Women have been a crucial part of history, but for the longest time, they\u2019ve been left out of it. The stories we tell – and how we tell them – matter as they impact individuals and cultures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With equal representation being at the forefront of most discussions related to media and literature, it is becoming increasingly important to make sure that we include female centric narratives. When we don\u2019t write enough stories about women, we\u2019re erasing an important part of narratives that have shaped the contemporary world we live in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blogchatter had a discussion with Manreet Sodhi Someshwar about Female Narratives in a Male World on the 19th of March 2021, as part of the #BlogchatterWritFest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Manreet Sodhi Someshwar is a multiple award-winning and bestselling writer of six books, including the Mehrunisa series and the critically-acclaimed The Long Walk Home and The Radiance of a Thousand Suns. Hailed as \u2018a star on the literary horizon\u2019 by Khushwant Singh and garnering endorsements from Gulzar for two of her books, Manreet and her work have featured at literary festivals in Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, India and NYC. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, the South China Morning Post and several Indian publications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Manreet starts off by saying that a narrative is usually led by the protagonist. \u201cThis idea of a female centric narrative or a women-led narrative has recently acquired that sort of currency and it means that it is women who are telling the story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Manreet says that often in storytelling, the protagonists typically tend to be\u00a0men and when they\u2019re talking about female characters through their perspective, they often tend to be cliched and stereotypical in their writing.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Male writers are published the most and we have largely grown up reading the narratives in a certain way – the way that men see it. Women are often described in cliches like the pejorative saas-bahu<\/em> narrative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor me, a female centric narrative is where the protagonists are women, women have agency,<\/strong> they are doing things, they are acting upon things rather than being opted upon – they are the ones telling the stories.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manreet goes on to talk about how the brunt of most violence during major historical events, like the Indian independence movement, the 1984 Sikh pogrom or the 9\/11 attacks, was largely borne by women. However, she says, we don\u2019t hear their stories often. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Manreet adds that personal experiences and thorough research go hand in hand<\/strong> as she talks about having taken a course in Trauma Studies to be able to better understand the psyche of the women around whom her book \u2018Radiance of a Thousand Suns\u2019 circles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to ensure that her characters aren\u2019t mere caricatures, Manreet says that she believes her first task as a writer is to get inside the head of the character she’s writing and try to see the world through their perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On being asked whether she thinks reading women writers has become a fad, Manreet says she doesn\u2019t mind it being a fad if it is something that helps more women writers get discovered and become mainstream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Manreet thinks women writers don\u2019t receive proper reception from audiences even though they have been around for quite some time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t think our stories have to be told only via gender,\u201d says Manreet<\/strong> while talking about her first novel which she wrote in the voice of a 66 year old, aging man. \u201cTo say that a woman should be writing only woman characters, or a man should only be writing male characters – that doesn\u2019t make any sense.\u201d, she adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n She closes by saying that the emphasis should be on telling stories in a way that makes our world more real in the pages. \u201cThe women, men or children that we write about shouldn\u2019t be cardboard characters, or cliches.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just in literature – we need, as a society, to become more aware of what the women in our midst are doing (…) how does she want to be portrayed?(…) See them as people first, and women later.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n