The understanding of mythological discourse in our country has largely been built around the male characters, with women being ignored as mere catalysts for the culmination of the greater stories. We thus ask a rhetorical question here, have we interpreted our mythology correctly and, more importantly, impartially? Or have we looked at it like we interpret everything else – from the prejudice-tinted glasses of patriarchy?
Despite their powerful individual stories, the women characters from our mythology have been largely ignored. Sadly, it is this prejudiced interpretation of mythology that has in a way shaped our concepts about the women of our society.
Women’s agency and their stake in sexual pleasure is the last thing that we want to discuss or even pay any heed to as a country because our interpretation of mythology has always cornered it as unimportant. It’s invisible, insignificant, and also inconvenient.
The idea of a woman wanting, having, or enjoying unapologetic sex strikes so many as downright revolting, an abomination of the highest degree. We think it’s high time this skewed and deeply flawed narrative is changed for good.
It was as a part of our pursuit of the same goals that we recently reached out to Kavita Kané, the bestselling author who has written on women’s agency in Indian mythology. For instance, her latest book Sita’s Sister throws light on Urmila, the neglected wife of Lakshman, her strength, and her courage.
In an expansive Twitter dialogue with IWB, Kavita talked about sexually liberated women of Indian mythology and how we need to take inspiration from them in order to achieve sexual liberation. Here are excerpts from the chat:
On the sexually-liberated women characters from mythology
On the mythological characters that we need to revisit in the times of #MeToo
On the mythological women characters in her novel who smashed the patriarchy to liberate their sexual desires
On the misconceptions about women’s sexual desires from the days of Mahabharata and Ramayana
On the most misunderstood mythological women characters
On the importance and acceptance of women’s consent since time immemorial
On the similarities in view of repercussions/consequences between women speaking up during Mahabharata & Ramayana times and today in the time of #MeToo
On the idea of role restriction for women feeding the culture of victim shaming
On the evolution of sexual desires within a marriage from the times of Mahabharata & Ramayana to the current times
On re-reading the mythology so as to interpret it sans misogyny