The Rebelle blog

Sometimes I wish I'd documented all my thoughts about dismantling patriarchy in a diary or a journal when I was younger. I wish this now, because I recently read some letters I'd written to a distant friend on role of women in workplaces and this uneven household/work system. And I realised my thoughts on certain books like Wuthering Heights or Virginia Woolf's writings and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar have undergone a slight change. Maybe I was young, back when I first read these books. I was disappointed by the portrayal of women and it marred my understanding about the quality of life 19th century women lived in. SO, the thoughts on tramping patriarchy also arose from two recent incidents seen in India. One, the Happy to Bleed project which started as a reaction to some Temple Trustee's atrocious remarks against menstruating women in Kerala, by women of all age groups on Twitter and other social media. The other is the story of a woman breaking a 400 year old t...

Kiran Gandhi is all over the internet and for the right (err!) reasons. She ran the London Marathon without a tampon, bleeding but finished the race. Since it first got published, I've read several articles on her, lauding her actions and leading to a widespread debate on menstruation and period hygiene. While the articles and reports have been positive, the comments section reeks of misogyny and sexist opinions. Some call it 'ridiculous attention grabbing action', some say its unnecessary because tomorrow someone will run with poop and urinate and what not! What exactly is Kiran's point in doing this? She ran the marathon bleeding because in her own words, " I ran with blood dripping down my legs for sisters who don't have access to tampons and sisters who, despite cramping and pain, hide it away and pretend like it doesn't exist." Now how can we and why must we criticise someone like her?! People don't think it's a taboo when girls as ...