Gender Agenda newsletter: Waiting for movement

Many months ago, while I was waiting to board a flight, an elderly woman approached me and asked if I was part of a travel group. When I said I wasn’t, her face fell. She explained that it was her first time joining an all-women group and she had hoped I might keep her company (and I suspect, help boost her confidence). “I’m so happy to finally be doing this,” she told me. “My husband is busy doing his own thing and my daughter is married, so I have no responsibilities to worry about.”

That made me sad and I wondered: had she spent her entire life fulfilling one duty after another, with no time to do what she actually wanted? How many women spend their lives waiting to do something they love, as days bleed into months and years? To step out alone, to wear an outfit they want, to chat with friends over a meal, to pursue a career, to see the world? 

Society doesn’t make it easy at all, with all its entrapments and expectations. This week, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called for “uniting Hindu society” and suggested that Hindu families consider having at least three children. This suggestion not only undermines women’s bodily autonomy, but also reinforces the idea that a woman’s primary role is to be a mother — a role that many often wait for decades to step beyond. 

Despite laws guaranteeing inheritance rights, women struggle to get what is legally theirs. News articles, literature (such as Keshava Guha’s The Tiger’s Share) and shows (such as Kohhra) explore how women combat such entrenched attitudes. In several tribal communities, however, women continue to wait for the law itself to grant them these rights. As Shalini Saboo writes here, “”Codifying customary laws of succession in…States with significant tribal populations…could…ensure gender parity while preserving tribal identity.”

Women are forced to wait even at the highest levels of politics. In this piece, former Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quraishi, writes that women are still awaiting their due representation in Parliament, even though a law has been in place since 2023, after several years of struggle. This is because the law includes a clause stipulating that reservations will begin only “after the first Census taken after the year 2026” and the subsequent delimitation of constituencies. As Quraishi says, “Why should half of India’s citizens wait for an exercise that has nothing to do with gender equality?” 

But amid all this waiting imposed by society, laws, and tradition, there are some women who are refusing to put their lives on hold. Like a friend who froze her eggs at 32 because she was tired of failed relationships. Like an acquaintance who walked out of a marriage, not willing to wait for a husband who promised to stop cheating. Or the women who change their jobs, refusing to stay put for the pay or promotion due to them. Instead of growing accustomed to the habit of waiting, some women are choosing to open new doors to have their moments in the sun. 

Toolkit

Gossip, a movement theatre production, is a celebration of female friendships, says Anjali Krishnadas who conceptualised it with Ponnu Sajeev. “Gossip is derived from the Old/Middle English ‘Godsibb’. One of the meanings attributed to it is a trusted friend, especially a female companion during childbirth… Gossip has a negative connotation, which women are accused of. This is our way of reclaiming the term,” she says here to Shilpa Nair Anand. 

Wordsworth

Looksmaxxing is an online subculture focused on maximising physical attractiveness, primarily among young men, through techniques ranging from skincare and fitness (softmaxxing) to extreme methods such as unauthorised cosmetic procedures and bone smashing (hardmaxxing). Read more about looksmaxxing and Clavicular, the star from the community, in this piece in The New York Times.

Ouch!

There is no point in us playing against Sao Paulo, Palmeiras, Corinthians, and they allow a woman to referee a game of this size.

Football player Gustavo Marques, who plays for Brazilian club Red Bull Bragantino, on referee Daiane Muniz. Marques was suspended for one match after the comment.

People we met

Nandini Bhowmik, a Sanskrit scholar-professor, Indologist, and priest, runs the charitable trust, Shubhamastu, along with Ruma Roy. The trust consists of 19 women priests and devotional singers, who conduct Hindu weddings, housewarming ceremonies, and memorial services, among others. In her profile of Bhowmik, Priya Ramani writes that she first officiated at her own daughter’s wedding. When Shubhamastu conducts weddings, “ceremonies are stripped of sexism and don’t include rituals such as the kanyadaan… Phrases such as ‘I will provide’ become ‘we will provide for each other’.” Read about Bhowmik here. 

Published – March 01, 2026 07:57 pm IST