At the risk of sounding ‘overwhelmingly feminist’, as someone told me recently, this week has been pretty good for women. (Barring May 28 which marks a year of the phenomenal Maya Angelou’s passing.)
Firstly, there’s Richa Chadha who tweeted a photo of her showing the middle finger — “to all those who said I shouldn’t work in ‘low budget arty films’, PFA my revert. (PARDON MY FRENCH) #MasaanAtCannes” — after she won two awards at Cannes for Masaan . She’s every bit the ‘New Woman’ ( Pudhumai Penn ) as envisioned by poet Subramania Bharati; his idea of women’s emancipation that made him declare that women would do away with the old rules and ties that controlled them, that they would travel all over the world and work to make India great.
Of course, Cannes did face its ugly share of sexism when some female festival attendees were barred from the red carpet for wearing flat shoes. It’s ridiculous that such retrograde fashion choices constitute femininity and elegance. How does wearing heels make you more of a woman; how does wearing flats make you any less? Let’s also take a moment to celebrate JK Rowling who fought homophobic trolls after an attack on her for supporting Irish marriage equality. What makes her stand out is not her wonderfully-worded, admirable reply but instead why she chose to reply. She tweets, “I think it’s important that scared gay kids who aren’t out yet see hate speech challenged.”
It might have taken 800 years but Oxford University gets its first female vice-chancellor in Louise Richardson, a political scientist. While currently she is the principal at St. Andrews University, Louise will take up the role next year provided the institution’s legislative body approves. Here’s only hoping that it doesn’t take another 800 years for a woman to become the chancellor.
