The sessions on standing up for what’s right and combating violence against women have had us travel extensively across different state universities in India. After successfully conducting sessions with the youth from Maharashtra (Pune), Uttar Pradesh (Kanpur & Prayagraj), Bihar (Purnea), West Bengal (Kolkatta) and Boko (Assam) we reached Chennai on 21st September. A beautiful sculpture of Devi Ma welcomed us at the airport and the resolve to visit Kanchipuram Shaktipeeth to offer our gratitude to her for being able to do this work became stronger.

My gratitude also for the opportunity to both JOSH TALKS and TVS Radar, for conducting these sessions. Vanshika (Interning with JOSH TALKS ) continues to manage and coordinate with the colleges ensuring all goes smoothly. She also adds the much-needed perspective of a student (of sociology) herself which further connects with the audience we are addressing.

The SRM UNIVERSITY has a large campus that can qualify as a small town itself. It houses Asia’s largest library and offers all undergraduate and post-graduate courses barring marine engineering and Veterinarian sciences, as I was informed by the dean of Management Studies, Dr Subhashree Natrajan.

Interaction with the faculty before the actual session always orients us to the cultural and regional nuances that the students are exposed to. The students are conservative here, the dean apprised me. But violence and discrimination are rampant. While the campus itself is safe, I was told of an incident that happened on the campus by an outsider who beat up a girl! The student had not complained as it was something she had, alarming, grown to accept. While other cities across Tamil Nadu also experience gender-based violence, Coimbatore, in particular, is notorious on this front, shared the dean.

The session was attended by 300 plus students including both girls and boys. I realised soon enough what the Dean had prepared me for, the students were indeed shy. However, while they were distracted, to begin with, the faculty including Dr Sriram M stood testimony to the rapt attention and pin drop silence throughout the 90-minute session. Dr Sriram over lunch (at the hotel management wing) later, vouched to include gender sensitivity in his teaching or at least orient it such that the students felt comfortable to confide in the faculty with any issues relating to the same.

The sun is definitely harsh in the afternoon in Chennai, but that didn’t dampen our spirits to visit Kanchipuram after the session. Vanshika (A young student intern with Josh Talks) and I tried booking a cab through the app and realised soon enough that most cabbies solicit passengers using the app but negotiate later for a higher price and cash payment. This seemed to be an unwritten norm given the huge transaction fees the apps charged and the high diesel prices as explained by our cabbie en route to Kanchipuram, Kamakshi ShaktiPeeth.

The Shaktipeeth are 51 places across the country where different parts of Devi Ma’s energies are revered as the mother and creator of the universe. Given our 3rd consecutive visit to her Shaktipeeth, we are blessed in gratitude for her to choose us for this work to make for a safe and peaceful world for all.

If you would like to have us conduct this 90-minute session in your college or company just drop us a mail with the details of the institution and the prefered dates at suparnaa@simplysuparnaa.com.

Links for further study

To read about the Prayagraj Chapter click here>>

To read about Assam Chapter click here>>

To read about Kolkatta Chapter click here>>

To read about the Kanpur Chapter click here>>

To read about the Purnea, Bihar Chapter click here>>

To read about the Pune experience click here>>

To know more about the online session experience read here >>

PS: if you stand for what is right – team SABERA (Annual Awards and Summit by the  Simply Suparnaa © Media Network) jury is looking for you Register here>>

The post Combat gender-based violence I Chennai Chapter appeared first on Woman Endangered.

I had the chance to hear some of the survivor stories in person that were interwoven through the cultural program organised at the BC Pal Auditorium in Chitranjan Park by NGO Shakti Shalini on the evening of the 27th, recently. The survivors are mostly between their early twenties or thirties. Some shared their saga through a creative storytelling format or dance drama (with the help of the pandies’ theatre group ), others through their poem or artwork. It was an emotionally charged event both for the performers as well as the audience. The underlying common thread was a breach of individual dignity which played itself out either through an extreme act of violence or a continuous abuse in relationships.

THE FOUNDING STORY
In the 1980s, Satyarani Chadha and Shahjahan Begum, two women found their daughters subjected to death by burning by their respective in-laws on the pretext of insufficient dowry. The violent loss of their daughters galvanized them to tell their story to everyone: the media, the courtroom, and the public. They committed to joining, hands and dedicating their lives to fighting gender/ sexual violence, especially domestic and dowry violence. In 1987 they established Shakti Shalini and it became a pioneer of grassroots gender equality work in India.

In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly adopted 1975-1985 as the decade for women. The global context of a feminist wave across the 1970s and 80s channelised international support and commendation toward the organisation. This was the context in which Shakti Shalini was born.

Through its early years, Shakti Shalini played a pioneering role in campaigning for anti-dowry and domestic violence laws currently prevailing on the land and it established the first shelter home for women in distress in Delhi. Through its journey full of challenges and breakthroughs alike, Shakti Shalini has strived to support countless individuals in navigating violence and discrimination toward a life of safety, freedom, and dignity.

Shakti Shalini’s Helpline numbers for Gender/Sexual violence survivors are as follows

011-24373737

Whatsapp or call 7838957810

Whatsapp or call 9654462722

Post Script

We are on a mission to Stand up for what is Right. Travelling across conducting the session on Combating Violence against Women with the youth of the country. The sessions are being facilitated by TVS Radar as their marketing outreach and are being organised by JOSH TALKS with Suparnaa Chadda as the speaker conducting these sessions.

To read about the Kolkatta Chapter click here>>

To read about the Kanpur Chapter click here>>

To read about the Purnea, Bihar Chapter click here>>

To read about the Pune experience click here>>

To know more about the online session experience read here >>

PS: if you work in the focus area of gender equity – team SABERA (Annual Awards and Summit by the  Simply Suparnaa © Media Network) jury is looking for you Register here and submit criteria based information under the Initiative Category A6: लैंगिक समानता (Gender Diversity & Inclusion) 

The post Shakti Shalini Supporting Gender Violence survivors for 35 years appeared first on Woman Endangered.

The session was scheduled for the 4th of August Thursday, and we reached Kolkata airport on the 3rd evening. Being a Shakti devout, it was an opportune chance to offer obeisance to the energy that keeps me going to conduct these sessions despite all odds. Kali ghat, the cab driver assured is open till 10:30 pm. While the hotel staff shared that it shuts at 8 pm. It was 7:30 pm and I decided to take my chances and dash for her Darshan after a quick shower. How I reached and was guided is another story of faith altogether. The gates were supposed to shut by 9 pm and even though the distance was a good 2 hours from the hotel, I did manage to offer my prayers before the session scheduled for the next day.

Dream Institute of Technology is a 16-year-old dream of the Sarkar Family in West Bengal. They take pride in utilising their own resources for running the college, including the 10-acre expanse of land on which the college is established. Nestled in the by lanes of BH Road Kolkatta which is away from the main city by a couple of hours, it boasts 100 per cent placement for students offering B tech and M Tech courses. The only obvious drawback was the lack of women’s strength in the college at just about 15 odd per cent.

Vanshika continues to accompany me through these sessions and proactively coordinates and organises with the college on behalf of JOSH TALKS, such that the sessions go smoothly. Though we were supposed to start at 1:00 pm due to the distance and traffic we managed to reach by about 1:40 pm and started around 2:00 pm. It was the students’ annual sports day and despite the competitive sports excitement and delay, they sat through the whole session and proactively engaged in conversations sharing their individual persectives.

These sessions are a part of the marketing initiative of TVS Radar that JOSH TALKS is helping conduct through the help of their network with educational institutes across states that are the target segment for TVS.

If you would like to have us conduct this 90-minute session in your college or company just drop us a mail with the details of the institution and the prefered dates at suparnaa@simplysuparnaa.com.

Links for further study

To read about the Kanpur Chapter click here>>

To read about the Purnea, Bihar Chapter click here>>

To read about the Pune experience click here>>

To know more about the online session experience read here >>

PS: if you stand for what is right – team SABERA (Annual Awards and Summit by the  Simply Suparnaa © Media Network) jury is looking for you Register here>>

To support our initiative contribute here.

The post Combating Gender-based violence – Kolkata Chapter appeared first on Woman Endangered.

So I was very curious to read Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia (Pan Macmillan India, Rs 599), a collection of essays, artwork, stories and poems from voices as diverse as policymakers, entrepreneurs, artists, academics and activists about how menstruation is experienced in South Asia.

Edited by human rights lawyer and writer Farah Ahamed, the anthology is backed with diligent research, including painstaking interviews of those at the margins. Wrapped in the folds of her silken words, Ahamed expresses the raw emotions of a woman – any woman, from a convict to a nun, a sweeper to a corporate honcho – wondering What if? as her poem of the same title questions.

Ahamed’s initiative Panties with Purpose, which was the genesis of the book, had me hooked with the name itself. Working in the development sector, I have often noticed that most outreach programmes that are impactful are driven by individuals who are extremely passionate about the subject owing to either a personal experience of being a close witness to the issue. This individual’s passion seeps through each of the project’s endeavours, even a seemingly innocuous line of communication.

I hope Ahamed’s initiative, which she launched along with her sisters, continues to be fueled with the passion that she so naturally brings into this anthology, which includes essays by well-known voices from across the region including author-politician Shashi Tharoor, poets Tishani Doshi and Rupi Kaur, activist Granaz Baloch, Menstrupedia founder Aditi Gupta, actor-author Lisa Ray, and globally renowned artist Anish Kapoor among many other names who may not make it to the mainstream.

While I was aware of much of the narrative of the book due to my own work, a lot of it has been an eye-opener. Menstruation is a taboo topic in South Asia and there are many myths and superstitions around it – from restrictions on movement and food, to unscientific views on hygiene – but the fact that this runs through geographies across Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan amidst other countries of the West is indeed alarming.

The socio-cultural settings may differ, there is a lowest common denominator that binds them all rooted in misogyny. The same menstrual tradition of isolation at the onset of menarche becomes kotahalu mangalaya in Sri Lanka(‘Menstruation Traditions and Practices in Sri Lanka’) and manjal nir vizah in Tamil Nadu (‘Behind the Braided Coconut Leaves’).

“In Northern European visual culture, menstruation has been considered ‘dirty, disgusting and embarrassing’ and thought to cause an imbalance in taste in Japan,” shares Alnoor Bhimani in her essay ‘Digitising Menstruation’, where she enunciates the threat to privacy with Period Tracking Apps (PTAs). “Advertisers monitor consumers’ moods and desires to make product offerings at times when PTA users are most likely to make purchases.”

Marketing products, superseding the authenticity of the claims isn’t a surprise when the narrative to ‘Whisper’ is the biggest challenge to overcome the taboo. But the fact is that ‘biodegradable’ and ‘organic’ are the most abused words in the feminine hygiene sector as explained by Jaydeep Mandal in the essay ‘Anandi: India’s First and Only Certified Compostable Pad’.

For a product to be sustainable, what really matters is its composting capacity. As my friend Malini Parmar, eco-activist, engineer and founder of stonesoup.in, often says, just put the item in the composting bin where even animal bones disintegrate in 90 days. You will be surprised to see some of the ‘biodegradable’ products still intact.

Read Also: Menstrual Cup for Sustainable Menstruation

While Ahamed covertly weaves in menstruation in narrating the tale of forgotten girls living on the fringes of a religious shrine through her acclaimed short story ‘Hot Mango Chutney Sauce’, the piece ‘Raqs-e-Mahavaari’enthralls with Amna Mawaz Khan’s overt expression of the monthly cycle through her Bharatanatyam choreography and an equally beautiful depiction of its genesis.

Pakistani transperson Javed (name changed) elucidates the plight of transgenders even linguistically in an interview to Ahamed titled ‘The Worst Day of My Life: Menstruation and Dysphoria’. He points out that, unlike English and other European languages, Urdu and Punjabi (Hindi and Sanskrit too for that matter) do not denote a gendered identity like he/she or him/her. He shares, “As the upper and middle class aspired to become more like the British, they adopted their attitudes and their prejudices… everyone wants to be a kala Angrez.”

During the infamous episode in the epic Mahabharata when Draupadi is forcibly disrobed in a hall full of men, she pleads that she is going through her period or Rajasvala. Author Shashi Deshpande through her essay ‘Menstrual Matters’ highlights this mention in a revered ancient scripture, hinting that the subject was not taboo to begin with.

Shashi also broaches the topic of the Sabarimala controversy. In 1991, the High Court of Kerala banned the entry of women of menstruating age to the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple. In 2018, the Supreme Court of India overturned this ban and allowed women of all ages to enter. However, due to local opposition, women of menstruating age continue to be denied entry into the shrine.

Matters of faith are often misconstrued depending on the context. I wonder, won’t the question of allowing women to worship a celibate male deity in opposition to the faith associated also lead to questioning other Indian temples of menstruating goddesses where men (even male priests) are not allowed to enter?

From Goonj to Menstrupedia, Radha Paudel foundation in Nepal to Bhutan Nuns Foundation, the book highlights many nonprofits and social enterprises addressing problems on ground in remote and urban clusters across South Asia. These include education on menstrual hygiene and reproductive health, providing access to feminine hygiene products and constructing infrastructural support such as access to toilets.

Mariam Siar shares that as of 2019 (before the Taliban regime took over), 94 percent schools lacked even basic hand-washing facilities with soap and water in Afghanistan. The book further highlights the progress of the Menstrual Rights Bill in India as well as the normalisation of paid period leaves.

The book’s cover has a story of its own. The process of its creation is shared by artist Lyla Freechild in ‘Adhya Shakti’ or Primal Energy. Lyla describes her experience of visualising and creating it using her own menstrual blood, which she had been harvesting. I must admit this idea was a bit discomforting, even for me.

All in all, the book is a mind-opening read. Given my work at WE towards creating awareness on menstrual hygiene, busting myths, affecting behavioural change across socio-economic strata, as well as crowd-sourcing funds to distribute medical-grade silicone menstrual cups in urban slums for close to a decade, my only grouse is that it was not included in this illustrious anthology. WE will strive harder!

Suparnaa Chadda is a Delhi-based media entrepreneur. She is a founder trustee of womanendangered.org and the founder of the SABERA awards.

Reviewed for and published originally in eShe.in

The post Period Matters appeared first on Woman Endangered.

The session was scheduled for the 7th of June Tuesday, just after the weekend when Kanpur city had experienced violent religious riots. We arrived via what is called an ATR, replete with propellors. A small aircraft that just needed a couple of steps to board it, the kind where the steps themselves fold inside the plane. It does tend to sway through the flight giving a rush in the gut akin to a roller coaster ride. Vanshika (an intern with JOSH who has been my companion through these escapades), was already woozy with the Delhi heat, and finally threw up with the added plunges that the plane made.

The Bombardier Q400 (the fancy name for it) landed and immediately swung around to move towards the spot where we were to deboard and realise why Spice Jet put us through this ride on the small craft. Our arrival, as we deboarded was into what looked like a makeshift tent, manned by the army. The runway too was small and given the facilities, the Kanpur airport couldn’t manage a larger plane. This, in fact, was the only flight that came in from Delhi and it would be the same one that took us back the next day.

The net played truant all through the stay in Kanpur but we managed our way around in e rickshaws when the cabs couldn’t be booked. The session itself was well received by over 300 B Pharma students of the Kanpur Institute of Technology (KIT). In a packed hall after the 90-minute interactive session, there emerged two heroes.  Pooja and Kajol shared their individual stories on standing up for what’s right and combating violence against women! It takes courage to share a personal saga in front of an audience of peers! But this stands as testimony to the safe space and confidence that the session instils in young adults.’

These sessions are a part of the series conducted by JOSH TALKS on behalf of their client TVS Motor Company. Aniruddha Haldar, Senior Vice President Marketing, TVS commented on this unique marketing campaign saying ‘We felt that we needed to walk the talk and not opportunistically take a moralistic stance and give Gyan on one day, hence the entire push behind JOSH. To have the WICKED generation that respects women we need to work with the young boys!’

Links for further study

To read about the Purnea, Bihar Chapter click here>>

To read about the Pune experience click here>>

To know more about the online session experience read here >>

PS: if you stand for what is right – team SABERA is looking for you Register here>>

To support our initiative contribute here.

The post Stand up for what is right I Kanpur Chapter appeared first on Woman Endangered.

After 2 online sessions with the ITI institutes in Kanpur and Calcutta. We had the opportunity to conduct a live session with engineering students of Vishvakarma Institute of Technology in Pune. Travelling from the scorching heat in Delhi to a surprisingly pleasant Pune (a western disturbance lowered the temperatures) was a respite.

Before the workshop, I had the opportunity to interact with department heads and the faculty of the institute over some delicious vada pav. It was indeed very heartening to know that all AICTE approved engineering colleges need to have 33% girls. The curriculum now includes human values, ethics and philosophy since, 2017.

The session itself was helped organised by ‘The Diva Club’ from the institute and was attended by over 300 students that sat through the hour-long session in rapt attention. Post the session groups of boys and girls engaged personally with me discussing experiences and the collective way forward. It was heartening to see some share their individual stories promising that they WILL stand up for what’s RIGHT. Not turning a blind eye in case they see a miscreant causing trouble.

Through the session, we also shared tips from IPS officer Chhaya Sharma on what to do in case of an unfortunate incident of sexual violence. The overall content covers aspects of, What constitutes violence against women?; Violence a woman may face throughout her life; Why we need to talk about this?; and What can we, do?

I was accompanied to Pune by a bright young girl from JOSH Talks who is a master’s student herself and is interning with the organisation. Vanshika, made sure the session went on without a glitch and we look forward to visiting more colleges across the length and breadth of the country soon. Rest assured, will keep you posted!

Btw- SABERA (Social and Business enterprise Responsible Awards) registrations are open and have received a super response from MNCs and homegrown entities big and small – to help us recognise the GOOD you do! Register here>>

The post Combating Violence Against Women I Pune Chapter appeared first on Woman Endangered.

To stand up for what is Right especially to raise awareness of and combat violence against women is a topic close to my heart. So when JOSH TALKS approached me to conduct a workshop with the youth of the country, I was more than happy to do so. So far 2 sessions have already been successfully conducted with the ITI institutes in Kanpur and Calcutta. These sessions are a part of the CSR initiatives of one of their (JOSH TALKS) clients. The hour-long session is encouraged to be interactive and I also share tips from IPS officer Chhaya Sharma on what to do in case of an unfortunate incident of sexual violence.

This hour-long session further covers aspects of, What constitutes violence against women?; Violence a woman may face throughout her life; Why do we need to talk about this?; and What can we, do?

In case you would like to conduct a session in your institute, office school or college do write to me at suparnaa@simplysuparnaa.com or womanendangered@gmail.com. We charge a nominal fee which further facilitates us to buy sustainable menstrual hygiene products for the marginalised.

To support our initiative contribute here.

The post Violence against Women appeared first on Woman Endangered.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Where should one place a book known as ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’? The assessment, that it was an extraordinary book will meet universal approval. But how extraordinary? It may seem an exaggeration to opine that it changed the destiny of slavery in the USA but it will be denying her due if she is not credited with triggering in a significant way, the epochal American Civil War leading to their emancipation. Or close to it.

Few authors in the history of humankind have been able to keep a tryst with human destiny. Das Kapital is believed to be one such book. But there have been others too. Some are privileged by providence to be widely acclaimed while others, by no means less significant, have to remain content by a mention in the footnotes.

That a strait-laced daughter of a preacher, herself married to a clergyman, could have been a trigger for the bloody and bitter American Civil War is inconceivable. But that was the fate of Harriet Beecher Stowe who was born on June 14, 1811.

‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ was published in 1852. It was a heart-wrenching account of the conditions faced by enslaved African Americans based on her own observations and research. It was immediately seized upon by slavery abolitionists to strengthen their cause, at the same time being furiously denounced by leading figures in the Southern states. The book certainly enhanced anti-slavery feelings considerably; so much so that historians later cited it as one of the reasons behind the American Civil War.

Early Days and Inspiration

Sixth of eleven children born to an outspoken Presbyterian preacher and a devoutly Christian mother, she experienced bereavement and dislocation early in life. By the time she was 21, the family had moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Only the Ohio river separated her from the neighbouring slave state Kentucky. It was here that she met, talked and empathised with runaway slaves from the South, from friends and acquaintances and by frequent visits to the slave colonies. She even offered refuge and shelter to slave fugitives. It was here that the immortal ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ was perceived and conceived.

Stowe claimed to have a vision of a dying slave during a communion service at Brunswick’s First Parish Church, which inspired her to write his story. Two more events fuelled her inspiration to write the book. First, her marriage to Rev. Calvin Stowe, a widower who fiercely opposed slavery and the other, the death of her own 18- month old son. She wrote: “Having experienced losing someone so close to me, I can sympathise with all the poor, powerless slaves at the unjust auctions.” The tragedy helped her understand the heartbreak that slave mothers suffered when their children were wrenched from their arms and sold.

On March 9, 1850, Stowe wrote to Gamaliel Bailey, editor of the weekly anti-slavery journal The National Era, that she planned to write a story about the problem of slavery: “I feel now that the time has come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak… I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.”

But it was Brunswick, Maine where the book was given a concrete shape. After newspaper serialisation, it was published in book form in 1852 under the title “Uncle Tom’s Cabin Or Life Among The Lowly.”

The Book

The book’s emotional portrayal of the effects of slavery on individuals captured the nation’s attention and fired a new awareness and awakening. Stowe showed that slavery touched all of society, beyond the people directly involved as masters, traders and slaves. In the New York Times Book Review, a critic wrote that Harriet had “baptized with holy fire myriads who before cared nothing for the bleeding slave.”

The book was not acclaimed for any literary merit or style. It was the honest and sincere rendering and the emotional richness of the narration that moved the readers. And what a cataclysmic and cathartic impact it cast on them. It, many hold, was purgatorial both for her and the reader. Some say she did not write the book, she lived it. And her book was a living chronicle of a tragedy, torture, a trial but also underlining the luminosity of hope and radiance of human endurance.

 It sold 300,000 copies in its first year and in that time 300 babies in Boston alone were named after one of the book’s major characters, Eva.

But the fury and fire it created in the South were even more fierce. Steeped in their belief that slavery was necessary for the good of the economy and that slaves were inferior people who were unable to look after themselves, they felt under attack and retaliated in full might. She was depicted as out of touch, arrogant, and guilty of slander. They also responded with numerous works of what is now called anti-Tom novels, seeking to portray Southern society and slavery in more positive terms.

After the success of the book made her internationally famous, Harriet wrote to a friend: “I am a little bit of a woman – somewhat more than forty, about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very much to look at in my best of days, and looking like a used-up article now.

But she was not used up. It was not to be brief incandescence. She went on to write a score and ten books that ranged from novels, articles, collection of letters, travel memoirs, qualifying her as one of the most prolific writers and influential women of the 19th century.

Her Final Days

Her final days came two years after those of her husband. At the time she was staying in Hartford, Connecticut, and one of her neighbours was Mark Twain. He wrote of her:

“Her mind had decayed, and she was a pathetic figure. She wandered about all day long in the care of a muscular Irish woman. [In] our neighbourhood the doors always stood open in pleasant weather. Mrs Stowe entered them of her own free will, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of animal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do it.

She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and musings and fetch a war whoop that would jump that person out of his clothes.

And she had other moods. Sometimes we would hear gentle music in the drawing-room and would find her there at the piano singing ancient and melancholy songs with infinitely touching effect.

She succumbed to Alzheimer’s in 1896 on July 1, just a fortnight past her 85^th birthday

Views on Women

Her strong views about women’s role in the family and society have largely found articulation in her writings and portrayal of black women. “All places from where women are excluded tend towards barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety and order.” she wrote. Stowe campaigned for the expansion of married women’s rights, arguing in 1869 that: “The position of a married woman … is, in many respects, precisely similar to that of the negro slave. She can make no contract and hold no property; whatever she inherits or earns becomes at that moment the property of her husband… Though he acquired a fortune through her or thought she earned a fortune through her talents, he is the sole master of it, and she cannot draw a penny…”

 She also briefly edited the magazine Hearth and Home in 1868.

A high point of Harriet’s life was a meeting with President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, just after the Civil War began. Her own accounts are vague. She wrote to her husband: “I had a real funny interview with the President.” There is no official record of what was said at the meeting but there are accounts of much joviality, and according to Harriet’s son the President greeted her with the words: “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!”

Her Conviction and Message

Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s strong Christian message reflected Stowe’s belief that slavery and the Christian doctrine were at odds; in her eyes, slavery was clearly a sin. And she also believed that like all things evil and sinister and inhuman, even slavery will come to an end one day. “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”, She wrote. A telling and moving sentiment reflecting her optimism and conviction, belief in God and goodness of humans. Hers is a saga of faith and prayer, the force and power issuing forth from them, and their final and glorious triumph.

Women have often been neglected as major contributors to the history of the world either through commission or distortion. It’s a delight for us to have taken on the challenge to unearth these overlooked gems and keep relevant the stories of amazing women in history.

This article is part of a series on women through history by author Uday Kumar Varma, former secretary of the Ministry of Information & broadcasting and MSME, Government of India. An ardent proponent of gender equity, Varma writes on women through history who have excelled in their area of passion and defied conventions. You may also like to read about the activist Emmeline Pankhurst from England, the lady sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko from Russia,  the American pilot Amelia Earhart or Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg or just maybe a piece on the Spanish artist  Frida Kahlo? And you must read the story of Mata Hari– “Harlot? Oui! Mais traitoress, jamais!” ‘Courtesan! Yes; Spy, never!’

The post A woman who triggered abolition of slavery appeared first on Woman Endangered.

-Nietzsche

The world has seen innumerable brave and courageous men and women who have in the face of impossible situations defied death, even conquered it. But there are only a few whose spirit for adventure is so overwhelming that they choose to embrace certain extinction in possession of a passion they hold supremely satisfying and sublimating. Life for them is a perpetual pursuit of a continuously exciting and constantly engaging enticement, it is a dream whose actualization fuels their determination and dictates their craft and conscience. Adventure is their lifeline, fearlessness their DNA.

There could not be a better and more illuminating example of this ilk than Amelia Earhart.

Amelia Earhart resides in the heart of people not because she was an aviator who set many flying records, not because she championed the advancement of women in aviation, not because she set her heart on things belonging to men’s exclusive preserve, though her list of accomplishments is long and distinguished, actually exceptional.  She is dear to people because she displayed an indomitable spirit in pursuit of her life’s purpose and passion. She attempted and accomplished successfully all that was deemed impossible in domains far removed from the imagination of the women of her times.

Missing for 85 years but not forgotten

She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and the first person ever to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. During a flight to circumnavigate the globe, Earhart disappeared somewhere over the Pacific in July 1937. She was to complete 40 springs of her life only two weeks away. Her plane wreckage was never found, and she was officially declared lost at sea after a year and a half in March 1939.  Her disappearance remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century.

Early Life

Born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1897, she defied all that was traditional and embraced everything so atypical of women of her times. Earhart’s tryst with flying, destined to bring her immortal fame and glory began in California in December 1920 when she took her first airplane ride with famed World War I pilot Frank Hawks—and was forever hooked. In January 1921, she started flying lessons with female flight instructor Neta Snook. Later that year, she purchased her first airplane, a second-hand Kinner Airster and nicknamed it “the Canary.” Earhart passed her flight test in December 1921, earning a National Aeronautics Association license. Two days later, she participated in her first flight exhibition at the Sierra Airdrome in Pasadena, California.

Record heights

Earhart’s first record came in 1922 when she became the first woman to fly solo above 14,000 feet. In 1932, Earhart became the first woman (and second person after Charles Lindbergh) to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She left Newfoundland, Canada, on May 20 in a red Lockheed Vega 5B and arrived a day later, landing in a cow field near Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Upon returning to the United States, Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross—a military decoration awarded for “heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight.” She was the first woman to receive the honour.

Later that year, Earhart made the first solo, nonstop flight across the United States by a woman. She started in Los Angeles and landed 19 hours later in Newark, New Jersey. She also became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the United States mainland in 1935.

Between 1930 and 1935, Earhart had set seven women’s speed and distance aviation records in a variety of aircraft, including the Kinner Airster, Lockheed Vega, and Pitcairn Autogiro. By 1935, recognizing the limitations of her “lovely red Vega” in long, transoceanic flights, Earhart contemplated, in her own words, a new “prize … one flight which I most wanted to attempt – a circumnavigation of the globe as near its waistline as could be”.

Experimental

She was a maverick, an iconoclast, who loved demolishing traditional images of women. She was also a loner. A 1915 college yearbook caption captured the essence of her character, “A.E. – the girl in brown who walks alone”. Her restlessly wandering yet extraordinarily resolute mind took her through several experiments and experiences in life, sampling and savouring diverse tastes of adventure. In 1935, Earhart became a visiting faculty member at Purdue University as an advisor to aeronautical engineering and a career counsellor to women students. She became a member of the National Woman’s Party and a pioneer supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.  In 1929, after placing third in the All-Women’s Air Derby—the first transcontinental air race for women—Earhart helped to form the Ninety-Nines, an international organization for the advancement of female pilots. She became the first president of the organization of licensed pilots, which still exists today and represents women flyers from 44 countries.

Rebel

If she was notably unorthodox in her professional, she was as much of a defiant rebel in her personal life. She married a publisher George P. Putnam, a divorcee himself with two sons from his previous marriage after he proposed six times to her. Earhart referred to her marriage as a “partnership” with “dual control”. In a letter written to Putnam and hand-delivered to him on the day of the wedding, she wrote, “I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil (sic) code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly.” She continued, “I may have to keep someplace where I can go to be by myself, now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinement of even an attractive cage.” Evidently, Earhart’s ideas on marriage were liberal for the time, as she pointedly kept her own name rather than being referred to as “Mrs Putnam”. There was no honeymoon for the newlyweds, as Earhart was involved in a nine-day cross-country tour promoting autogyros and the tour sponsor, Beech-Nut chewing gum.

But her marriage further strengthened, whetted and refined her passion of flying. Putnam not only shared her dreams but actively helped her plan and execute them. The understanding they shared matured and flourished. He taught her how to present her ambitions and accomplishments to the world at large. Following her disappearance over the Pacific and not being satisfied with the Roosevelt administration’s efforts to find her, he commissioned a private search that unfortunately did not yield any success.

Around the World

In pursuance of her dream, Amelia Earhart took off from Oakland, California, on an eastbound flight around the world. The date was Ist of June, 1937. It was her second attempt to become the first pilot ever to circumnavigate the globe. She flew a twin-engine Lockheed 10E Electra and was accompanied on the flight by navigator Fred Noonan. They flew to Miami, then down to South America, across the Atlantic to Africa, then east to India and Southeast Asia. The pair reached Lae, New Guinea, on June 29. When they reached Lae, they already had flown 22,000 miles. They had 7,000 more miles to go before reaching Oakland and fulfilling her long-cherished dream.

Missing in Action

Earhart and Noonan departed Lae for tiny Howland Island—their next refuelling stop—on July 2. It was the last time Earhart was seen alive. She and Noonan lost radio contact with the U.S. Coast Guard cutter ‘Itasca’, anchored off the coast of Howland Island, and disappeared en route.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized a massive two-week search for the pair, but they were never found. On July 19, 1937, Earhart and Noonan were declared lost at sea.

Scholars and aviation enthusiasts have proposed many theories about what happened to Amelia Earhart. The Crash and Sink Theory, the most prevalent one, suggested that Earhart’s plane ran out of fuel while she searched for Howland Island, and crashed into the sea and perished. Another theory hints that she may have landed in a neighbouring island, the Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro having failed to locate Howland Island, where they may have survived for some time before dying. There are other fanciful theories as well. One such theory mentions that she was captured by the Japanese and executed while another equally fanciful theory is that they worked as spies for the Roosevelt administration and lived under new identities on their return to the US. Her disappearance, even after decades, continues to arouse interest and excitement and is one of the most controversial unsolved mysteries. The official position, however, is that her plane crashed into the sea near Howland Island possibly because the plane ran out of fuel or due to navigational errors. While the controversy is still alive, she still remains the most wanted missing person.

Legacy

Earhart became an acclaimed international celebrity at an early age during her own lifetime. Her charismatic appeal is accentuated by her shyness, steely resolution, fierce independence, dogged persistence and death-defying determination combined together in her rare personality. Her mystifying disappearance and the circumstances leading to it lent a lasting lustre to her legacy and a glowing hue to her uncommon accomplishments. She has been discussed and eulogised in hundreds of articles. Scores of books have been written about her life as a motivational tale for everyone, especially for girls. Hailed as one of the brightest feminist icons, Hillary Clinton in a 2012 memorial address said, “Earhart … created a legacy that resonates today for anyone, girls and boys, who dream of the stars.

Earhart, even after over eight decades of disappearance towers tall in defiance of death. There are people who still believe that she did not perish in the sea. Her iconic legacy has only become richer and more enduring with the passage of time. She is remembered as a fearless intrepid courageous person of outstanding grit and determination. But, above all, she is part of a treasured heritage nurtured by young women across the world for leading a life that was not only eminently successful but exceptionally inspirational. She lived with passion and purpose each day of her life.

“Once more into the fray

Into the last good fight, I’ll ever know

Live and die on this day

Live and die on this day”

Women have often been neglected as major contributors to the history of the world either through commission or distortion. It’s a delight for us to have taken on the challenge to unearth these overlooked gems and keep relevant the stories of amazing women in history.

The author was the former Information and Broadcasting Secretary, GOI. Mr Uday Kumar Varma serves as an esteemed jury member on the SABERA The Social and Business Enterprise Responsible Awards 2021 Jury Board.

This article is part of a series on women in history who have excelled in their area of passion. You may also like to read about the activist Emmeline Pankhurst from England or the lady sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko or just maybe a piece on Frida Kahlo?

The post Amelia Earhart – Girl who walked alone appeared first on Woman Endangered.

Frida Kahlo was a brilliant painter, but a far more exceptional woman. Her recognition today is far wider, her contribution and merit much better appreciated. But even during her lifetime she was far ahead of contemporary mould and mindset. She was, first demurely and later boldly, more than willing to break the cast and establish a uniquely extraordinary identity. And she did so with style, statement and panache!

What does pain do to humans?

Much. And more intense, more excruciating, more soul-searing the pain, greater is its impact on the human mind. Those who had a close brush with death or who had a near-death experience, once recovered, either completely overcome and win over the fear of death or they become so obsessed with the pain and prospect of death that they continue to die every moment of the remainder of their existence. This encounter, infrequent but not rare, immanently ingrained both in physiology and psychology of the person, gets permanently, indelibly engraved and etched on one’s psychic slate that alters one’s purpose of existence immutably.

Frida belonged to the former experience. Once she recovered, though she continued to physically suffer in some way or the other, she not only overcame the fear or imminence of death, she, indeed, but also became defiant and ridiculed death. This, in some way, explains her preference of themes of pain and suffering; and her derision of the same in most of her creations – vibrant in colour, deeply drenched in sad sublime pathos, aglow with luminosity, douce but disturbing at the same time. She immortalized her personal experience of chronic pain in her paintings, defining even celebrating her spirited triumph over the inflictions of fate.

Early Life

Born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán (today it houses the famous and popular Frida Kahlo Museum).  She was disabled by polio as a child but proved herself to be promising enough to qualify for medical school until she suffered a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems. During her recovery, she returned to her childhood interest in art with the idea of becoming an artist.

Body of Work

There are three aspects of Frida’s oeuvre that stand out. The most evident aspect is of course the underlying pain her body and soul had received early in life and which endured as an abiding aspect of her physical existence, the best expression of which gets imminently expressed in her portraits, the majority of them being her own. The second aspect is her passionate attachment to the popular culture of Mexico and of artefacts, folk art, even natural bounties of her homeland mirrored majestically in her portrayals. This aspect is so pronounced in her paintings that they are treated by many as emblematic of Mexican national tradition and culture. The third and the most striking aspect, however, remains the depiction of feminine experience and form fearlessly and boldly, stated without compromise or reservation. The first aspect dominated her initial years of creativity, while she was still unexposed to the influences obtaining in the world outside Mexico. The second aspect dominated her work after her paintings were seen and noticed in the US and France. The third aspect of a feminine perspective underlined almost all her works, at times boldly and eloquently; and at others, subtly and subliminally, even mutely. Kahlo’s unique identity as a painter makes her stand out largely owing to this permeated, suffused and yet brightly emitting scintillas of feminine sensibilities.   

In a Man’s world

Painting for Kahlo was always an exploration of questions and conundrums of identity and existence. The accident and the isolating recovery period made her desire “to begin again, painting things just as [she]saw them with [her]own eyes and nothing more.” Her corporal pain and disability and the attendant loneliness blended so beautifully with her creativity that the outcome was effortlessly brilliant, eloquent and touching.

Her passionate love affair with Diego Rivera culminating in her marriage with him transformed her in extraordinary ways. Content to be always introduced as Diego’s wife, her own identity as a painter became evident when she toured US with Diego. Diego was already a mural painter of considerable standing by then. She preferred to remain in his shadows even when she had begun producing paintings in her own distinct style. When they were in Detroit together, none of Kahlo’s work was featured in exhibitions in Detroit, though she did give an interview to the Detroit News on her art. The article that appeared, however, was condescendingly titled “Wife of the Master Mural Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Works of Art”.

Even much later, when she had already held more than half a dozen exhibitions, in November 1938, reviewing her exhibition in New York, Time wrote “Little Frida’s pictures … had the daintiness of miniatures, the vivid reds, and yellows of Mexican tradition and the playfully bloody fancy of an unsentimental child”.  Not very flattering, and typically patronising to a woman artist.

While Diego did encourage and mould her creativity and introduced her to his circle of friends and fellow artists, her own sensitivity and restlessness began to bloom, first during her sojourn to the US with Diego and then with the encouragement and support of Andre Breton, the founder of ‘surrealism’, to France. Breton, saw in her, the very essence of surrealism, where the dream and reality indistinguishably mingle and merge. Her exhibitions in San Francisco and Boston in US; and in Paris in France brought her recognition but more than that she began to discover her own independent identity giving her the courage and boldness to experiment with newer techniques of paintings focusing on themes that appealed and touched her sensitivities. She wanted her exhibition in France to be a success, which it was not. Yet, Louvre bought one of her paintings ‘The Frame’, the first one from a Mexican artist to be included in their collection. In her 40s and subsequently, till her death she confined herself to exhibitions in Mexico and US and to teaching. She taught at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado (“La Esmeralda“) and was a founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana. Her solo exhibition in 1953 preceded her death in 1954.

A woman of passion

If the marriage with Diego was a delicious denouement in her physically painful life, the divorce and reconciliation with him after one year, contributed to diversifying her portrayals of the colours and contours of life and took her expressions of sensitivity to as yet unknown and unexplored levels. It did not help matters that Diego’s wandering affections and numerous liaisons also embraced her own younger sister. The paintings made by her during this period of separation which was intensely distressing, deranging and destabilizing depict a range of emotions-helplessness, revenge, rage, and surrender against a person she could not live without. No painter had ever portrayed so effectively and poignantly and passionately, the power and hold of affection and dependence of a woman for and to a man. To draw self-images on such a volatile theme was by any standard intrepid defiance of the prevailing conventional position of women in society in Mexico then, in an unprecedented assertion both courageous and unprecedented.

In keeping with the times then, Frida was also attracted to the ideas of socialism; gender, class and race- equality and empathized with the resentment and rebellion against discrimination and injustice and exploitation of poor and underprivileged. These were the times when to do so was not only passionately popular but also deemed fashionable, even romantic. Given the highly emotional nature of Frida, her fascination and attraction to men with strong conviction and commitment to these ideologies were distinctly pronounced. This partly explains her love and fascination for and attachment to her fellow artist and painter Diego Rivera, who was not only older but could offer an intellectual fulfilment Frida had always craved.  

Surreal or Traditional?

She experimented with different techniques, such as etching and frescos. Despite the popularity of the mural in Mexican art at the time, she adopted a diametrically opposed medium, votive images or retablos– religious paintings made on small metal sheets by amateur artists to thank saints for their blessings during a calamity. Amongst the works she made in the retablo manner in Detroit are Henry Ford Hospital (1932), My Birth (1932), and Self-Portrait on the Border of Mexico and the United States (1932). Kahlo had an extensive collection of approximately 2,000 retablos, establishing Kahlo’s interest and prowess to use narrative and allegory to the limits of iconic purity.

Trees, Roots, Thorns, Hair, Eyebrows, Anatomy were some of the icons that she liberally used, as also the Aztec symbols drawn from its mythology. While her visual portrayals were bold and vivid, the underlying meanings and messages were always subtle and often ambiguous, as if revealing the conflict in her mind. Her paintings were also invariably an exercise of reconciliation between opposites. So, while there was death, there was also life side by side, if there was hope, there was despair as well, and if there was decay and destruction, there was regeneration and growth too. That surrealists like Breton and the Mexican traditionalists were simultaneously able to see powerful though conflicting messages in her paintings only illumine her genius.

While she did enjoy moments of recognition and fulfilment during her lifetime, her work was reassessed by the late 1970s by art historians and political activists. By the early 1990s, she had become not only a recognized figure in art history but also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement- a social and political movement, inspired by prior acts of resistance among people of Mexican descent. The defining aspect of her work and the most important facet of her art, however, eminently reveals her identification with La Raza, the people of Mexico, and her profound interest in its culture.

Variously described by art critics as ‘Symbolist’, a Folk Artiste, practising elements of ‘Magical Realism or New Objectivity’ and drawing elements of fantasy, naivety, and fascination with violence and death, Kahlo’s work today stands celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by feminists for what is seen as its undaunted and uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. But in essence, her style developed mixed reality with surrealistic elements, often depicting pain and death. It’s a style that evolved with the spontaneity of elemental energy spurred by the diverse experiences of her life. Her oeuvre is a distillation of a synthesised amalgam of prevailing artistic traditions, indigenous movements, peer influences and above all a personal life replete with pain and an indomitable spirit of its defiance.

A feminist

Kahlo, thus, created in herself a unique and unusual woman of Art who was at once feminine, Mexican, modern, and powerful and who dared to diverge from the usual dichotomy of roles of mother/other woman allowed to females in contemporary Mexican society.

Women have often been neglected as major contributors to the history of the world either through commission or distortion. It’s a delight for us to have taken on the challenge to unearth these overlooked gems and keep relevant the stories of amazing women in history.

The author was the former Information and Broadcasting Secretary, GOI. Mr Uday Kumar Varma, serves as an esteemed jury member on the SABERA The Social and Business Enterprise Responsible Awards 2021 Jury Board.

This article is the third in the series of women in history who have excelled in their area of passion. The first being on activist Emmeline Pankhurst from England and the second on the lady sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko

The post Passion thy name is Frida Kahlo appeared first on Woman Endangered.