Women's Rage

 Invisible labour, invisible load. 

Women and the mental load, unpaid labour, exhaustion and rage all with the ever present, imminent threat of violence thus constant vigilance.

This post is harder to write. It is so personal, and so ubiquitous. I have been discussing this in some form or the other for over two decades ever since my peers and I entered the workforce. Although there were ever-present calls on our leisure even in girlhood, and need for constant vigilance all our lives the disproportionate unpaid labour, mental load, the mental and physical exhaustion, and accumulated rage became constant on having to work as well as put in hours of unpaid, unacknowledged domestic labour.

Paris Paloma's song "Labour" is more an anthem for us women than a popular, viral backgorund score for reels.

"All day everyday therapist, mother, maid."...Sing it sister!

See also this op-ed from Ashoka University's Sumana Roy in the Delhi edition of The Indian Express: 

The sub-stack "Swarna's mumblecore" has a very insightful piece "Why brown daughters don't burn the house down." It echoes and emphasizes the impotent fury and constraints on us "brown daughters" who don't give in to the feminist rage to burn it all down and re-build a feminist world. It also shows how the domestic labour and invisible load is particularly invisible even to girls and women intergenerationally and within the family.

 

 

While the following image I have shared from a talk by Seema Kulkarni on Reporting on Climate & Gender: A Rural Perspective, shared in my blog post "Women Farmers & the Burden of Unpaid Labour" on 5 April 20206, its a disproportionate statistic that repeats across classes, across salary scales, across urban and rural regions and across borders. Gender is the only constant. 

 

 As reports continue to flood media in all its forms of unchecked and mostly fatal violence and sexual violence against women and girls in public with impunity the rage bubbles forth more often. 

In the translated captions of Chinese vertical form micro dramas, there is a repeated line calling for women to vent their frustrations and rage out load so as to avoid developing "breast cancer" or "lumps in the breast." The link between autoimmune conditions and unexpressed rage and  unprocessed trauma is scientifically documented. Internalization of rage, the stigma associated with women expressing rage and social conditioning of frustrating gender roles as well as the need for constant vigilance overextends our nervous systems, pushes our hormones out of whack and repeatedly manifested silent, suppressed rage as depression, exhaustion and autoimmune conditions in women.

Patriarchy's Biggest Open Secret: Weaponized Incompetence 

 A powerful point is made in the following movie review, when the reviewer talks about the Netflix Crime Comedy's Maa Behan  [Mother Sister] being ahead of its time and bashed by audiences (from 8 mins 43 seconds) in this Tried & Refused Productions video "5 Powerful Bollywood Movies Unfairly Treated by the Audience" That of the toll/tax to patriarchy where competent and extraordinary women compromise and accept the most mediocre of men just for the safety offered from belonging to a man: Someone's mother, sister or wife.

The content from digital creators Rachael Kliendienst's "Women in Charge" series [now (23 July 2026) up to a month in charge] and Tara Joon's "Grandma's Advice" (141 reels) clearly demonstrate through overemphasis on the competence and constraints on women and how far we can go if those constraints were lifted. The obvious and self-evident solutions that get overlooked in the patriarchal system. 

 

Status Update - Day 5: Women in Charge

 

 It's actually a win-win if  Gender Equality the 5th Global Goal (Sustainable Development Goal - SDG 5) is made central to the development roadmaps. For now most action plans that centre the "Women, Peace & Security" agenda is more elaborate plans and policies rather than ground reality. 

Source: Asian College of Journalism - Climate Media Hub: Reporting on Climate and Gender.

Lost opportunity for a better world ... a major  loss when the direct link between the education levels of girls and women and the development potential of a nation is highlighted.  

Dr Kate Adams on Education of Women as development predictor:

Yet there are so many barriers to education, opportunity and financial independence of women. The rage persists.

Churning Waters: Women, Water, Myths & More

I attended the performance Churning Waters at DakshinaChitra on February 3, 2019. As I mention in my Twitter thread, this performance which was part of Australia Fest was an enlightening experience. It was art for a cause at its finest, for many key social justice, environmental justice and gender justice issues were highlighted.  Indian & Aboriginal women performance artists and dancers and storyteller collaborated to highlight issues such as pollution, inequitable growth, the legacies of colonization, loss of identity and loss language [mother tongue], corporate greed, fracking, plastic pollution, climate change, and water woes. 

 

The performances linked many stories from the Das Avatar (10 Incarnations of the Divine Protector Lord Vishnu) to environmental issues. The Bharatnatyam performance by Priyadarshini Govind held within the Chettinad House linked Krishna dancing on the head of the serpent Kalia which was polluting the River Yamuna to the Sterlite protests. This was in response to the one of the Aboriginal performers sharing the story of how indigenous resources and sacred spaces were being exploited and the water polluted by mining and other industries.

I particularly liked the concept of the story tree, where narrations by the performers of the synopsis of their performances were recorded like powerful podcasts.  As someone who loves Orcas - the largest of dolphins the so-called Killer Whale, I loved the linking of the Matsya (Fish) avatar of Lord Vishnu to the Dreamtime legend of the Orcas and aboriginal tribes of New South Wales the Uru and the Yuni who could speak to the Orcas and the Orcas and the Aboriginals would come together to hunt Sperm Whales the very epitome of sustainable fishing: 

The 'Law of the Tongue' was that once the whales were harpooned and killed the whalers would leave them overnight for the Orcas to eat the tongues.
The Orcas would leave the rest of the carcass for the whalers.

 
More such social justice, environmental justice and gender justice storytelling is needed  and has to be showcased to wider audiences. As the title suggests Churning Waters was linked the Hindu myth of Samudra Manthan (the reason for the Kurma [Turtle] avatar of Lord Vishnu] - or as this installation at the Suvarnabhoomi Airport in Bangkok puts it - the churning of the milk ocean:
 

The finale was particularly poignant, for it relates ocean clean up to Samudra Manthan – the Hindu mythic churning of sacred milk ocean that yielded great poison before yielding the ocean's treasures and its bounty. The Gods and demons came together to churn the sacred ocean, face down the great poison and benefit from its bounty including the nectar of immortality. Marine plastic pollution was depicted as 21st Century’s great poison. While clean drinking water is already at a premium we continue to pollute water bodies with plastics and all sorts of pollutants. Over-fishing and the exponentially increasing plastic pollution of the seas is drastically reducing marine biodiversity and reducing fishing yields. We are the guardians of natural resources and to ensure our survival and that of other living beings that share our home planet we need to work to protect water bodies, forests and the environment. The rights, stories and leadership of women and indigenous people in guiding mankind towards true sustainable development was beautifully conveyed by this performance.