Like A Feminist, says that humour does not

reduce the political content of a feminist argument

nor does it mean giving in to patriarchy. Having fun

with feminism is a small part of the movement and

does not dilute the issue, she says. To quote the

great humorist Mark Twain, nothing in the world can

stand up to the assault of laughter.

LIBERATION LITE

HUMOUR THERAPY: Bhasin regales the audience at her sit-down comedy performance in Delhi

They are a far cry from the academic feminists who led the brigade in theearlier decades. Meet the women who are at the centre of the debate today

TINA FEYThe thinking mans woman, tough girl feminist, thewoman who ruined SNL like most female comedi-

ans, Fey has had her share of the best compliments

and worst assumptions. But, as always, she has made ajoke out of them or laughed them off. As Liz Lemon,

the lead character in the hit TV show 30 Rock, Fey is afeminist, overworked, sarcastic and ambitious.

CAITLIN MORANMorans book, How to be a Woman, has been sneeredat by academic feminists as Germaine Greers The Fe-

male Eunuch as written from a bar stool. Moran was

one of the first to openly call women to be feminists, funand all rock'n'roll. As she fa-

mously said, I come frompop culture, and I wanted

it to be like rockn roll. Iwanted someone to

shout Im a feminist!

Its really fun! Let's allgo and be feminists in

the pub! And for allthe criticism, she is

bang in the centre ofthe fun-feminist

debate.

It's difficult to see the glass ceilingbecause its made of glass. Virtuallyinvisible. What we need is for morebirds to fly above it and shit all overit, so we can see it properly.

SHERYL SANDBERG

Few women get to where Sheryl Sandberg has gone on the board of directors for Facebook, a VP at

Google, chief of staff at the US department of treas-ury and on Times list of 100 most influential people

in the world. She advocates that men do their equal

share of house work and child care, that women needto keep their hands up at the table and not be afraid

to be bossy. Sandberg has received her share of flakfor her recent book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the

Will to Lead, for being too elitist. She has alsobeen called the Pompom girl for feminism by

Maureen Dowd in the New York Times.

I want every little girl whosomeone says Theyre

bossy to be told instead,You have leadership

skills because I wastold that and be-cause every womanI know in a

leadershipposition wastold that.

AMY POEHLER

Best known for her time as a cast member on Saturday Night Live (2001-2009), and later as theultra-ambitious and eternally cheerful Leslie Knope, the central character in Parks and Recreation,

Poehler has always been a voice for female empowerment. She also has another show (web series)called Smart Girls at the Party, which focusses on passionate, young girls who are changing the

world single-handedly.When you're a stay-at-home mother you have to pretend it'sreally boring, but it's not. It's enriching and fulfilling, and an

amazing experience. And then when you're a working motheryou have to pretend that you feel guilty all day long.

JHOLA

JOKE

AND A

If you retain nothing else,always remember the mostimportant rule of beauty,which is: who cares?

ALL ILLUSTRATIONS ADAPTED FROM

LAUGHING MATTERS BY

KAMLA BHASIN AND

BINDIA THAPAR

COURTESY: JAGORI

PHOTO: SOUMEN NATH/SAVE THE CHILDREN