Women's Views on News |
- Leela Soma: Scotland’s Asian writer
- Genocide Film Library project in Bosnia
- Proving technology is not just for boys
- Determined and death proof: the women of Tarantino
| Leela Soma: Scotland’s Asian writer Posted: 11 Apr 2013 06:53 AM PDT
A first generation Indo-Scot, much of her work reflects her personal experiences. Her new publication, "Boxed In", is a collection of short stories that follow three Indian women living in Scotland. Leela discussed her influences and inspiration with Aisha Farooq. Living in Glasgow has given Leela a fantastic perspective of her surroundings. Leela relentlessly explores the vibrant culture of her Scottish inherited home. Using this, she is able to offer insightful comparisons to her rich Indian heritage. Despite now being a Scottish national, Leela always remembers her roots fondly: "I was born in Madras, now Chennai, the biggest city in South India," she says. An arts, film and cultural hub outside of Mumbai, Chennai is well-renowned for music and dance. Leela is a Diaspora writer. She has the unique ability as an author to combine two opposing worlds into one unified story. She has always had a way with words, and that is no surprise given her fortunate upbringing: "I was always surrounded by books, my grandfather and father were lawyers, so books were in abundance. Scribbling little stories as a child was a habit and it felt quite natural," she remembers. Coming from a highly literate family, Leela and her siblings attended convent and English medium schools in India. She later completed her graduate and postgraduate degrees at university. "My parents held education, music and morals to be the most important part of our lives," Leela continues. Her sudden move to Glasgow came after she was married. It was here where she began her new life as a Scottish national. Without a doubt, the move brought a huge shift to Leela's proverbial reality. But it has notably brought new creativity into her writing, becoming the inspiration for all her future literature: "I taught for thirty years at a high school in Glasgow, and became a Principal Teacher. I took early retirement to indulge in my love of writing." Her first novel, Twice Born, follows a similar Diaspora journey and appears, on the surface, to be the most autobiographical. It follows a newly married Sita moving away from the home-grown comforts of Madras to the harsh cold of Glasgow. In the book, however, Sita feels unsuited to her new husband. Her vivacity and thirst for travel, culture and the unknown jars with his almost military order. She eventually finds love and connection with Neil, a native Scotsman. "This novel is totally fictitious, but based on experiences of all my Indo-Scot friends who had arrived in Glasgow around the 1970s," says Leela. "The cross-cultural barriers were added on to make the novel more interesting." Leela won the Margaret Thomson Davis Trophy for Best New Writer 2007 for Twice Born before it was even published. Thwarted identity is a common theme in Leela's writing. A sense of place and belonging are also integral to her stories. For Sita, identity is solidified through love and connection to others, something that she is continually searching for. Her second novel, Bombay Baby is no exception to this. The main protagonist, Tina has no understanding of who she really is. Born via IVF to white Welsh parents, she is always yearning to belong. This leads her to embark on a journey to find her biological Indian mother. On the way, she uncovers more than she bargained for. "This story emerged from a photograph in the Times Newspaper,” explains Leela. “It was a young Indian baby born to Welsh parents by embryo transfer. The child's face made me wonder how she would feel when she is older, about her origins. I was busy writing my first novel 'Twice Born' then, but that image kept coming back to me, so I did research on the subject. Two years later, I wrote the novel." Her new publication is a collection of short stories, published in February 2013. Entitled Boxed In, it follows the experiences of three Indian women living in Glasgow. “'Boxed In' story was commissioned by Glasgow Woman's Library for their 21st Birthday celebrations. I was one of 21 authors selected for this project. It was written using the sources within the library,” Leela says. The Glasgow Women’s Library celebrates female creativity. It highlights 21 artists and 21 writers who have revolutionised their subject matter. “The other two stories, 'Twisted Ends' and 'Broken China', were written earlier and seemed fit for this collection as they showed the vulnerability of women across, all ages and class,” Leela explains. Of course, in her writing, Leela draws much inspiration from people, events and her adopted surroundings. She uses Scotland and India as a background on which to paint a colourful picture: “Stories come when you least expect, from an incident, a memory or even a photograph. The most important thing is that the story makes you want to put pen to paper, the characters form in your head and then the novel takes shape.” Leela is one of the first Asian writers to produce literature out of Scotland. She uses other notable British Asian authors as a source of inspiration. V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Jhumpa Lahiri are some of her favourites. Being a Scottish Asian writer gives her a distinct edge over these other authors. She is able to incorporate yet another layer of cultural perspective onto her writing: “I have only lived in Glasgow all my life, so I do not have any first-hand experience, or knowledge of the literary scenes in London or Birmingham. The writer's world is extremely welcoming and vibrant in Glasgow.” “Scotland is now my adopted home,” she admits. “I have lived longer here and feel that I have been enriched by the Scottish heritage of Scott, Burns and contemporary writers. One of the scenes in Twice Born is written entirely in Glasgow dialect.” Leela is now working on her third novel. Her advice to all other budding Asian writers: “Believe in yourself, and keep writing. Our stories have to be told.” Twice Born, Bombay Baby and Boxed In are all available to buy or to download from Amazon and Kindle. Interview courtesy of DESIblitz e-magazine, March 2013.  |
| Genocide Film Library project in Bosnia Posted: 11 Apr 2013 05:15 AM PDT
When the Bosnian town of Kozarac fell to the Serb forces in the first months of war, whole Bosniak families were herded into the barbed confines of Trnopolje. The Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts to the Security Council (the Bassiouni Commission Report) later called Trnopolje a concentration camp, and it did evoke memories of the Holocaust. When, after a month of horror, seven-year-old Elmina Kulasic was transferred out of Trnopolje and put on a train to Zagreb, she encountered a Croat man who "told us that the Chetniks [Serb nationalists] had probably killed my elder, disabled sister, and raped my other one. "He said that it was only a matter of time before my father was dead." On 11 July 1995, Serb atrocities culminated into the worst carnage in Europe since the Second World War when, in a UN-declared 'safe haven', 8,000 Bosniak men were separated from their women and murdered. Twenty-one years on, Bosnia remains divided. With genocide denial and nationalist rhetoric of politicians permeating everyday life, words like 'closure' and 'reconciliation' have been only meaningless words. Elmina Kulasic survived, and she now works at the Cinema for Peace Foundation (CPF) in Sarajevo as the program development coordinator for ‘The Genocide Film Library‘. As the first oral history project of the war, it aims to record 10,000 life stories of the Srebrenica genocide. It has collected over 1,175 narratives since January 2011. "Innocent people were killed for no reason other than their different identity, Kulasic said, speaking to Heba Al-Adawy recently. It takes a lot of courage to tell your story, she continued, and this telling “takes the war to a personal level.” For, as she pointed out, you “cannot hear a personal narrative and look away”. In the midst of narratives skewed by the distant and the recent history of the region, and by politics, the Genocide Film Library seeks to do justice to history by giving voice to the survivors silenced by politics. Although a few survivors testified at The Hague during the trials of war criminals, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, there has been no large-scale reckoning with the truth in Bosnia, as there was in South Africa. The archived testimonies will be made available to schools and universities, to researchers and policy makers – an important move in Bosnia's awfully politicised education sector. But as sixty-four year old survivor Fatima Alijic pointed out: "Genocides still go on in the world. Srebrenica didn't teach anyone a lesson."  |
| Proving technology is not just for boys Posted: 11 Apr 2013 03:24 AM PDT
While the advent of geek chic may have improved the image of the technology sector – we now tend to think of hipster glasses and Palo Alto rather than dodgy beards in basements – it still has not evolved to include many women. A perception grounded in fact, with women representing just 17 per cent of those working in the technology sector. But it is important for technology that more girls and women be involved, for from breakfast to bedtime - as we email friends, use apps for information or read the news – our life is influenced by technology. This gender imbalance starts from a young age. In 2012, girls made up just 6.5 per cent of students taking computing A-levels. And an O2 survey in 2012 revealed that only 17 per cent of girls had learned any coding at all at school, compared to 33 per cent of boys. This disparity should be addressed for a range of reasons. With the impact of technology being so important to our lives, we certainly need a better gender balance in those creating that technology. For girls, a stronger involvement in technology is not only fun but it opens up a huge range of career options. And contributing to and shaping this sector means having an influence on society as a whole. Furthermore, as Computer Weekly points out, tech is a crucial part of our economy. If we want a thriving and innovative tech sector we need a full and diverse workforce – which means more women. There are several barriers to girls' access to learning technology, but one of these is image perception. From a very young age, boys and girls are given signals about which roles and qualities are deemed appropriate for each gender. These do not just tell boys and girls what to do in their present childhood, but also informs them about what it will be possible for them to do with their futures. And technology and computer skills are often portrayed as things which 'aren't for girls'. When it comes to toys, boys get building tools and girls get dolls – this cartoon neatly illustrates this phenomenon. The other issues discouraging girls from learning technology skills include a lack of support and mentorship, of confidence in the subject and a perception that technology is about spreadsheets rather than creativity. Campaigners are fighting to break down these barriers. Meet Little Miss Geek, a campaign for "inspiring the next generation of young girls to become tech pioneers". Launched in October 2012, the group run day academies in London schools. They offer schoolgirls inspiring speeches from guest speakers, introduce them to coding and get them to design their own level in video games. With some success, as Rebecca Armstrong reported when she wrote what happened when Little Miss Geeks took over two girls' schools on International Women's Day; working in gaming was deemed ‘cool’. Increasing the number of girls in technology can have far-reaching implications for technology itself and its uses, for the gender balance in the workforce and for women's involvement in other STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) areas. The very process of engaging more girls in technology gives them confidence as they learn something new and shows them just how broad their options really could be. Changing the image perception of the role girls can play in technology could also have beneficial repercussions in other areas. And as the UK government’s digital champion Martha Lane-Fox said, “It’s a digital world now”. Let us keep on pushing to ensure that girls are not excluded from it.  |
| Determined and death proof: the women of Tarantino Posted: 11 Apr 2013 01:00 AM PDT
By Lydia Harris, guesting at Bad Reputation. Everybody has an opinion about Quentin Tarantino. Is he racist for using the 'N' word so often in his scripts? Is he a genius, or a copycat? Is he some sort of sicko, in love with violence for its own sake? Can he act? (No, he can't.) But underneath the gore, profanity, and wooden cameos, is there anything for feminists to celebrate? As unlikely as it sounds, I think there is. Tarantino has written some pretty amazing parts for women. He puts them on screen, not just as eye candy or the girlfriends of the heroes, but as people with stories of their own to tell. They know how to defend themselves and their friends, and they do their own stunts. They fight (and dance) barefoot, and aren't afraid to get their hands dirty. This isn't to say that the man himself is a feminist icon, or that his films are entirely unproblematic. Some of the violence perpetrated against the women characters has an uncomfortably voyeuristic feel to it, and every now and again his films feel more like depictions of his own sexual fantasies rather than true fiction. He professes a love for 'strong women' (he grew up with a single mother), but this sexualisation of women characters does call his motives into question. It's worth bearing in mind though, that these characters haven't sprung new and fully formed from Tarantino's imagination – they're loving reimaginations of the deadly but beautiful women of the B-movies and exploitation flicks Tarantino watched as a youngster. These women were usually a bit too 'empowered' for their own good, and often ended up getting their comeuppance. Dodgy source material, sure, but Tarantino regularly flips this trope on its head. The rapists, murderers and crooks in his movies rarely escape without feeling the wrath of their female 'victims'. Try watching Zoe Bell playing 'Ship's Mast' at 100mph without feeling a heart-swelling sense of sisterly pride. And I don't know a woman who has seen Pulp Fiction and not thought Mia Wallace would be a pretty sassy best friend (if it weren't for the cocaine abuse). As feminists, we sometimes have to dig about in the mud of misogyny to find some empowering gold dust. In honour of that, here's a rundown of the baddest, sassiest women in QT's weird world. Mia Wallace (Pulp Fiction) [click through for photo] Oh, Mia Wallace. The woman who spawned a million copycat hairstyles. She doesn't kick any ass, except in a twist contest, but she's a seriously cool customer. Did her husband Marsellus really throw a man over a balcony for giving her a foot-rub? Maybe not, but it's easy to see why he might. Everybody in the movie is afraid of him, and perhaps so is Mia (she asks Vincent not to tell him about the overdose), but she seems to do pretty much what she wants anyway. She flirts with Vincent over dinner, and we never find out what might have happened between them had she not mistaken his heroin for cocaine. Something of an enigma, she's a sassy, straight-talking woman with a preference for silence over chatter ("That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.") This combination of beauty and brains seems to have a profound effect on the men who meet her, and enables her to survive in her world populated by crooks and murderers. Jackie Brown (Jackie Brown) [click through for photo] Jackie Brown is a black woman in her forties, and the star of the movie that bears her name as its title. In the youth-obsessed, whitewashed culture of Hollywood, this is exciting and unusual in itself (depressing, huh?). The legendary Pam Grier plays a flight attendant, who works for a crappy airline. She makes some extra bucks on the side by smuggling in ill-gotten cash for a gun-dealer named Ordell, until she gets busted. As she says: "Well, I've flown seven million miles. And I've been waiting on people almost 20 years. The best job I could get after my bust was Cabo Air, which is the worst job you can get in this industry. I make about sixteen thousand, with retirement benefits that ain't worth a damn. And now with this arrest hanging over my head, I'm scared. If I lose my job I gotta start all over again, but I got nothing to start over with. I'll be stuck with whatever I can get. And that shit is scarier than Ordell." But Jackie is a survivor in the truest sense of the word. When things look bad for her, she takes matters into her own hands, using her brains and courage to rip off the gangsters and escape a jail sentence in one outrageously brave scheme. She plans everything herself, knows who she can trust, and isn't afraid to turn a gun on a man who she knows to be a killer. She's a smart, older, black woman who, despite being a total fox (Foxy Brown, geddit?), doesn't use her sexuality to get ahead. With media portrayal of black women usually relying heavily on sexualized stereotypes, Jackie Brown is a breath of fresh air. The Bride / Beatrix Kiddo (Kill Bill) [click through for photo] When people talk about 'empowered' female characters in Tarantino movies, Beatrix Kiddo is who they're usually thinking of. The woman is dragged through hell backwards, and still manages to exact bloody revenge on everybody who hurt her, or kept her from her child. The trope of the vengeful woman is not a particularly progressive one. But Beatrix Kiddo is no 'bunny boiler'. She was shot in the head and left for dead, raped whilst in a coma, and led to believe that her unborn child had died. As much as we might find the gore and violence hard to stomach, it's hard to argue with her motives. From Beatrix herself: "It's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality." She's a woman who knows how to protect herself, and believes her life is worth fighting for. Even when she's been buried alive, it's still impossible to see her as a victim. And she's not the only strong woman in the film (although she's the only one you're rooting for). The women in Kill Bill are scrappy. The fights between The Bride and other female ex-members of the Deadly Viper Assasination Squad aren't sexy 'girl fights'. They fight with skill, knocking seven shades of shit out of each other with terrifying ferocity. They're fighting for their lives, and it isn't pretty. But The Bride isn't just violent and vengeful. She's a mother who longs to be reunited with her child. Somehow, this duality doesn't cause the dissonance you would expect. She's a three-dimensional character, more than capable of being many different things at once. The shock of that highlights just how rare it is in a Hollywood film. Zoe Bell, Kim and Abernathy (Death Proof) [click through for photo] Death Proof is a film of two halves, linked by one gross, murderous ex-stunt driver. In the first half, he stalks and kills a group of beautiful friends with his car. But we know that in Tarantino's world, creeps don't get away with things like that. When he attempts to do the same thing with another group of women, he makes a fatal error by messing with a stuntwoman, stunt driver, and their super-cool make-up artist friend. I have some serious qualms about the first half, as the violence perpetrated against the victims is fetishised to an almost ludicrous degree. But things take a turn for the better when Zoe Bell and her pals (played by Tracie Thorns and Rosario Dawson) arrive on screen. Zoe Bell is a real-life stuntwoman, who plays herself in this movie. When you see her perched on the bonnet of a car being driven at 100 mph, that's really her, and she's really doing that. Which is wicked cool. Stuntman Mike grows tired of chasing these women who refuse to be victims, but they haven't finished with him. Instead of letting him get away, they go after him. And their intentions are clear, with Abernathy declaring "Let's kill this bastard." In the real world, women rarely receive justice for the violence they experience. Although this vigilante-style justice is probably not what we want for our own society (however satisfying it might be), watching it on screen is incredibly cathartic. When Abernathy puts the final boot into Stuntman Mike, the urge to cheer is almost overwhelming. Shoshanna (Inglourious Basterds) [click though for photo] Shoshanna is the self-styled "face of Jewish vengeance" in Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino's 'creative' re-imagining of World War Two. She escapes the 'Jew Hunter', who kills her whole family whilst they are in hiding. When we next see her, she's running a cinema in occupied Paris, where the Nazis want to screen their latest propaganda film. As painful as this is to her, she sees it as an opportunity to exact revenge for what was done to her family, and other Jewish families across Europe. Her single-minded resolve, and calm in the face of extraordinary pressure, is the perfect foil to the disastrous exploits of the Basterds. Women in war films are usually relegated to the roles of tearful wife or showgirl. In Inglourious Basterds, it is a woman who changes the course of the war, and thus history. This epitomises one of the key attributes of Tarantino's women: agency. They make decisions for themselves that change their lives, and the lives of others around them. Of course, we know that women made a huge and valuable contribution to the war effort, in many different ways. It's just a shame that it took a film with a fictionalised version of history to depict a woman having any sort of meaningful involvement in the conflict. So, there you have it. Those are my own favourite Tarantino women. Broomhilda from Django Unchained didn't quite make it in, as I've only seen it once. But I think she should get an honourable mention here, if only for surviving. Obviously, Tarantino's movies are far from perfect, feminism-wise, and the man himself doesn't have a great track record when it comes to saying sexist douchebag things. But with so few interesting or positive representations of women on-screen, we should celebrate the few characters who break the mould. Especially if they make us leave the cinema feeling a little cooler, a little braver and a little more willing to stand up for ourselves. Lydia Harris co-runs Girls Germs, a feminist club night. She has written for The F Word, The Girls Are, The Evening Standard and Bad Reputation. She’s also a film geek, salt caramel obsessive and furniture nerd. She blogs at myswimsuitissues.  |
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