Towards an Indian Feminism

Feminist writer Nivedita Menon and Social Anthropologist Sanjay Srivastava discussed Indian feminism with Leela Gandhi at the TOI Litfest on Sunday evening and debated on the notions of gender and sexuality in the Indian context.
The academicians spoke about their personal formation and how they came into the realm of gender and sexuality.
“If you ask a person assigned gender female at birth whether she had thought she would be a feminist it's not a very difficult question to answer because one is so aware of the constraints.and its not very difficult to stray into feminism if you are aware of the pressing injustice in your life and you have the cultural capital which exposes you writing, thinking and reading.”
If for Menon it was about being “assigned” a gender and the constraints that followed, Sanjay Srivastava;s relationship was a disciplinary and personal one.“ Like many men in my generation my parents wanted me to study science but I did economics.While preparing for civil services I chose social anthropology as a subject and I couldn’t believe people could talk about sexuality and gender as an economist. I couldn’t believe people could talk about sociology, political science and get paid for it. An entire word opened up to me. So it started with thinking about oneself as a gendered subject in terms of discipline that one studies. How men come to it is very different. They don’t come to it for the position of contesting power. ”says Srivastava.
Talking about feminism as a critical perspective, individuality and what it means for her to see as a feminist Nivedita Menon said
“In the context of doing scholarly work Feminism is a method rather than a discipline. It's a way of seeing but it's a method that enables you to disorder whatever field you are looking at in such a way that it opens up not just gender hierarchies but the ways in which gender is located within and around and by caste, class, religious community identities. Most Indian feminist don't see feminism as being about women alone.” Sanjay Srivastava laid emphasis on disciplinary spaces within which sexuality emerges.
“I was interested in the connection that nationalism sought to make between space and subjectivity. The reason why I am interested in space and gender in my current work is trying to think about consumerism and in terms of gender the biggest women’s problem is about the female consumers. Because historically a woman is someone who does not consume and saves for her family. Consumerism thus introduces a specific tension in Indian life.” he said.