4 days ago
Gender Agenda Newsletter : A third space
Have you been following the conversation around third spaces and the lack of them in India?
In the last week, we've encountered several instances of queer people and women — both communities that rarely access third space — creating opportunities and experiences for others like them to access spaces of culture, art, and fitness. A heartening development, indeed.
Like Prashanti Ganesh, the founder of Ladies Club, an all-women's gym in Chennai training women to lift heavy and get strong. In this story, she says there is a dramatic spike in the number of women occupying the gym floor — women who seek weight-lifting to get strong, no longer just to lose weight. Through the process, she has fostered the growth of an enriching fitness community, where there is coffee, romantic Tamil music, and deadlifts by women who hit 125 kilograms. There are no mirrors and weighing scales. People from 16 to 65 with different body types work out here.
So what is thirdspace? Edward Soja introduces us to three spaces in his book Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (1996). This article states that a material space where one can touch, measure, and map (like roads and buildings) is the first space. The second is controlled by those with power, including urban planners, governments, and developers. The third space is where people actually live, remember, resist, and build meaning. It is shaped by emotion and identity.
In Hyderabad, Nique Singh Ningthoujam, a trans musician, is putting his voice out there to prevent erasure. His concerts are free so that there are no barriers to entry. A similar notion had informed the Dayamma Theatre Festival a cultural festival that celebrates queer people from the margins through plays, cabaret, and record dances. Srijith, the curator of the festival, says that it was essential for the festival to be free because stages in consulates tend to be deemed privileged. 'It is rare for the queer community, especially trans people, to sit in such large crowds, truly being themselves. An entry fee cannot be a barrier,' he says.
A 2021 global survey by market research and consulting firm Ipsos, four out of 10 urban Indians reported feeling lonely and friendless at most times, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Hangout spots (attis or addas) where people usually speak, have shrunk, as most conversations are now online. But many of these addas, usually cinema halls, performance venues, and tea shops, have mostly been inaccessible to women and queer folk, especially those from marginalised communities. If they are, they are only so during the daytime.
A 2,000-year-old traditional art form, Koodiyattam has always seen women perform as female characters. Yet, the stage and plays have been largely male centric. In recent years, there have been many firsts for women in this cultural space. Mricchakatikam, a play written in the fifth century, rarely performed by women in the lead, saw Koodiyattam exponent Kapila Venu play the role of an intelligent, generous, cultured, and wealthy woman. 'In my portrayal of her, I want to emphasise her independence and power,' says Venu, speaking of claiming space on a stage that has not always put women in the lead.
I've experienced gender euphoria at two of these four feminist third spaces: the gym and the trans theatre festival. The camaraderie and joy of feminine cackling is one that I deeply cherish and would love more of. I'd like to create a petition for more such spaces. Any co-signers?
Wordsworth
Mankeeping: The labour that women take on to accommodate men who feel a loss of their social networks. While men may believe that unburdening on women is a natural part of their relationship, most women call it work. Mankeeping often includes reducing the burden of men's isolation from families due to their declining social networks and heterosexual bonds.
Toolkit
Take a look at Super Gay Poems: LGBTQIA+ Poetry after Stonewall by Stephanie Burt, a Harvard University professor. Each of the 51 poems sheds light on the transformation of queerness over the decades since 1969, the year of the Stonewall riots, which marked an important chapter in the history of the gay rights movement both in the U.S. and across the world. In this interview ( with The Hindu, the author says, 'the more visible more of us get, and the clearer it gets — to cisgender people, to straight people, to people in or near positions of power — that we're just living our lives, that we can't go back, that we're not a threat to them.'
Ouch!
'If a friend rapes another friend, then how will the government authorities provide protection in such cases? Do you want to deploy police in educational institutions? Police cannot be in every corner.'
Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee on the rape of a law college student in Kolkata.
Women we meet
Aruvi is a 30-year-old trans woman teacher who speaks of computer programming to college students and industry freshers. She also is part of Kattiyakkari, a theatre company. This Pride Month, at the Alliance Francaise of Madras, she performed her play Body/Boundaries, adapted from an essay by Professor Susan Stryker, a trans person who retired from the University of Arizona's Gender and Women's Studies department. 'Stryker compares the trans body sympathetically to Frankenstein's monster. Trans people often get the sense, at some point in their lives, that they would feel more comfortable in a body that looks, feels, and behaves differently. For many of us it is a nameless pain, until we see that we can set ourselves free by transitioning,' Aruvi says. She hopes to take Body/Boundaries to many more venues and live out her childhood dream of being a teacher.
