A Few Questions to Women's Rights Defenders of Kerala On March 08,2009

Well, we may do well to ask the organizations, or the personalities
presiding the pennkodathi these questions:
Do they really like to see women of Kerala ever having autonomy over
their bodies ?
Even while we find chapters of peedanam unending here in Kerala, are
we confident enough to be able in any near future, to stop seeing
women of Kerala just as victims of 'peedanam'?
When will we able to find them as active individuals/ collectivities
fighting , challenging the male regime of gender and sexuality on the
one hand, and demanding progressive reforms in education about sex and
reproduction on the other?
When will we/ they be able to take on this essentially anti-woman,
protectionist attitude that promotes kind of
single handed discourse on peedanam, wherein, active agency is denied
to women on every count?
When will be able to dispense with the need of outfits like "Stree
Suraksha Samithis" ,which virtually edifies the dictum of Manu (Women
should always be protected, and they never deserve to be free)
Flip side of the institution of peedanam is family, the burial ground
of every right of women to full citizenship.
These die hard defenders of culture seem to suggest that culture is something that should essentially,unilaterally and permanently control women through imposed dress codes,prescribed body languages and demarcated boundaries of space and time crossing which, they might spoil everything.How the Lakhshmanarekha in the Hindu epic symbolizes this equation of
restriction =protection is too well known to be elaborated here.

Why blame SriRam Senes for acts (albeit a little outrageous and violent) in teaching women of their status, if one is going to argue that protection is so conditional and dependent on curtailing the civic freedoms of women ?

It is high time that we openly defied Culture, Morals and Traditions
at least to the extent that they openly take sides with an agenda of
perpetuating patriarchy in all walks of life, be it physical labour,
reproduction, sexuality or the organization of family.