Book Review

“It is the unpaid labour on which the economy is based. If women stopped performing the unpaid
labour or taking responsibility for its being performed, economic systems would come to a
grinding halt”.

The above lines are quoted from the book “Seeing Like A Feminist” by Nivedita Menon. A
simple yet powerful and significant narration that leaves us dumbstruck on the prevailing norms
of social order and forces us to think on the unequal structure on which the society is based.

The book starts with the story of a young girl Moni, who was beaten and tortured for dressing
and “behaving like a boy”. With examples like these, the book raises an important question for
all of us ,time and again, that if sex is so “natural”, then why there is so much concern in
disciplining the norms by all means.

The book throws light upon on how family itself as an institution, is based on inequality and its
function is to perpetuate particular forms of private property ownership and family lineage where
family name flows from fathers to sons.

Menon , fundamentally leaves the readers to ponder upon the hypocritical nature of the society
which is so naturally based on inequality that seldom people question about it.

For example- On one hand, women are supposed to be physically weak and unfit for heavy
manual labour and on the other hand , they do the heaviest work especially in rural areas ,
carrying heavy loads of water and working in the domestic sphere round the clock.

Also, here Menon highlights the key feature of the upper caste Hindu marriages ( which have
been so normalized) in which the woman has no rights in her natal home nor any identity as an
individual. And rarely do we know about other forms of marriage which have existed in other
parts of the country.

For example- Even today , in Meghalaya, there is a form matriliny where the youngest daughter
inherits the property.

But invariably, practices that differed from the upper caste North Indian norm were either not
considered at all or rejected, enshrining only one kind of practice as truly Hindu and Indian.
Menon also raises concerns how patrilineal virilocality , in a marriage, is the key which isolates
women from all the previous support systems and leaving them entirely at the mercy of their
husband’s home.

The idea of “a man’s surname” is his own , not his father’s while the woman’s surname always
remains her “father’s” , questions us to think on the construction of the notion of ‘family’.

Menon, very radically points out the need to create conditions for marriage to be seen as options
to be chosen freely, with the in built possibility of a fair divorce, for which equitable partition of
the households is essential.

Issues of rigid division of bodies into ‘male only’ and ‘female only’ have also been dealt with
utmost clarity.

The assumptions that naturally entirely one sex or another and that hermaphrodite is a disease,
was only established in the seventeenth century. Before the emergence of patriarchy in the West,
gender as a category did not operate in any significant way.

For example- In Yoruba, seniority is the denying axis of hierarchy , not gender.

Similarly, in Native American cultures, before Europeans came to America, ‘ two-spirit’ referred
to the people who were considered gifted because they carried two spirits, male and female.

But now, societies which value masculine characteristics more highly than feminine
characteristics ensure that those who do not confirm to these characteristics are continuously
disciplined into appropriate behavior.

It also highlights how biology and culture are interrelated. Thus body has been formed as much
by ‘nature’ as by ‘culture’. The book, through various examples, explains that body is
constructed and takes its meaning from its positioning within specific social, cultural and
economic practices.
 Therefore, the book ‘ Seeing like a Feminist’ helps us to learn and unlearn the ways in which we
view society and also disorganizes the settled field while opening up multiple possibilities rather
than close them off.

 The book fundamentally highlights inequality in the form of patriarchy and class.

It draws our attention to how in a patriarchal perspective, rape is a fate even worse than death. It
condemns rape only because it is a crime against the honour of the family. And, it’s
understanding of the same is what leads to the remedy , sometimes even by the court themselves,
of getting to marry the women he raped. It makes us think where does the autonomy and bodily
integrity of the women stand here . Is this really a solution to discourage such incidents or it
actually portrays the victim blaming. In a feminist view, the raped women does not lose her
honour, rapist does. Through this lens, we get a clear picture that how in a patriarchal society,
consent of a women is irrelevant, in marriage and out of it.

Bhanwari Devi , a dalit women who was raped by upper caste men as a punishment for trying to
implement the government’s law against child marriage , emerged as a heroine for the
movement. But the narrative makes us think about the rights of women as individual citizens are
much less important than the social orders of the community which needs to be protected in any
manner.

Another example highlighted in the same context is that how Ashok Rai who was found guilty of
raping a student ‘redeemed himself in jail’ for 5 years and cracked the ‘tough civils’ , makes our
judiciary look indulgently upon his “boyish pranks”.

The above examples clearly indicate the patriarchal perspectives of the society.

Menon also draws our attention to a government’s scheme “Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojna”
which was meant to help girls from poor families to get married at government’s expense. Here,
the state government takes over the father’s role in perpetuating marriage as inevitable and
unavoidable fate for all.
 The narrative asks us serious questions that investing in marriage is far more important than
investing in making that young girl capable in the world. The government could’ve used the
money to train those young women in some skill or set up a small business.

Rather, ‘virginity tests’ were being conducted on women because there was an uproar of already
married couple marrying again for gifts.

But the idea that strikes me the most here is the assumption that all being an unmarried women,
would , of course , be virgins!

This Kanyadan Yojana is also remarkable for exposing the key patriarchal assumption that
underlines the family and marriage institutions as the key to “control women’s sexuality”.

Another important point which I would like to discuss here is of the commercial surrogacy.

Although, commercial surrogacy does raises questions on the need of reproducing your own off
spring rather than considering adoption , but, the very language used in technological and
contractual reproduction dehumanizes women as referring them to ‘ human incubators’.
Surrogates become reproductive machines and are seen as nothing more than the sum of their
reproductive parts.

Therefore, the book gives us insights of the deep rooted patriarchal system which has been
perceived as natural and unchanging , and even the thought of challenging the notions itself
alienates people out of the social structure by the very patriarchal thoughts.

 The book clearly helped me to gain understanding of inequality and exclusion. Menon
highlighted that how a gendered environment is created by the society for women to learn to fit
in the existing forms of patriarchy by watching the production of ‘appropriate feminity’ by a
male actor.
Similar examples can be drawn from the article, Role models: Educated Muslim Women-Real
and Ideal. Here, we see portrayal of the ‘ideal woman’ through oral folk stories. One such story
highlighted is taken from the novel Mirat ul Aras which tells the story of two sisters, Akbari and
Asghari. Akbari, the eldest sister is depicted as slothful and a shrew. She associates herself with
thw women beneath her station and induces her husband to split with his family. Whereas,
Asghari is portrayed as the woman who is the very model of the ideal muslim woman.
Asghari never transgresses the rules of purdah society, nor lacks on loyalty to her husband and
his family.
These two contrasting images of sisters , were time and again narrated to condition women to
follow the societal inequalities and patriarchal norms without questioning.
Also, in the same reading, we see the idea of education for women was only seen as education as
what was needed to fulfill their future roles as wives and mothers.
Therefore, the desired results for education of women were only focused on producing good
companions of men rather than individuals with self identity.
This reading , too, highlights the same viewpoints which Menon points out in the book about self
identities of women apart from the community identity and expected roles. Above all how
naturally this system promotes patriliny and patriarchy.

Also, the other reference I would like to mention is the Critique to Modernity,by Kanchan
Mahadevan.
In this article , Mahadevan highlights the biggest pitfalls of modernity which is its patriarchal
attitude where it treated only men as free citizens and excluded women from subjectivity.
Women were seen as the property of men, they neither had the right to vote nor the right to
property (again solidifying the patrilineal forms of patriarchy).

Feminists like Pandita Ramabai clearly points that what has maintained that the low status of the
Indian nation is not due to any inherent barbarism, nor is it due to degradation of a golden age.
Rather, if Indian men are weak , it is because of the subjugation of Indian women, especially
mothers, who have been in this condition for years.

Therefore, Nivedita Menon’s ‘Seeing Like A Feminist’ helps us to unlearn classical ways of
looking at the world and learn to view the world from a feminist lens.