Thursday, September 17, 2015

What reading Indian women's memoirs taught me

I have never seen a jail from inside, except in movies. In movies that did feature female protagonists in jail, they either silently submit to their incarceration or got tortured, often at the behest of men, or sexually exploited by men. If they were rescued or reformed, it was because some man came to their help.

Joya Mitra showed me a very different truth. She, along with a few other young women, saw themselves as political prisoners and they demanded that they be treated as such. They demanded better food. They clamoured for the right to read books... what happened to them was not the result of a sexual or emotional relationship with a man. If they suffered at the hands of men, they suffered at the hands of women too. They were subject to a brutal system (as were the men) and they lived to tell a tale that is not often told.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing such facts

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