Seeking Everyday 'Feminist Heroine' Moments
A talk about identifying ‘feminist heroines’ at a festival celebrating gender diversity
Nisha Susan speaking about the feminist heroines at 'Gender Bender' arts festival
By NSoJ Bureau
A feminist can be a heroine, a friend, a mother-in-law, an aunt, or anyone. But there is not enough literature to identify these roles in our society. "I wish there were more books to identify these small roles. Life is not about heroines but about the many ‘heroine moments’ in our lives,” said Nisha Susan, co-founder of the ‘Ladies Finger’ a feminist e-magazine. Ms Susan was speaking at Gender Bender, a multi-disciplinary arts festival held in the city recently.
"Who is a feminist?" she asked her audience. "One way to check if you are a feminist is by checking your pockets. Do you have pockets?” Though not-having pockets may seem trivial to men, having non-functional pockets strikes a nerve in every woman, Ms Susan stated. "If you can stand up and speak about the pockets in your pants you are more or less a feminist. This issue is not about fashion, it is about equality," she stated.
Identifying feminist heroines
"Through literature and life, I have come across many feminist heroines" Ms Susan said. According to her, "A feminist heroine has the potential to rise to any occasion, to do anything" Today, a woman is someone who meets the demands of beauty, glamour and popularity. In the past, such women had shared personal traits -- a need for independence, driving ambition, and a desire to seek out experience, she said.
One kind of feminist heroine is from the biography of Ms Krishna Sobti, a Hindi fiction writer well-known for her unapologetic portrayal of a married woman's sexuality. "As an 18-year-old in the 1980s, Ms Sobti organised a birthday party for herself by the river, with her friends. Though she didn't fight a war, there is something heroic about her having that birthday party" Ms Susan said.
From the male point of view, there is a stereotypical view of a feminist. “I have older friends who say: ‘Look at the way she smokes, she is so cool; she's a feminist!’ But in Sara Paretsky’s detective novels featuring V I Warshawski, her heroine is capable of being all alone in the basement of a 20-floor building, fixing the fuse. That is my kind of heroine" Ms Susan stressed.
Why read more feminist literature?
"Being a feminist has nothing to do with how you look or what you wear. I learned this through a Vivian Gornick essay,” she said. She cited Gornick's essay 'Approaching Eye Level' which is about facing the struggles of growing loneliness. “In it, Gornick says: 'After you have just left college, or you're starting your first job, you are in that moment where you are lonely. Everyone is telling you, put yourself out there. Sometimes you do, but you don't make any friends. This is not your fault but the person you found is just not a perfect fit for you. Such writing is like a kind of talisman for me. It helps me get through whatever I am trudging through" she said.
"We don’t have enough literature to identify different feminist roles in the society; rather feminism lives on in small, everyday moments," she said, adding, "Who wants to spend all their free time thinking about men!"
Gender Bender, a multi-disciplinary arts festival, was held at the Bangalore International Centre in Domlur, last month. The event had film screenings, an exhibition of menstruation-themed tarot cards, a queer library and featured comedian Vasu Primlani, filmmaker Paromita Vohra and belly dancer Eshan Hilal, among others.
