Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture

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samyukta journal — 2025-08-27

Tracing Kodava Women’s Histories: Intersections of Oral Tradition and Textual Archive

Veena Poonacha — 2025-08-27

Feminist historiography foregrounds questions about the historical representation of women and the use of various tools of inquiry. The methodological challenges posed by these questions become particularly pronounced when attempting to recover the lived historical experiences of women from small agricultural and forest communities who remain marginal to mainstream history. This study is undertaken as a methodological experiment to investigate the historical experiences of Kodava women from an indigenous community residing in Kodagu—a densely forested, mountainous region in Karnataka. Kodagu, once an independent principality until its incorporation into the Mysore state in 1956, has a minimal presence in dominant historical narratives. To overcome the limitations of conventional historiography in accessing Kodava women’s experiences, this study turns to the oral traditions of the Kodavas, based on the assumption that these sources may contain traces of women’s lived experiences in history. The study underscores the difficulty of recovering women's historical experiences from sources—both textual and oral—that are controlled by men. It reveals more about how men represented women’s lives in historical narratives than about how women themselves perceived and navigated their lives amid broader socio-economic and political transitions.

Gender and Governance: A Critical Content Analysis of Women’s Inclusion in India’s Twelfth Five-Year Plan

Heshmat Sadat Moinifar — 2025-08-27

Gender inequality remains a significant concern in the contemporary global context, with international communities emphasising the need to address this issue comprehensively. India is not exempt from this global perspective. Effective resolution of women’s issues necessitates their comprehensive inclusion in the development planning process. Women's socio-economic advancement is crucial for national progress, contributing to inclusive economic growth, poverty alleviation, and gender equality. The Five-Year Plans (FYP) of India have been instrumental in the nation’s development, underscoring the essential role of women across various sectors to elevate their societal status. Employing qualitative content analysis, this research studies the representation and inclusion ofwomen within the 12th FYP ofIndia, in light of the Gender Inequality Index (GII) provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Gendered Desire and Devotional Discourse: Re-theorising Bhakti through a Feminist Lens

Sharon Pillai — 2025-08-27

This essay explores certain prominent practices and precepts of Bhakti, understood as a distinct articulation of desire. Bhakti, which can be traced back to medieval India, continues to powerfully inform and shape not only modern Hindu religious customs but also the broader popular-cultural imaginary. For several Indians, Bhakti saints are household names - people they may worship, consider their gurus, or even be named after. It would be no exaggeration, therefore, to say that Bhakti provides both diffuse and direct inspiration as well as direction to many Indians today. In doing so, it serves in people’s lives as an avenue of prescriptive possibilities and/or a set of proscriptive interdictions. Gender sociality is one of the major areas that continues to be critically influenced by Bhakti practices and precepts. Examining these, this essay contends, would be helpful in understanding their implications for gender relations, both in their own time and in the current conjuncture.

Empowerment and Equality in Buddhist Tantric Traditions: A Feminist Theological Inquiry

Radha Krishna Baror — 2025-08-27

Most of the religious scriptures are often accused of containing various types of prejudices against women. However, such allegations cannot be made against Buddhist Tantras, which do not exhibit the slightest doubt about the intellectual and spiritual capabilities of women. The women mentioned in Tantras are highly intelligent, powerful, and dominant. They are yoginīs, scholars, and gurus. Tantras do not support gender discrimination on any basis. Thus, keeping in mind the concepts of ‘gender equality’ and ‘women empowerment’, this paper analyses the status of women in Buddhist Tantras.

Invisible in Plain Sight: Bi-negativity, Bi-phobia, and the Erasure of Bisexuality in Indian Popular Media

Anantha Krishnan M — 2025-08-27

“Queer” is an umbrella term used to represent the LGBTQIA+ community, which includes individuals who do not conform to conventional gender norms. In the early twenty-first century, often associated with the initial stages of posthumanism, queer concerns have become increasingly visible, especially through the spread of sex education via social media platforms. While significant research exists on broad queer issues, bisexuality remains comparatively underexplored. Bisexual individuals—those who are attracted to more than one gender—face unique challenges rooted in widespread societal stigma and misconceptions. These challenges manifest as bi-negativity and bi-phobia, which in turn lead to bi-erasure and severe mental health issues, including depression and suicidal tendencies. Bisexuals are often doubly marginalized—both within mainstream society and within the queer community itself. Popular media, particularly films and short films, play a key role in perpetuating stereotypes that reinforce these stigmas. This paper investigates how bi-centric media representations contribute to the ongoing marginalization of bisexuals, specifically analyzing how they reproduce bi-negativity and bi-phobia. The selected works for analysis are the Hindi-language feature film Cobalt Blue (2022), the Malayalam short film Maheshetta (2023), and the Tamil short film Bisexual(2023). These three texts are read as cultural narratives that constrain bisexual identity by portraying bisexual characters through lenses of deceit, indecisiveness, or hypersexuality. This paper aims to trace the social repercussions of such representations, clarify the concepts of bi-negativity and bi-phobia, and suggest practical strategies to address the ongoing invisibility and marginalization of bisexuals.

Revisiting the Contemporary Indian Women’s Movement: Decentralisation, Resistance, and Local Governance

Tanya Goyal — 2025-08-27

The contemporary Indian women's movement has undergone significant developments over the past several decades. This study aims to examine the journey of contemporary Indian feminist ideas and movements from the time frame 1970–1990, specifically focusing on the trajectory of intersectional feminist campaigns in the context of local governance. It will critically examine the maturity and challenges faced by the movements, particularly the issues of gender inequality and the need for substantive representation of women in governance, which are often linked with caste, class, urban–rural divides, and community factors.

Furthermore, the study will provide a brief and critical overview of the current status of local governance in India and offer a forward-looking perspective. Overall, the study aims to contribute to the literature on contemporary Indian women's movements and explore the ways in which local governance can serve as a platform for advancing gender equality and women's empowerment in India.

Beyond the Seam: Rethinking Women’s Clothing and the Politics of Pockets through Feminist Materialism

Meenakshi Jayan — 2025-08-27

This paper explores the historical and contemporary significance and evolution of pockets from a feminist theoretical perspective. The issue is analysed through the lens of fashion, patriarchy, and capitalism. Despite their practical importance in everyday life, ‘pockets’ have long been absent in women’s attire, symbolising broader societal norms and patriarchal control over women’s bodies and autonomy. The paper begins by tracing the historical background of the pocket system for both men and women and how this evolved to reinforce gender norms and societal roles. This is then contextualised using various feminist theoretical frameworks—namely radical, liberal, and Marxist. The intersectional dimensions of this issue are also examined, focusing on the compounded marginalisation experienced by women from oppressed communities within the “pocket politics.” The patriarchal and capitalist commodification of women’s basic needs is both criticised and analysed. The findings point to a growing resistance against pocketless designs, led by feminist movements that advocate for practicality and autonomy in women’s fashion. By analysing the dynamics of pockets in women’s clothing, this paper contributes to the broader discourse on gendered fashion practices, division of labour, and the persistence of gender inequality in contemporary society

Ecofemiotics and Feminist Environmental Humanities: A Critical Engagement with P. Mary Vidya Porselvi’s Folktale Framework

Shobha K N — 2025-08-27

Mary Vidya Porselvi’s Environmental Humanities in Folktales: Theory and Practice presents a compelling framework called ecofemiotics, which blends ecofeminism, semiotics, and the Tamil concept of Akam to analyse folktales as ecologically conscious “Gaia Care Narratives.” Rooted in Tamil literary traditions such as tinai and Akam–Puram poetry, Porselvi positions storytelling as a culturally grounded, ethical act central to environmental education. Bridging theory and practice, her classroom experiments offer an ecopedagogical model that integrates ecological thought with lived learning. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives—including Indigenous relational ontology, Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, and Erin James’s econarratology—the book challenges Western-dominated environmental humanities and highlights the transformative power of traditional narratives. Though dense in theory, its decolonial and culturally specific approach makes a valuable contribution to global ecocriticism. Porselvi’s work ultimately argues that folktales are not just stories of the past, but tools for cultivating ecological awareness and sustainable futures in the Anthropocene.

Narrative Persuasion and the Politics of Unpaid Labour: Feminist Resistance in Mrs. (2024)

Manjari Johri — 2025-08-27

Stories have the power to reshape beliefs and attitudes by immersing the audience in a narrative world, leading to a phenomenon called ‘transportation’ (Green & Appel, 2024). The Bollywood film Mrs. (2024) is an adaptation of the Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen (2021). It portrays Richa, a professional dancer who copes with the demands of marriage and undervalued housework with resilience until she encounters an existential crisis and chooses to walk out of the restrictive, socially defined role of a submissive ‘wife’. The narrative deftly foregrounds gender disparity in the division of unpaid work in India. Richa’s transition marks a moment of feminist awakening and resistance against male supremacy and self-destructive exploitation in the guise of family commitment.

Empirical studies reveal that more than 16 billion hours are devoted to unpaid domestic and care work (UDCW), most of which is carried out by women—equivalent to 40% of the global GDP (ILO). Citing key feminist thinkers, this paper probes how Mrs. (2024) contributes to the discourse on wages for housework and critiques unpaid domestic labour as a form of economic exploitation in patriarchal traditional Indian families. The paper concludes that such cinematic portrayals can transform attitudes, facilitate women's participation in the workforce, and advance gender equality in both private and public spheres.