musings on gender and imperialism

Masculinity is, in the words of Raewyn W. Connell, a “gender project,” a dynamic and actively constructed social practice (“Gender as a Social Practice” 369). It is articulated on the site of the individual, the state, and more abstractly, ideologies and cultures. Not viewed from a biological lens as a pre-existing, natural, or static state of being, masculinity is shaped, contested, displaced, and performed. It is stratified through hierarchies of hegemonic and subordinated forms that transform with various historical processes. However, masculinities are also unstable categories, as they are constructed in opposition to an ‘other,’ often an abjected other, and are thus not inherently meaningful. As Judith Butler wrote in her pioneering text  Gender Trouble , gender is a repetitive imitation, propagating an approximation of an ideal that is always out of reach because it does not exist (313). Constructions of masculinity in India are no exception. Defined in opposition to the...

“I attempt to write about characters without condescension, without making them into an image which some may deem more useful, inspirational, profitable, or suitable. Listen for the poetry in common prose, a sensitive experience.” – Alice Childress,  Knowing the Human Condition Black American playwright and fiction writer Alice Childress was known for creating strong, humorous, and principled characters who overturned stereotypes, rebelled against power structures, and inspired readers to radically reimagine their societies to be more equitable. Mildred, a domestic worker in  Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic’s Life  (1956), is one such character, imbued with humanistic pleasures, great emotional depth, and a passion for artistic expression. Mildred is also hilarious. She fearlessly talks back to, interrupts, challenges, informs, and corrects her white employers who run the gamut of personas, from ‘mean’ to kind, because as she shows us throu...