Lt. Col Janak Raj Bats
Ever since the time of The Ramayana or The Mahabharata, women have been constantly relegated to peripheries vis-à-vis the usual male assumption of centrality, with the powerful men looking down upon their female counterparts merely as submissive sexual objects. Women have been consistently stereotyped as unintelligent human beings who are expected to serve in kitchens, follow the directions of their male and female in-laws, act as caring mothers to children, and ensure, on the peril of unpopularity, that servants did their tasks ‘correctly’. Though the 21st-century has often been referred to as the age of women empowerment when every crusader against patriarchal norms is applauded, representation of female emancipation, be it in films and serials or in literature, often assume distorted forms. The depiction of women in media and literature seems to be aimed more at satisfying the subconscious male voyeuristic desires than at how the females have become modernised enough to take on the world. Even in Europe, which seemed to have had been modernised by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, women were not allowed proper education or encouraged to write.
Only as late as in 19th-century did some sensitive intellectuals, starting with John Stuart Mill, and involving personalities like Frances Cobbe, Harriet Martineau, and Josephine Butler among others, began clamouring for equal rights for women.
20th-century critics like Kate Millett, Simone de Beauvoir, Elaine Showalter, and Judith Fetterley have, in various publications, cautioned their female readers about the ‘traditional male hypocrisies’ which seek to dismiss the importance of females even while clamouring for their developments. Fetterley, especially, speaks for the necessity of ‘resisting readers’ who would identify the specific areas in male-constructed literature which offer demeaning portrayal of women and conspire to keep them submissive. However, as far as casual re-readings of post-modern literature reveal or cursory glances at films and television serials notice, women are directly or unwillingly participating in their own commodification, and allowing themselves to be sexualised on screen or in print. Rather than becoming a century for women’s liberation, the 21st-century has become a period of gross female sexualisation. In such an age of artistic and aesthetic decadence, it has become necessary to identify the specific areas where women are being, on daily basis, distortedly depicted, patronised, or dominated. Even if such identifications and relevant publications would not normally stop violent attacks on young women, they would at least make maturing readers aware of the deplorable ground-realities for women in India and on international arena, and make them stake and encouraging views of the female efforts for liberation.
The present critical anthology beside focussing on this pertinent issue through its variety of collected essays, includes an interview taken by Dr. Jaydeep Sarangi of the noted feminist author and activist Sarojini Sahoo. Commenting about the relevance and necessity of publishing this compilation of essays on portrayal of women in media and literature , I definitely shall recommend it. Numerous crimes against women, as social scientists have pointed out, are taking place on a daily-basis particularly because of ignorance and lack of compassion for femininity. The variety of issues explored in this critical anthology would make some epistemic contributions to the fields of feminism and pro-women-activism, with cautious approaches adopted towards the depreciations of females in different fields. If the role of humanities is to make individuals more humane, such a compilation is expected to further advance humaneness and humanity.
In recent years, the Government of India and all the Indian states are taking stringent measures against female harassments and anti-women violence. Academic activism has also been making its contribution. In the field of written literature, the femininity-indicating ‘actress’ and ‘authoress’ have been diligently replaced with ‘actor’ and ‘author’, respectively. But, interestingly, while such academic ‘measures’ perceptively try to abolish the discriminating female-signs and signifiers, the males have not been motivated into becoming ‘authoresses’, ‘actresses’, or ‘poetesses’. The males have been traditionally granted superior places; even while indicating uni-sexuality, male signifiers have been adopted! If Spivak’s strategic essentialism is to be taken into account, abolishment of the ‘-esses’ might interpreted as offering scopes for re-examination. Nevertheless, this compilation of critical essays is expected to be referred to by teachers and students alike who want to further their studies and activism regarding female empowerment and dignities.
The book is published by ACCESS (An Imprint of Authorspress), New Delhi. The book indeed shall be useful to the future researchers and teachers for further studies related with female empowerment.
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