What We Think When We Think About (Interpersonal) Violence
The link between the structural and personal is continually at risk of getting obscured in favour of an individualist reading of interpersonal violence.
The drama around Hero Alom exposes our culture of classism
Our classist sensibilities cannot handle a Hero Alom singing Tagore songs and getting attention for it.
US Elections: Representation matters but it is not enough
Before the elections, a five-year-old boy asked his mother, my friend, if he would ever be able to be the President of the United States because of the colour of his Brown skin. This is a question that American girls, too, have been asking their parents forever.
Magical thinking in the time of Covid-19
I don’t remember exactly when I heard about the 2019 version of coronavirus, Covid-19, but I do know it was during my travels in Asia this past January.
Magical thinking in the time of Covid-19
Over the past few weeks, I have heard variations of “I don’t know why but I don’t think Bangladesh will be affected by Covid-19 in the way that other countries have been.”
Sexual Violence: Looking inward and thinking out loud
Every single day, a rapist is reported. Every. Single. Day. Let that sink in.
Election Day Hoopla
Election Day in Bangladesh is usually a festive occasion. The weather is wonderfully crisp. We are in our Friday best. With friends and
Teen protest movement demanding safe roads: Their allies, adversaries, and others
The last time I heard of a student protest movement with secondary school children was in 2011. Secondary school children had joined university students in Chile to denounce their neoliberal education system that had commodified education, expanding social and income inequality between the rich and the poor.
February 16, 2018
If not now, then when?
Rupa Khatun was raped and murdered on a bus near the Tangail-Mymensingh road in Tangail's Madhupur upazila last August.
December 28, 2017
2017: The year we found purpose
Each year begins with a ray of sunshine, as did 2017, oblivious to the chaos that was inevitably unleashed onto the world when some of the world's leaders took centre stage to change the world as we know it.
November 2, 2017
Of lists, naming, and shaming
SOMETIMES the paths that the oppressed choose to take are and have to be subversive, says Fanon. Neocolonial structures have to be decolonised by weaponising whatever they have.
September 30, 2017
Reproductive coercion or business as usual?
Maleka (not her real name) found herself in a whirlwind relationship in which she felt she has no control. She got pregnant because she couldn't negotiate condom use with her partner and then her partner blamed her for it, even though they both had a role in it.
August 27, 2017
The case for feminist men
But, being “that” man is problematic, even harmful, for men.
August 23, 2017
Saving flood victims as we look for solutions
The year was 1988. My uncle was going to the United States for his undergraduate degree. He was the first family member to do so. The trend in those days was England. And, not just England, but Oxford and Cambridge.
July 30, 2017
Spot the patriarchy
What do you do when someone infantilises you because you're a young(ish) woman? There were men in that room with the same credentials as I. Did anyone ask them if they were teaching assistants?
July 15, 2017
The case for angry women
When I “talk back” (bell hooks, 1989) at institutional and personal oppression I am labelled an angry woman. As if my anger is not just. Justified.
June 25, 2017
Minority lives matter
It is not a coincidence that Bangladesh survived Cyclone Mora with few casualties while a landslide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts caused by torrential rains has left over 150 dead. Deforestation and hill-cutting are known causes of “natural disasters” like landslides, but illegal land grabbing in the CHT is at the root of deforestation and hill-cutting in the first place.
June 1, 2017
In the wake of Cyclone Mora
As the news of the cyclone named Mora (a Thai word which means 'star of the sea') erupted on social and traditional media, I couldn't
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