Equal? Not Yet: The Politics of Gender And Sexuality In India

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science

© 2021 by SSRG - IJHSS Journal

Volume 8 Issue 5

Year of Publication : 2021

Authors : Anu Mathai

10.14445/23942703/IJHSS-V8I5P105

How to Cite?

Anu Mathai, "Equal? Not Yet: The Politics of Gender And Sexuality In India," SSRG International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol. 8,  no. 5, pp. 29-35, 2021. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/23942703/IJHSS-V8I5P105

Abstract:

An individual’s sexuality and gender remain a taboo subject even in postmodern Indian culture, where honour killing is planned for gay men or corrective rapes for lesbian women. Literary and film medium became the agents for conversations to flourish and break the gender status quo in society. This research paper is a discourse analysis of how two creative artists have tried to gender sensitize and create a space for dialogue and discussion for gender equality in the society. It will draw its framework for the study from Michael Foucault’s ‘The History of Sexuality’ and Judith Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble’. Amrita Patil, India’s first woman graphic novelist, disturbed the myth of conventional feminist narratives with ‘Kari’, the tale of a tenacious lesbian who battles with her existence in an advertising agency and maneuvers the vagaries of a heteronormative modern smog city. ‘Aligarh’ the 2016 Indian biographical film talks about the story of Dr Srinivas Ramchandra Siras who was suspended from his job as a Professor at Aligarh Muslim University after a video went viral exposing his homosexuality. The narratives strive to unmask the truth of hegemonical structures of culture and tradition still prevailing in modern India.

Keywords:

Gender, graphic, hegemonic, heteronormative, homosexuality.

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