Gender agenda newsletter Just joking

A man once told me a ‘joke’ that went something like this: “Why does a woman dress in white on her wedding day? Because she must match the white goods in the house.” It was one of my freeze moments, when I didn’t know what to say. Years later, I still can’t think of a smart retort.

Tamil Nadu will vote in the Assembly elections this month. Last month, the DMK, the ruling political party in the State, announced an ₹8,000 coupon for “homemakers” to buy a “home appliance” of their choice under the Illatharasi scheme, if the party came back to power. This, Chief Minister Stalin announced, was the heroine of the election, while the manifesto itself, where the scheme found its place, was the hero.

At one level, the scheme acknowledges the labour of women at home, puts some power in their hands to make decisions at least with the implements they use, and regularises the use of tools to make work easier. At another level, it ties a homemaker to home appliances, making the home solely her responsibility (much like creches are targeted at women because childcare is seen as a woman’s job, not a family responsibility). It hardens the gendered division of labour: women must cook and clean; men must go out to earn, which is stressful for both in a household. And it frames the umbrella (the manifesto) as male (the hero) and what is protected under it (the scheme) as female (the heroine).

Women though, don’t need these politics of protection; they need a safe world to thrive, and one way of staying safe is money, actual money, not a gift coupon they can redeem at Amazon. Actor Radikaa Sarathkumar upturned what it means to be a heroine – not someone to be protected by a hero – but someone who, as part of a contract, got a share in the film’s profit for Thaai Kizhavi. She has become the first woman in the history of Tamil cinema to do so. With the film grossing more than ₹75 crore worldwide at the box office, the 63-year-old actor says, “I wanted to be paid more, because I deserve it.” She also speaks about how women younger than her in the industry have called her up to say this has given them “immense confidence”.

Perhaps the younger women she speaks of are often caught in “an unstable middle space”, where they are “at the crossroads of modern aspirations and traditional constraints”. Asiya Islam’s A Woman’s Job: Making Middle Lives in New India follows women “through education and employment in cafes and call centres in globalising Delhi” to “reclaim male-dominated narratives”.

Here’s what a female-dominated narrative looks like: read the tale of Phuphee, who made the warmth from the stoves in her village disappear, because men would tell women to go back to their maternal homes each time there was an argument. It was only after the men promised never to do that again, did Phuphee restore the heat.

TOOLKIT

Pink mobility cards

These have been introduced by the current Delhi government as a subset to the National Common Mobility Card, which offered pan-India ease of movement. The pink mobility card will offer women with a Delhi address unlimited free rides in buses, and can be seamlessly used at a regular cost on the Delhi Metro too. The previous Aam Aadmi Party, which lost power last year in the elections, had introduced the pink ticket, which allowed all women, irrespective of where they lived, free bus rides.

WORDSWORTH

Gender fatalism

An assumption that nature determines the inherent qualities of a boy or girl. “I remember that utterance ‘boys will be boys’ as one often made by adults, often with a nod of the head and an intonation of forgiveness,” says Sara Ahmed, in her new book Living a Feminist Life, published by Zubaan. She says this taking-traits-for-granted is not just an explanation, but also an expectation, of a boy being aggressive, for instance. He must live up to that image.  

OUCH!

If women have the right to consent to sex even after marriage, then men also have the right to seek divorce over lack of intimacy. Marriage isn’t a free pass to enjoy benefits without responsibility. If someone wants a life without accountability, they can stay at their parents’ home—there’s no need to marry. #Marriage #Divorce #MensRights #GenderEquity #Accountability #Relationships #MarriageDebate

—Mayank Burmee, who calls himself a men’s rights activist on X, responding to a scene in the OTT platform series Chiraiya, which depicts marital rape

WOMEN WE MET

Rukmini, Pooja, Kiran and 48 other brides married men in a mass wedding in Delhi. Ashna Butani finds that despite sparing families the high cost of a wedding and the dowry that must be paid, it is a reinforcing of the old rules of marriage: ritual, endogamy, and traditional expectations. “The family is nice. I’m looking forward to entering my new home,” says Pooja, one of the women getting married.  

Published – April 05, 2026 09:22 am IST