Jaagriti'19: A short report

A Report on Student short-films and Intersectionality

By Tonisha Roy

Session 1: Student short films (Venue: Hall)

Both the shortlisted student short films were given an introduction first by the team members who made it followed by the screening of the short film followed by a discussion on the same. This was then followed by the judge, Dr. Swati's comments on both the films leading to some questions from the audience which were answered by the makers of the films. Overall it was quite an enriching experience for the audience and the participants.

The participants Aalia John and team on “what is Beauty and the beauty myth” talked about the yardsticks of beauty and how they they have been re-defined with time. Through their portrayal of advertisements and media, they aimed to bring to light how different women see beauty and it's impacts on how young women need to feel beautiful.

The participants as part of the Celluloid film club of Miranda house presented their film called ‘Tick-ling’ which was based in a dystopian world where our perceptions are monitored. There was a mention of a product, a watch, named Panopticon CFo to help prevent rape to show how the society's obsession with reducing the rate of rapes to a bare minimum is reinforced by keeping the women in check.

It also talked about how our monotony is monitored. In the film thus there was a caption that read: “3079 days without rape” in that dystopian world leading to the notion that ‘rapes will stop if women are controlled.”

        

Comments and questions to the presenters were posed by the judge and the audience. The participants answered the questions and the judge came to the conclusion that there were certain areas where both teams could improve and how they thought they would have added more. However the winning team was the one from the Celluloid club of Miranda House where their idea of the dystopian world was appreciated.

Session 2: Feminism and Intersectionality (Venue: Seminar Room)

The event was judged by Professor Jessy Phillip who teaches Sociology at JMC. The participants were given a set time limit for presenting their paper through using  a range of tools. However all participants chose to read their paper to save time and electricity.

The session started with students of JMC Shreya Dash and Shreya Ghosh on the topic ‘The many forms of women's oppression: the relevance of Intersectionality in Feminism’. Their paper outlined the ways in which rural and urban women constantly negotiate with their surroundings and situations to be able to lead their life on their own terms. Focusing on how when women choose to marry a person, their higher earning leads to their rape by their husbands. Talking about how the political sphere and capitalism go parallel to women's oppression, their paper proved how women are the ones who educate their children on menstruation so that their education doesn't come in question.  Thus Intersectionality being necessary to study, understand and compare different instances of genital mutilation for example in third world countries to instances of women's oppression in the first and second world countries.

Next, a paper was presented by Sanskari Srivastava of JMC on the topic ‘Gender-citizenship-Nationalism nexus’. Differential political rights based on gender don't seem to exist but when it comes to ground realities the way that men and women access rights are inherently different. Her paper revolved around how there is also a direct relation between gender and nation as the nation is assumed to be patriarchal in nature. As when feminists say that women's perspective should matter as much as men's perspective, it is imperative to thus understand and unearth the relation between our gender identity, our national identity and our political rights in a country.

Lastly, the paper presented by Dolly Sharma, another student of JMC on the topic ‘Indian feminism and the Intersectionality paradigm’. As women have been for generations seen as the gender that is exploited and domesticated according to man's needs, her paper talked about how feminism must aim to destroy all sorts of exploitation. She also pointed out how gender is thus related to caste, religious and ethnic backgrounds and the fact that different women have different struggles should be dealt with which is why Intersectionality should be understood in more depth.

The session ended with the judge giving key inputs on how to better present a paper and how the content of a paper presentation is different from the content of a debate or a dissertation and so on. She congratulated the speakers on their wonderful efforts and named Dolly Sharma as the participant with the best paper.