Movie Review: Tumhari Sulu: In Which Sulu Must Step Back

Let me state right away that I'm a fan of Vidya Balan's and I try not to miss any of her movies. I went to watch Tumhari Sulu with very little expectations, as the trailer promised it to be a light hearted comedy and I expected to come away with a few laughs. And a poster with Vidya playing dress up super hero? Yes please! 

The film turned out to be a good comedy specially in the first half, as happens with most Bollywood fare. The eponymous Sulu is played by Vidya. Manav Kaul, playing Sulu's husband, fits the bill of an average middle class man who slogs it out for a pittance of a salary, but by all appearances theirs is a happy family. (As an aside, who lives in that big a house in Mumbai, on that salary, with only one earning person in the family? A house with a balcony and that too with a swing in it!) Sulu and husband are happy, and there is a lot of affectionate banter between the couple. Vidya Balan is good with the funny and delivers her comic lines to perfection. 


Enter the weird extended family of Sulu, comprising her super achiever twin sisters and their father. This troika of father and sisters is out to humiliate Sulu, reminding her of her academic failures and bringing up her multiple misadventures in trying to launch various unsuccessful money-making schemes. This family takes being dysfunctional very seriously, with classism thrown in for good measure. 

Vidya taps into the cheerful housewife character well and we lap up the eternal optimist Sulu who charms her way into our hearts, with her pride in winning numerous small competitions. She pulls off just right pitch so that the cheerfulness doesn't get cloying neither does the humor turn cheesy.  

Sulu soon manages to land a job as a radio jockey with her "main kar sakti hai" spirit. Neha Dhupia as her employer and Vijay Maurya as her colleague, competitor-turned-friend put in efficient performances. However, it's a late night slot and Sulu is required and encouraged to tap into her sexuality as she talks to men in a sexy voice. Sulu anchors a talk show and is soon catering to men's fantasies. Her callers are often working class men who turn to the radio for a bit of easily available mush, and it's all fun and games, till it's not. Was the hint of sexuality in the role play the problem? We are never sure. 

With her new well-paying and satisfying job Sulu ends up neglecting her household chores and more importantly her duties as wife and mother. She tries hard to juggle both household chores and motherhood, but fails. The movie crash lands face down into pure melodrama territory, so out of character for it's protagonists. A loving, caring husband turns into a nasty monster just to satisfy the movie's need to create friction. 

It's not just the chores that she's required to do but also that she must care for her child and provide emotional support to her husband. Sulu ends up walking away from the job, because her family needs her. Even though she's earning the same salary as her husband, and he's almost on the verge of losing his job, yet it's important that the Indian woman be the mother and homemaker first. Why could she not hire a care giver or a creche for her child? Even more important, why did her workplace not help her on the home front so she could retain her job? 

Sulu joins the ranks of millions of Indian women leaving the workforce. Not only is there a decline in female work participation, but the total number of women in the workforce has shrunk. 67% of  women graduates in rural areas and 68.3% of urban women graduates don't have a paid job even as education levels among women are rising. Sociologists are figuring out it's partly due to lack of support with housework, partly a sense of lost honor if a daughter/wife works outside the home. Patriarchal attitudes more than anything else keep women away from paid work. What does it say about our culture when a medium as popular and accessible as cinema, supports this stigmatization of women joining the workforce? 

As many men happily pointed out, Sulu does launch yet another scheme. That portrayal is more a nod to the mandatory happy ending cos the film is comedy, methinks. It plays into the trope that Sulu is a fickle person. Her stint as a professional where she would stride into her office with confidence, is over. We go back to the non-threatening, bumbling good-for-a-few-laughs Sulu. 

The woman is back in the kitchen. You're safe, guys. Go home. 

Violence Against Women in India- some thoughts.

                        

"The rapist is you!" Even as the chants of the flash mob in the video since gone viral, from Chile had a spill over effect, with many similar protests being organised and electrifying viewers the world over, we in India continued to see more and more cases of gender based violence fill up our front pages and airwaves. 

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." 

— Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)

Gender based violence is often a result of gender based inequalities, and the need for men to conform to the norms of masculinity. 

The power relationships that exist within the contemporary gender landscape are hugely tilted in favour of men. Dominant ideals of manhood impact women and different ways of being men, as also those who fit neither category. 

Historically, the male gender is naturalized as the universal. 

Masculinity is the socially produced and embodied way of being male. It manifests itself in many ways such as manner of speech, behavior, gestures, social interactions, a division of tasks and a position of superiority to its perceived antithesis, femininity. Because masculinity is valorized, its consequences are many and varied not just for women but also those men who do not perform the dominant model of masculinity.

In order to stand in a relationship of superiority to the feminine, masculinity must be represented as the binary opposite of the feminine identity. Dominant masculinity has certain identifying characteristics. Embedded in these representations are an inventory of behaviors and roles that have been historically valorized as becoming of ideal masculinity. Discourses on sexual orientation i.e. heteronormativity, class, race and conjugality all lead to the manufacture of this dominant masculine identity. 

Gender is produced historically and socially. Indeed the discourses around the production of the proper masculine behavior stem from the fact that masculinity is not naturally endowed. Masculinity must be constantly reinforced, hence, it's tenuous and fragile nature. Masculinity is enacted rather than expressed, as it is not something already inherently present. 

PATRIARCHY
Patriarchy is the systemic relationship between men and women, placing men in a s superior position.  It privileges all men. Masculinity produces superior men who are privileged over all women and lesser men. While there are strong cultural expectations that women will be chaste and obedient, no such expectations attach to men. Such a mentality and practices that stem from it result in oppression and exploitation of women. Women themselves tolerate and rationalize this subjugation and see it as natural. 
In a most recent survey published by India Spend, a web based ortal while 65%Indian women are literate, only 5% have sole control over choosing their partner and 60% practice some or other form of fcae veiling or head covering. 

CASTE IN INDIA

We have to confront the fact that caste is another axis of oppression which women of "lower" castes face the brunt of every day. In fact it comes as no surprise that the majority of the violence that women face in India, are along caste lines. 

Bhanwari Devi, a Dalit woman was raped by upper caste men of her village for simply doing her job, advocating against child marriage. Rape was used a s a tool to "show her her place" and subjugate her. However she continued to fight for justice and it was her struggle that lead to the very first guidelines was formulated to help prevent sexual harrassment faced by women in their workplace.  

          

LAW
The law perpetuates gender hierarchy. It is tasked with the protection of women and this is manifested in paternalism as a form of safety. 

Right to property plays a crucial role in power imbalances within households. Devaluation of daughters as they are not entitled to land or other property leads to the difference in treatment of girls and boys from childhood. Women internalize these limiting characteristics, this lessening of their rights to everything from space, to education to nutrition and even medical care.  

THE VIOLENCE OF THE DENIAL OF LIFE 

The adverse sex ratio of females to males in India is a case in point. Recently the women and child welfare minister said that about 2000 girls are killed in India everyday. A girl is only seen as a burden. As her basic duty in life is to be a housewife and care giver and producer of babies, parents see her as a burden to carry till such time as she can be married off. The dowry that needs to be given as compensation to the man and his family poses further economic burden on the girl's family. 

OBJECTIFICATION

"Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female — whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male."
— Simone de Beauvoir

The body of a man makes sense in itself quite apart from that of women, whereas the latter seems wanting in significance by itself. She appears in essence to the male as a sexual being. Othering of woman is centuries old, and with mothering comes treatment of being sub human. With the institutionalizations of the other, woman cannot be equal. 

Martha Nussbaum has identified the seven different ways in which objectification works:

• instrumentality
• denial of autonomy
• inertness
• fungibility
• violability
• denial of subjectivity.

COMMODIFICATION 

“The body is the instrument of our hold on the world.”

― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex.

The body as our instrument in the world is completely available to men. Boys are encouraged to explore the world, step out into it and have far greater control over their bodies. Women have little control specially in a hierarchical society like India. Girls are indoctrinated into thinking of themselves as less and they also self - identify in a sexualized way, so they may mould themselves into an version appealing to men. 

The ease of commodification of women has increased with globalization. Easy access to TV and phones which help sell women and their sexuality in various ways. There were recent reports that men would rape women and film the act. These videos would then be easily available fir as little as 50 rupees in the market. Easy dissemination of such videos via multimedia messaging has made access to such images of the commodification of women and their bodies.  

The personal and intellectual capacities of women are denied, and the woman spoken of as a body only, or even just a body part. In prostitution no woman stays whole, and certainly not human. The dehumanization and dismemberment of the female body is necessary in prostitution. Pornography is media and image based prostitution where again women's bodies are commodified. Sexualization and commodification are two sides of the same coin. 

THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY

This is yet another product of the sexualization of women's bodies driven by large multinational corporates and advertising conglomerates which form the nexus which drive the huge beauty industry, comprising of cosmetics and body image changing such as cosmetic surgery and of course fashion and garment industries. The time when we would clothe ourselves for protection are far behind us. 

POWER
The meaning of being a man or woman and notions of manhood and womanhood may vary but masculine identity is usually associated with experiences and assertion of power. Paternalistic cultural models encourage the view that men protect women from harm, thus giving the impression that women are incapable of protecting themselves.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE 

Incidents of sexual violence involve elements of control, power, domination, and humiliation. In order to gain power and control over their victims, perpetrators of sexual violence resort to practices such as abduction, isolation, manipulation, coercion, threats, and sexual abuse. 

While men may not necessarily find the act sexually gratifying but the sense of power may override other considerations. If a woman resists sex, it may be perceived as a threat to a man's masculinity. Such a crisis of male identity may contribute to sexual violence. It has been reported that victims who attempt resistance or escape from the situation are more likely to be brutalized by the offender, giving an inflated sense of power to the abuser.

In patriarchal cultures, any resistance from the woman is perceived as an insult to his manhood further provoking him to resort to more violent means to control the victim.

Rape is seen as a tool of a dominance. Societal attitudes toward women may help condone rape. Such stereotypes are often internalized from the male dominated culture at large. 

Sexual violence results from a misogynist attitude prevalent in our culture. Indian girls and women have no independent control of their sexuality. They are expected to get married and produce children, thus shifting the control of their sexuality from one man to the other. 

Till the burden of being sub-humans carries on, no woman will be free from violence. 

Caregiving and Paid Work

How often have you heard the argument that women would be better off, and the cause of their empowerment greatly furthered, only if they worked? Even the most well meaning women and often men -read privileged, and blinded by it- will say it with all the emphasis at their disposal. Implicit in the statement, is the assumption that women normally don't "work"!

                                                   Picture: image courtesy UN WOMEN
                               
Going outside the home to work, and being compensated monetarily for that work, is quite a recent development in human history. The idea of work outside the home, monetised, is less then a hundred and fifty odd years old.  

So much of our lives are determined by money- the having of it, the ability to spend it and save it. - the consequence that if you don't have enough of it, or don't earn it at all, you are not worth much, is only to be expected.

 Since the work such as cooking, cleaning, washing, care giving, child rearing and care of the elderly and the infirm, generally considered women's work is not valued monetarily, it's fallout is the undervaluing of women's lives. Proof, if it were needed, is in this piece in Huffingtonpost India  saying that Indian women do ten times the unpaid work that men do.

One is likely to think, at this juncture, what's to stop a woman from going out to work? Many women are doing just that. But when it comes to women it all gets massively complicated. Because uterus, eggs, new humans. 

Having babies and furthering one's family- and the human race, by extension- would logically seem to be in the interests of men, too; a father is, after all, as much a parent as a mother. Yet the structures of patriarchy have been so constructed that over centuries, childcare and nurturing has been relegated to women and now they are deemed to be specialists at the job. A job that keeps them at home, unpaid and undervalued. 

If you read women's magazines you may be familiar with that rare beast, the "work-life balance". This struggle is restricted to a very small segment of the Indian population, women born into privilege, who were afforded an education and then could exercise the option to pursue a career. Yet many of these women had to opt out of flourishing and highly successful careers, specially when they had their children, as told in this recent story in Quartz. Like I said, uterus, eggs, new humans. 

Needless to say, men need make no such attempt at balance because the life part is well taken care of for them and they are free to look into their careers with single minded focus. If they do pitch in with care work, they earn extra brownie points for it. Women, on the other hand, even when earning an income outside the home, are saddled with child rearing and care giving. Men are encouraged and expected to seek partners with less earning capacity than themselves for this reason.

There's a website with pretences to feminism which goes by the tagline: "for women who do". Left unnamed, presumably, is the category of the millions of women who don't.  Of course, house work doesn't count as work. When the media does centre women, it talks to them condescendingly.

Not unsurprisingly,when the talk does veer to getting women into paying jobs the purpose is to boost the economy. Here's an example from CNBC.com that says why women should be allowed to do more paid work as it could be a huge boost to the economy. So even when there is an acknowledgement that a woman can't just up and walk out of her home into a job, no thought seems to be given to look into the hurdles in the way. The economy is centred, not the woman.

In summing up :
1. Large numbers of educated women stay home or give up jobs once they get married or especially once they have babies.
2. Women who were working outside the home, but cease to do so after marriage, do so either because their husbands or in-laws will not allow them as it's beneath their dignity or because the jobs available aren't well paying enough.
3. Women stop working outside the home after childbirth due to lack of proper child care facilities.

A few suggestions.
1. Give monetary support to mothers or other care givers. A fixed amount, per child or elder who needs full time care. This will add value to the care giving work, while making the obtaining of the supplies needed for taking care of the child or elderly. 
2. Encourage employers to provide child care facilities to their employees. 
3. Paternity leave should be extended and made mandatory. Child rearing should be as much a man's job as a woman's if you really wanted to bring the child into the world.
4. We could tie this up with added incentives for parents having a girl child. This kind of a gesture could also be of great symbolic value. Let's not forget that we have an abysmal sex ratio at birth. 

Post script: Only 933 girls are born for every 1000 boys in India as per the Government of India 2011 Census. The causes of that and its repercussions are a matter for another discussion, another day.