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A review by brunan
Chup: Breaking the Silence about India's Women by Deepa Narayan
4.0
This should be a part of the Indian school curriculum. Period.
We consume a lot of western news, western views about what it is to be a woman, and feminism and its effects. Deepa Narayan has done much-needed work and shown a light on the state in India.
She digs deep and states facts that are staring at our faces, which we sometimes cannot see or choose to ignore. It is the blatant, painful truth.
Narayan, through 600 interviews with upper and middle-class women, has gotten down to some of the root causes of the plight of women in our country. The book covers fear, lack of confidence, denial of sexuality, rape culture, and much more.
The scary part is that this is only half of it, with the stories of the uneducated and improvished women still begging to be told.
In her own words:
"This book is about the power of everyday culture over the intellect. It is about the all-pervasive cultural indoctrination that starts in childhood and prepares women to be deleted"
"When hundreds and thousands of women are constantly afraid and apologetic, it is no longer personal, it is systemic"
"It was Indian and spiritually superior to be detached"
"Trained to be afraid of their bodies, women too become perpetrators of a war against women, a war against each other"
"Men systemically overestimate their abilities and women underestimate theirs.."
"Having a self becomes confused with being selfish"
We consume a lot of western news, western views about what it is to be a woman, and feminism and its effects. Deepa Narayan has done much-needed work and shown a light on the state in India.
She digs deep and states facts that are staring at our faces, which we sometimes cannot see or choose to ignore. It is the blatant, painful truth.
Narayan, through 600 interviews with upper and middle-class women, has gotten down to some of the root causes of the plight of women in our country. The book covers fear, lack of confidence, denial of sexuality, rape culture, and much more.
The scary part is that this is only half of it, with the stories of the uneducated and improvished women still begging to be told.
In her own words:
"This book is about the power of everyday culture over the intellect. It is about the all-pervasive cultural indoctrination that starts in childhood and prepares women to be deleted"
"When hundreds and thousands of women are constantly afraid and apologetic, it is no longer personal, it is systemic"
"It was Indian and spiritually superior to be detached"
"Trained to be afraid of their bodies, women too become perpetrators of a war against women, a war against each other"
"Men systemically overestimate their abilities and women underestimate theirs.."
"Having a self becomes confused with being selfish"