Through Women’s Stories…: The raw expression of childhood experiences is often seen reminding the narrator of Malayalam’s timeless beauty Neermatalam. Calicut University Govt. P. from the playground of Model High School. S. M. O College’s Chemistry Lab and then Calicut University’s M. Phil. Memories fly back to the classrooms as well. It can be seen that the writer collects the bottles of misogyny scattered on the roadside one by one.
The observation made about the school uniform is very interesting here. ‘According to age, girls’ uniform has changed from skirt to churidar. Only boys continued to wear the uniform of pants and shirts regardless of age. Discretionary powers are being used for gender bias despite uniforms being introduced to bridge the economic gap between students. I also understood the disparity in uniforms among girls through a sort of moralistic lens, as a teacher had told me in class that it was bad to see the full legs of older girls under their skirts. Then school every day
When I left, the moral eyes in me looked for full female legs.’
This observation then leads to the politics of gender-neutral uniforms. It seems that the assessment that the prevailing patriarchy in society is the reason why boys do not change to the female role while girls change to the male role. It can be seen that the views of the author, who says that while implementing gender-neutral clothing, it is necessary to investigate whether the society is ripe for it, break through the circles of traditional feminism.
A song without words, blamed more than the crime was committed, Tolstoy; The chapters A Political Life of Contradictions are a look back at the life and works of Leo Tolstoy, who astounded the world by capturing the psychological nuances of Anna Karenina. It seems that it should be seen as a research curiosity to read Tolstoy’s life and works on the part of the more unfortunate beloved Sophia.
The heartwarming lines of events surrounding Tolstoy’s death make this book very rich. ‘November 20, 1910. Even that morning felt the thin chill of death. The Russian people woke up to the news of Tolstoy’s death that day. Living with Tolstoy’s shadow for 48 years, bearing and raising 13 children, and copying all his works including the massive War and Peace several times, Sophia had to stand aside by the glass window of the stationmaster’s residence at the Gestapo railway station to catch a glimpse of her dying beloved with pleading eyes.
“All happy families resemble one another. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Tolstoy wrote at the beginning of Anna Karenina. These lines were wet with Sophia’s unshed tears.
In the chapter on feminism in classics, the hypocrisy of many world-class writers on women’s positions is analyzed. The feeling of love is often used as a strategy to treat women as a commodity and thereby control them.
When writers who are part of the patriarchal system create female characters, it is seen that the supremacy that lies dormant in the subconscious comes in. Chantumenon’s Indulekha, Flaubert’s Emma Bovary, Tolstoy’s Anna, Natasha, Maslow, Tagore’s Vinodini, and Bimal are all products of such a system.
Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea is the epitome of male celebration, with no female characters. Santiago never dreamed of a woman; Instead, he dreamed of a lion. The lion has always been a symbol of masculinity.
Later chapters are heartwarming accounts of the strange life experiences of Shakespeare, Freud, Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath. There is a message that the writer of the hymns shouts out as she paints the romanticism of abandoning the joys of love and romance and walking oneself to the blue shores of death.
‘Don’t let the lovers gather around the earthen bed of love like flying and burning candles.’
You may disagree with the arguments put forward by ‘women’s chronicles’. But it cannot be said that this is the call of time. Although it greatly upsets the public consciousness created by the male superiors.
