Gender Agenda newsletter | The ‘f’ word

Trigger warning: Mentions of rape and suicide

‘Rape them first, then commit suicide,’ said Ajay Unni, a BJP candidate from Kerala on January 20.

This was his reaction to the news of Kozhikode-native U. Deepak’s suicide after a video shot by Shimjitha Musthafa, a co-passenger, accusing Deepak of sexual harassment during a bus journey, went viral on social media. Since the news of Deepak’s death, people on social media seem to be baying for blood. Men are now walking out of houses wearing cardboard boxes covering their bodies.

Much of this discussion, however, risks flattening a complex issue into a binary of victim and villain. A feminist lens urges us to resist this simplification — not to deny the devastating loss of life, but to ask harder questions about why social media became the site of justice in the first place, and whose voices are routinely ignored.

For decades, women in India have navigated public spaces that are anything but safe. When I first began taking the bus by myself to school and sports meets, my mother asked me to hold onto a safety pin in order to poke those who chose to come too close.

Sexual harassment on buses, trains, and streets is a daily reality, often minimised as misunderstanding or brushed aside as inconvenience. Police stations remain intimidating spaces where survivors are often questioned insensitively or shamed. It is why social media has emerged, although imperfectly, as an alternative forum for solidarity.

When a woman records or posts an allegation online, it is often not an attempt to become judge or jury, but a desperate act of being heard. To frame the Kerala case solely as reckless online behaviour risks obscuring this deeper truth: women turn to digital platforms because institutions meant to protect them repeatedly fail to do so. This is what the #MeToo movement was.

During a time when ‘feminism’ has become the big bad ‘f’ word, it is important to note that the movement does not celebrate public shaming or mob justice. Deepak’s death is a tragedy — and feminist ethics demand that we hold space for that loss without weaponising it against women’s speech.

This incident in Kerala should not be used to discipline women into quietness or absolve institutions of their failures. Instead, it should let it force us to confront an uncomfortable reality: when systems fail everyone, social media fills the vacuum, often with irreversible consequences. The task ahead is not to mute voices, but to build structures where speaking out does not come at the cost of another life.

Wordsworth

Son Meta-Preference Although frankly self-explanatory, son meta-preference refers to the number of married people up to 49, who want more sons than daughters versus the other way round according to the National Family Health Survey of 2022. This article in The Hindu speaks about how there were exuberant festivities when a 37-year-old woman gave birth to a boy after 18 years and 10 daughters in Haryana’s Dhani Bhojraj village.

Toolkit

‘Women of Mathematics From Around the World’ is an exhibition showcasing 20 extraordinary mathematicians from various countries — from Congo to India — against a blackboard filled end-to-end with equations. Women in most parts of the world, particularly in STEM, are up against a formidable glass ceiling in the form of social pressure to have children or due to institutional apathy. This exhibition at Bengaluru’s International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, and the Raman Research Institute also features Neela Nataraj, the institute chair professor at the department of mathematics, IIT Bombay. She is now working on mathematical problems related to liquid crystals. The exhibit which opens a window into the lives of these famed mathematicians is on till March 15 and is open to the public.

Ouch!

Average Indian feminist girls: Won’t pay equal bills. Won’t marry a guy who earns the same. Won’t marry a guy who is unemployed. Cooking and household chores are slavery. Want a rich man with high income. Also want him to cook and do chores. Where is the equality?

Venom, an X user with 72.5k followers

People we meet

Andaleeb Wajeed,

Andaleeb Wajeed, a writer who has written over 50 books, says that it is not uncommon that people think she is oppressed because she wears a hijab. At The Hindu Lit for Life literature festival, she said that when she had travelled for a children’s literature festival to Chandigarh, she encountered a blackboard with questions for authors. “The main question in all black was ‘How did you overcome oppression?’ I was shocked. I said I was not oppressed at all,” she said, adding that she laughed it off. Andaleeb is intent on writing every day, and writing books covering a range of topics where her leads are particularly empowered. “I write two chapters a day,” she says, hoping to publish many more books.