[ This is Essay No. 30 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]
The Hand That Wields the Pen
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Civilisations are judged and remembered not by their most successful businessmen but by the art they leave behind.
~ Kwame Kwei-Armah
That art is important for a civilization is undeniable. That it oils its rusty wheels, provides beauty, meaning and sanguinity, and keeps us from becoming animals or machines—both of which we threaten with unfailing regularity—is obvious to many. But it remains an undernourished market; few people or organisations are willing to spend money on it. It is seldom part of corporate social responsibility programs and in a country where poverty looms wall-high, it is difficult for art to command a share of the charity pie. It is neither as urgent nor as poignant, and its contribution to life is often, to quote Margaret Atwood, ‘as unnoticed and as necessary’ as the air we breathe. If art in general is underfunded and under-prioritized, the case for specific subcategories such as women’s writing is even weaker.
On the battle lines drawn between art and activism, there are heated arguments about ‘protectionism’ towards women’s writing or other gender-based categories. Artists will often spurn such categories for their ‘limited’ notion, and they do have a point. It is difficult for art to flourish within laxman rekhas of any kind, even those drawn with the best intentions. Art can benefit from political and social awareness but there are enough propagandists trying to pass of pamphlets as poetry. Anthologies of women’s writing inevitably spawn a host of terrible pieces that are painstakingly (and painfully) ‘woman-oriented’. There are those who argue that there is little justification for categories such as women’s writing. The questions they raise are these: why should art be judged on any other basis other than its own merit? And why should politically defined writing be privileged in any way?
For feminist publishing houses like Zubaan and Kali for Women, the question seems to have a clear answer. Urvashi Butalia has talked about the logic behind setting up Zubaan here, pointing out clearly their goal of “reflecting the debates within the women’s movement, and disseminating them as far as possible.” She looks at feminist publishing “centrally as a developmental activity – for social change, developing certain skills, developing certain strains of thought.” But the question of women’s writing or art that is not categorically ‘feminist’ is more problematic because it cannot be defended as ‘developmental’ activity. Or can it?
If one goes back to the original premise – that a civilization is remembered for its art, then it is clear that each work of art has a value that transcends its immediate, individual aesthetic or artistic value. It has larger cultural and historical importance. In which case, it would be wrong and dangerous for a civilization’s art to not reflect the lives and thoughts of its women. Yet, this particular sort of silence has plagued literature for centuries. Reasons range from girl’s illiteracy to harsher censorship of women’s writing. This article talks about the number of problems women writers have to face. At the most fundamental level, girls lag behind in education. (In nine of India’s 35 states and territories, illiteracy rates among women are 50 percent or higher, according to figures from the 2001 India census. In contrast, no state or territory has an illiteracy rate of 50 percent or higher among males.) Then, very few women can manage the time to pursue artistic proclivities. Even parents who encourage daughters to work are more likely to understand a desire to work in a bank than to paint or write seriously (as opposed to as a hobby). Familial resistance and the ‘good girl syndrome’ clamp down on women’s thoughts. Religious fundamentalism browbeats them. Male critics and editors often dismiss their writing as ‘recreational and decorative’. They face social censure and censorship when they write about things that don’t fit within rigid constructs of morality—and these rules are much stricter for women than for men.
Only a handful of women surmount these hurdles to become artists at all.
I’m reluctant to sign my name to essentialist theories; I’ve known women as different from each other as bicycles and fish. Yet, it is undeniable that there are certain experiences common to women: menstruation, labour, childbirth, menopause, female orgasm. Biological, social and political constructs also affect most of us in similar ways, influencing the ways we inhabit spaces, negotiate relationships, manage the little things.
When Tharu and Lalita wrote Women Writing in India in 1993, they said in their introduction that they had tried to…
“create a context in which women’s writings can be read, not as new monuments to existing institutions and cultures (classics, are by definition, monuments) but as documents that display what is at stake in the embattled practices of self and agency and in the making of a habitable world, at the margins of patriarchies reconstituted by the emerging bourgeoisies of empire and nation.”
I find this distinction between monuments and documents important. Art created by women may not always be monuments or classics; but it serves to document the lives and histories of women living at a particular time. Unless an atmosphere is provided for it to flourish, these histories will be lost. It is to prevent this loss that women’s art must receive a certain amount of protection and encouragement, some nudges to help it along.
But despite these limitations, preserving and celebrating the female gaze is important for civilization—if not for art—and usually for both. Perhaps, someday we will have a world where women tell their stories and everyone stops to listen. Until then, we’ll have to accept that affirmative action is required on this, as on many other fronts.
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As reported by Elizabeth Yuan in ‘For a girl in rural India, education is a difficult pursuit’ in CNN.com, 23 March 2007
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Anindita is a poet, writer and journalist in Bangalore, India. Her poetry has appeared in Muse India, Talking Poetry, Kritya, Asian Cha, and In Other Voices (an anthology by Delhi Poetree). She was the winner of the Toto Awards for Creative Writing in 2008. When not penning verse, she works at the India Foundation of Arts (IFA) and is a consultant with Iconoculture and Fida. Deeply committed to gender issues, she is founder and editor of Ultra Violet, India ’s first online community of feminists.
She can be contacted at: anu[dot] sengupta[at]gmail.com
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Typical confusion, blurring of reality, fantasy and exoticism.
This is a suggestion : Why dont you Miss/Mrs Sengupta go out and a look around bit. A few kilometres from Bangalore on the Mysore Road there would loads of women, cutting stone for building the great modern Highway, Talk to them if you managed to learn Kannada. They will show you and tell you the art of it. A few more Kilometres more In atown called CHR Patna and you will find women who can explain to you how they make the most delicate wooden toys. Turn in the other direction if you wish, on way to Tanjore women will weave you the most magnificient saree you will ever set your eyes on, that no Chinese machine can dream of producing. I have seen all this. None of them literate, they dont wield a pen but all of them artists. Pen is not the only art.
Sunil: Obviously, the pen isn’t. Writing is only one form of art. However, it is the form I’ve chosen to talk about. The fact that women have been employed in certain art forms (and the issue of traditional and folk arts and how they are doing is enough for many more posts) does not erase the fact that they have been marginalised in others. So what is your point exactly? If you have an argument, please state it clearly.
Glad you’ve seen the making of wooden toys and Tanjore saris. I haven’t had a chance to see those yet but hopefully soon. I have seen women in villages near Machilipatnam make Batik saris (I bought a pretty one, in fact) though and Kalamkari block printing and katha work. Do those count? Or does it have to be Karnataka-based? Funnily, the Kalamkari workshops I went to didn’t have women.
The modern highway is a form of art? Really?
And the women cutting stone for it consider themselves artists as opposed to hard labourers? And I’m the romantic?
Should we now talk about the art of making a roti (which according to me is pretty tough) but in this case, of course, women have clearly not been deprived of any opportunities. Joy.
Sunil, surely the examples you cite are different from art which gives shape to autonomous voices and fulfills the need to express one’s self. It need not be “literary” I agree and it need not involve a “pen” but that is trivial and i think it was clear that anindita was using pen just as a symbol or an example, it could be a paintbrush too and it won’t change anything in the article. This is ultimately the difference between art and a craft. In fact in most cases what you mentioned are examples of “exploitation” by a system where human being is dehumanised and reduced to a mere skill. And moreover in most cases women do those things because they can be paid less.
To Anindita: I agree with the main point of the article about the need for affirmative action and support so that marginalized voices can also come into the mainstream. As a reader I have been guilty myself of judging and comparing many of these texts with more conventionally accomplished and avant-garde works, without thinking about context or origins.
Alok
Alok: Thanks for your comment. I think most of us have been guilty of that at some point or the other. I remember looking at women’s anthologies suspiciously at one time. It’s ironic retribution that one of my poems is slated to appear in one soon.
Interestingly, I came across a related article in Alternet around how the literary canon views prizes for women’s fiction. The debate is spurred by the Orange Prize for fiction. The article says:
“Of 104 persons honored by the Nobel Prize in Literature, only 11 have been female, the latest being Doris Lessing in 2007. In the 91-year history of the Pulitzer Prize, female authors won 27 times for fiction. Women won 12 of 37 National Book Critics Circle fiction awards and 15 of 57 National Book Awards for fiction.
With its all-female jury and long list, the Orange was controversial when it debuted in 1996. It continues to spur an annual debate in the blogosphere and wider media about whether adding the female prefix to a writer’s identification could limit the universality of her work.”
Link here: http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/92427/women’s_book_prizes_fire_up_literary_canon/
Thanks. Both of you have been respectful and hence I have to extend back to you.
Anindita: QED.QED
Your English is good and so are your beliefs, ideas. But perspective and reasoning is in grave wanting. How is that a pen you have written about is a mere symbol where as the art forms I have written about is literal, even real? And Why?
The basis of this conflict is the heart of your response to me. My initial comment was to bring that forth? Thanks.
That done I go back to your post; I ask you: Read aloud your paragraphs. The first few especially. We did. I humbly suggest any reader to do as well. And see if you can get what is being said. Civilization? Art? Feminism? Atwood from Canada? Laxman Rekha. It is conflated , hesitant, discontinuous and as a result confounding.
And end of it all you conclude women gaze- I assume you mean feminine point of view – is important for civilization and we should all listen when women tell their stories.
Certainly. But tell me , dear lady, what is that you just tried to tell us? and how was that reached? What civilization? Who’s idea of feminism? Which women?
This, with no disrespect is an quintessential Indian writing — an abstraction hanging on its own.
Alok: My friend, I have told you this before and I shall repeat it again, with no offence intended. Your idea of the world is a theory. Which you cherish and try looking at everything through that theory. As Anindita is doing. It has no context or meaning. There is no feedback for you folks. You choose views that reaffirm and reinforce your beliefs as reality.
Alok, let me explain as I have done before to you many a times. To you , in your mind, all of it is bad. Affirmitive action is good. So yes you agree. This is the idea of your analysis. Let see.
You call them marginalised. What is the basis of the label? That they cant speak english to be as vague as you people here are? In India, their votes are counted. Not a few of ours.
What they do is their vocation. That is what they do for their living. Just like you do. You are not ‘exploited’ (your term) though the sole reason of your and all our friends employment is that you can be paid less! that is liberalization.
That these women cant choose to be paid less elsewhere in a Bangalore or a Bay Area makes them backward. This is the idea of civilzation, social activism that we Indians seem to foster. Selvi in tanjore is not a Jhumpa Lahiri in LA. So she is backward.
Further, Anindita wants every women to tell their stories via mouthpieces called zubaan, which you agree with. Go and look for a zubaan book in various bookstores in India; I did , because someone I know had contributed. I scoured every bookstore in eight frigging cities all across the country. I didnt find a book. Charm the store managers and they will tell you why. Anindita can tell you as well. And you would suggest another term : affirmitive action. But you dont know. So lets get out of this idea of exploitation is something distant and rural. As I said it’s a theory. And you want to live in it.
sunil: I suspect we won’t get too far talking to each other here but let’s see. I think your main point is getting lost in your obfuscatory, oppositional and confrontational tone but I guess what you mean is that traditional folk arts give women, even those who are illiterate, a lot of opportunities to express their genuine and autonomous voices, even in traditionalist, repressive and patriarchal societies and your complaint is about this cultural universalism – using a universal standard to judge every culture. Is that right?
That might be true though what you mentioned as examples, weaving sarees, breaking stones, or to extend it as Anindita mentioned making perfect Euclidean rotis, certainly don’t serve your agument. And even after that this article isn’t about that at all. I can’t understand how you don’t see the void when you look at the literary landscape…all those absent voices which should have been there.
By marginalised I just meant that I don’t get to hear their “voices” – I will call a weaver marginalized because we don’t get to know what goes on inside her, what moves her, how she mourns her dead, experiences she has gone through – in short in what ways she is a human being rather than just a empty figure on the street. I prostitute myself in my job too (though fortunately only part of my life) but I and the world know what people like me go through (to an extent)…we have a voice.
I haven’t read anything published by Zubaan or Kali yet… though I remember one such feminist publisher which published (may be it was one of these) first person testimonies of women during the partition which was considered a major breakthrough in historical research, because it was never considered while writing official histories before. Or may be I just read it in an article somewhere.
If you talk about commercial fiction and other nonsese media products being sold to women which are marketed in these lofty terms, giving voices etc (which has become depressingly familiar these days), I would be as cynical as you probably will be about it.
Alok
No. That is not right.
Firstly, I am ignoring your attempts to epithets.
I have explained to you and Anindita the reasons for giving those examples in my previous comment. It was a comment in response to the post. Lets get back to the post, which you say I have not misunderstood. So I am not going to carry on indulging for your imagination.
I quite simply wish to know what is the post about? This is my reading of the post.
Para 1: Art and Civilization
Para 2: Women’s writing
Para 3: Feminist publishing in India
Para 4: Lot of muddled thoughts going back and forth in time.
Para 5 and rest: insert default acontextual feminism text of this and that.
Conclusion: Women’s POV is important for a civilization.
You say yes, affirmative action.
I as another reader who has read it as, what the hell is going on here?
Anindita’s idea that women should write undeniably stems from her own need to write. But what is the basis of she projecting it on to every women of the civilization. I don’t want janewritesjanegoodgirl thoughts. Is there a basis?
Take a look at any activism in history; the idea of the activism stems as an expression of a collective need. The voice is an eventual articulation of that need. It is bottoms up. But here, Anindita has invented a voice and trying to find a subject and population for her activism. This is advertisement and marketing. This is abusing those women and their identities for your gains. Which is why I dropped the first comment- to draw and tease it all out.
You say yes affirmative action. Go through what zubaan have published and the writers they have published. These are women in urban pockets writing about internet romance and such. How is this going to imply any affirmative action for a woman in the street? These people are writing for themselves. They have the right to write yes. I think they should, many of them are good writers but just cant see what to write about. But that’s their problem. Why bring this whole idea of civilization and activism.
To you – we have established from your comment now that it is not exploitation but now voice. This I think it is progress. You should educate yourself abt feminist literature in India, than passing on excuses as of not reading. it’s a shame you wish to comment, not having read anyone. As I have said to you it is a theory. Your idea of marginalised is a joke. By that everyoen shoudl be calling everyone else marginalised, those women in their communities would be calling you marginalised.
About Voice: consider this story. My name is Selvi. I am 23. I am married. I make idlis for my husband and I work as a weaver. My skill/ art is unparalleled in the world. ( though she might not know it) I come back home and watch telly. I wrote a short story which was published in a local Tamil weekly. My husband took me to a Tamil movie on Sunday. I am proud of myself . Importantly, I am quite happy with my life.
So now lets consider ideas of feminism, women‘s writing etc wrt Selvi:
Anindita’s idea in her own mind is that she is speaking for Selvi because she believes Selvi doesn’t have a voice. She is mute. Why? Because Selvi fixes breakfast for her husband. Because she cant speak English and cant get published, though she doesn’t know what she wants or not. Therefore her entire history and civilization is artless and hence inferior. This abstraction is feminism. Few women chatting in Barista and writing for each other which would never translate into any act on the ground beyond them is feminism. Without this, as we all know from history greatest civilizations from Rome to Russia have collapsed. They have left nothing back.
Alok, your idea of Feminism: Selvi should write and get published ( affirmative action) about the way she is , what goes on inside her, what moves her, how she mourns her dead, experiences she has gone through etc. Not because if she wants it or for her sake, because you can read it ( though I think that is unlikely unless she changes her name to Fyodor Dostoevsky =)) so you can sit and say oh she has a voice. But If she has written in Tamil that doesn’t count as a voice because you cant read Tamil. She is the lady in the street.
This is gist of the ideas expressed here. Important, fundamental question– Why why ? Why ? is Anindita taken as a representative of Indian women?
One more thing for both you : I am extremely disgusted by your repeated sarcastic mentioning of making rotis , making euclidian rotis etc as inferior. I have tried to ignore but its popping again and again.
I see a thousand women who do it with dignity and with a sense of duty. In India. It is a life – an act – as respected as you fix your corn flakes or toasts. At any rate I think is better than sitting before a computer and trying to sound liberal and intelligent for personal gains. I don’t know if I am a feminist but I am uncomfortable looking down on such things. And I suggest for all the talk here we drop it.
Sunil: I really don’t understand what you are so belligerent about. Anindita is neither saying that writing is the only form of art, nor is she saying that *all* women *should* write. She is merely saying that writing for women and especially *by women* needs to be encouraged.
And I am not sure why you are up in arms about language and art. At no point has she said that Tamil writing or Kannada writing or any regional art or craft or any form of art or craft should be given up *in favour* of writing.
It seems to be that you only want to take offence because she is talking about women’s writing, and you would prefer women to be artistically breaking stones to make a highway that you can drive your views roughshod over.
Aditya
That’s a lovely name, you know. And your comment is lot clear than the others who engaged before.
I am being belligerent purely out of frustration of some baloney being passed on as this and that. Nothing more nothing less. Alll right?
In your response all you have concentrated is on my first suggestion to Anindita. The purpose of the suggestion, as I have said before is to draw out the intent of the article , which has been done.
So now, you say– she is merely saying that writing for women and especially *by women* needs to be encouraged.
Oh I see.
My simple question is why? I sincerely wish to know why?
2. Who are these women who should be encouraged? Anindita?
Anindita you go girl.
3. Okay so now, Anindita thinks women should be encouraged to write. What does that mean? Buy all women- pen and paper?
4. As you say if she is not speaking for all women, who is she speaking for exactly? No I understand the complications publishing stories in india, so yes I have nothing against Zubaan.
But how did this become an activism?
Women publishing their own work for encouraging the women is, as I see an entrepreneurial venture with its own objectives and goals, like thousand other such ventures. Good. But is that related to civilization-and Indian nation whcih she repeatedly alludes to in this article?
? Consider: I am Sanjana I am good swimmer. I know sophisticated swimming settings in Blore and Bombay. ( Insert links and founders words) I say swimming should be encouraged for women, by women in India. Because without swimming, how women have suffered in all civilizations. When the moguls invaded south, all the women could have escaped into Sri Lanka or Singapore. See it is important for a women to swim for a civilization. How does Sanjana’s own thoughts become activism? In plain engish it is a wish. Just liek Aloks affirmitive action.
This is what post conveys: an intense personal wish.
But why scupper your boat by bringing in all the malarkey?
This is one person saying hey I think writing is to encouraged among women. We dont know which women: My cafe coffee day friends, or PU students, or Call center workers. ( which is why the language came in Aditya) but generally women, for by to from also. Women.
As is said it is an abstraction hanging in thin air. The women who have to be encouraged are an entity, activism an imagination, a civilization an excuse. It is thought of one mind with no past or the future.
In other parts of the world it would have gone like this.
Hey, I found this publishing house Zubaan who are committed to encourage writing by women , about women. So if you know anyone who are interested to support such writing or willing to contribute pass it on.
It is not the social structure. It is understanding of one’s own position in the world. But here , a land easy given to fancy and fantasy it is A for Art and Activism , B for Bollocks, C for Civilization.
I dont see any further progress in discussion. If anyone is really interested and feel they can explain the questions I have raised mail me and we can discuss next week. I cant keep on educating every Indian who drop by here . If you agree fine. At a most you would nod and go back to another window. I doesnt eman sausage to me.
cheers
Sunil
BTW – you might want to check the role of art and women in highway mentioned.
Sunil: Anindita is pointing out a fact that you may not be aware of – that most women in India (and large parts of the world) have their opinions and their ideas muzzled. Any organization that helps to break this oppression is to be lauded and encouraged.
Whether you agree or not, the act of expression is the basic tenet of all civilizations. Anyone who wishes to express themselves should have an equal opportunity outlet to do so. If you are not willing to see that patriarchy has demonstrably dictated what women may say (and write) then I have no interest in taking this argument further.