I. Workshop on Gender Equity and Inclusion: Transformative Pathways in Higher Education with Wiscomp : A unique first-of-its-kind workshop was organised at Pune from 22-24 August, 2019. The workshop was hosted by Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts (SSLA) in collaboration with Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), a New Delhi based South Asian initiative that promotes women’s equal participation and leadership in security and peacebuilding. The workshop sought to facilitate and institutionalise gender-just norms, policies and practices at Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs).This workshop seeks to open up spaces within college and university campuses for engaged dialogue to promote and nurture inclusion and equity.

Wiscomp participate and Team at SSLA MPH on 23rd August 2019

II. Women's Medical Camp : Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts in partnership with Asia Foundation, Prayas and Centre for Action and Reconducted medical camps in Bopkhel on 11th of September and at the Symbiosis Vimannagar New Campus (SVNC) on 16th September ‘2019. At the camps, blood tests and cervical cancer screenings were conducted. Awareness campaigns about cervical and breast cancer were also held. Cervical cancer screening was conducted for 50 women in Bopkhel and 90 women at SVNC. Blood tests were conducted for 113 women at Bopkhel and 87 women at SVNC. A team of 8 doctor-volunteers was present on both days to collect the sample, perform the screening and note the patient history. The format of the camp was such that first the women were made aware of what is cervical cancer.

Dr Joshi from Prayas explaining to SSLA Housekeeping staff the basic information regarding importance of Cervical cancer screening on 16th September 2019.

III. Workshop on Gender Sensitisation :On 13 August 2019 Ms Renuka Mukadam (Independent Consultant on POSH, trainer and external member on IC under sexual harassment law) discussed the various factors revolving around the subject of sexual harassment. She began by defining it as a breakdown of four ideologies: understanding of gender, power, the role of patriarchy and the expression of sexuality. Views over the new law, Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act- 2013, were exchanged. She mentioned the tools and ideologies which supported women to wield the law to their advantages.

IV. Revanta Sarabhai (critically acclaimed male Bharatnatyam dancer) was invited for a lecture demonstration at SSLA in April, 2019 by the Performing Arts Faculty

Revanta Sarabhai at SSLA in April 2019

V. 2021 Global Big History Conference: Special Panels On Gender

The first panel in the 2021 Global Big History Conference featured SSLA’s Gender Committee members and was on the theme ‘Engendering Big History and Envisioning Common Futures’. Prof. Richa Minocha presented in the panel along with students Aishi Mitra and Neha Dadke. The panel abstract was:

Gender is integral to all dimensions of human life. Environment, religion and cultural aesthetics intersect with gender to create vulnerabilities, taboos and marginalization, along with identities, roles and knowledge. Can we represent and re-present gender so it addresses the synergies and symbiotic relationships of the cosmos as well as for conservation of ecology and heritage? Can the modalities of daily living be articulated within a gendered landscape? This panel engages these questions in the context of Big History so as to enable us to develop an understanding of the gaps that need to be bridged and the significance of peace, along with diversity and sustainability.

Panel on Engendering Big History and Envisioning Common Futures

The three individual themes were 1) Living Spaces, Gender and Aesthetics in Big History: Politics of Place 2) Livelihoods and Food: Contexts for Big History and 3) Big History Futures: Women’s Reproductive Health and Religion.

In addition, third year SSLA students Kartik Anilkumar and Diviya Makhija presented a panel through the Gender Committee by using the Little Big Histories Approach on ‘A Little Big History of the Body: Tracing its Separation from Nature.’ 

What is ‘body’? The idea that my ‘self’ stops at the boundaries of my skin leads to a notion of the individual being separate from the environment. This reduction of bodies to their biological bases has led, among other things, to a controlling of sexuality in law and the fetishization of queer identities. While Gender Studies allows a reclaiming of identity, Big History expands space and time by allowing for an origin story. This paper addresses the question – when did our bodies start to be seen, structured and studied as being separate from nature and the cosmos that produced them? The subject of ‘body’ today constitutes a state of map-lessness across disciplines, owing to the hierarchical position assumed by medicine and the life sciences. Although a new field of study, Big History is a vehicle of older ideas, such as the observation by 16th century historian Jean Bodin that ‘those who study the maps of regions before they have learned accurately the relation of the whole universe and the separate parts of it to each other and to the whole are going wrong.’ Big History signifies a return to this unified understanding of reality and gives us an opportunity to adapt society to that reality.

VI. Uma Chakravarti, a well-known feminist historian, interacted with the Women in India class on 31 March, 2021 on the topic of ‘Caste, Sexual Violence and Impunity.’ She spoke about the close nexus of caste, sexual violence, and the cycle of impunity generated. The insights from her long engagement with the women’s movement in its historical context as well as the references to contemporary situations provided a relevant and critical lens to understanding the topic. Prof. Uma’s lecture was interactive and designed to stimulate our contemplation of patriarchal aggression and effective resistance to it.

VII. Professor Indrani Mazumdar of the Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi, spoke to students in the course on Women in India on 5 April 2021 about ‘Women and Migration.’ She emphasised that there is a male bias to migration, while feminisation of the migration process is taking place as well. Women migrate to find employment in sectors where they are preferred. An anti-trafficking discourse is linked to the anti-immigration discourse and it takes it away from foregrounding of women's contributions as migrants. The need is to understand and address the conditions of extreme poverty at home and the vulnerabilities of women as migrants.

Indrani Mazumdar of the Centre for Women’s Development Studies Interacting with students

VIII. Professor Lata Singh of the Centre for Women’s Studies, in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, invited Dr. Richa Minocha to attend a webinar on ‘Writing about People’s Resistance’ on 28 April 2021. Prof. Minocha’s students from her course, Women in India, were invited, as well as those in her Seminar on Gender, Culture and Development. Researcher and social activist Ranjana Padhi was the prime speaker, along with eminent faculty, such as Prof. Uma Chakravarti (feminist historian), Prof. Vasanthi Raman (Centre for Women’s Development Studies) and Prof. Anagha Tambe (Department of Women’s Studies, Savitri Bai Phule Pune University). 

JNU webinar where Prof. Richa Minocha and SSLA students were invited

IX. Dr. Richa Minocha participated in a Webinar on Gender Equity and Covid 19 along with students from her courses. The Webinar was organised by Women’s Development Cell, University of Mumbai in association with Nirmala Memorial Foundation College of Commerce & Science Kandivali (E) on 14th May 2020.

X. Professor Meenakshi F. Paul, Professor of English and Principal at the Department of Evening Studies, Himachal Pradesh University, spoke to the students of the Women and Gender Studies minor programme on 27 July, 2020, on gender and intersectionality. 

XI. Professor Vasanthi Raman from the Centre for Women and Gender Studies interacted with students from the course, Introduction to Women and Gender Studies, and Seminar students of Gender Culture and Development on 28 September, 2020.

XII. Prof Lata Singh, from the Centre for Women's Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, interacted with the Women in India class on the theme of ‘Foregrounding Courtesans in Feminist History’ on 3 March, 2021.

XIII. Professor Sudha Mohan, former Head of Department, Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai, interacted with the Women in India students on the theme of ‘Mobilisation, Empowerment and Participation Case Studies of Women’s Organisation on 12 April, 2021.

XIV. A special series of lectures on feminist research methodology was conducted on 17 July, 2021. The topics and facilitators were as follows:

• Feminist Standpoint Epistemology: Lessons from India (Facilitator: Dr. Anagha Tambe, Savitribai Phule Pune University).
• Teaching Qualitative Research Methods from a Feminist Perspective (Facilitator: Dr. Anurekha Chari-Wagh, University of Hyderabad).
• Feminist Research Methodology in the Indian Context: Indian Women and Science (Facilitator: Dr. Gita Chadha, Mumbai University).

XV. Professor Rukmini Sen of Ambedkar University interacted with Symbiosis students on 25 September, 2021. The talk was in honour of renowned sociologist and social activist Dr. Gail Omvedt and the Woman’s Question in the Indian Women’s Movement.

XVI. Seema Kulkarni, Senior Fellow of Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management spoke to students in the Women and Gender Studies course on 14 October, 2021 about ‘Gender and Environment.’

XVII. On 17 December, 2021, SSLA organized a session on sensitizing staff and housekeeping on the sexual harassment of women in the workplace. Staff members of SSIS, SSLA, and Housekeeping attended the session. Dr. Richa Minocha was the resource person for the session. She discussed the background of the issue, including what constitutes sexual harassment, the Vishakha Guidelines (1997), and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act (2013). The method of lodging complaints and the conduct of inquiry were highlighted, as well as provisions related to deterrents and punishments.

Gender sensitisation workshop conducted by Richa Minocha for SSLA staff on 17 December, 2021

XVIII. A gender sensitization workshop was organised on 26 March, 2022 for SSLA faculty. It was organised by SSLA, the Symbiosis Teaching Learning Resource Centre and conducted by Symbiosis Centre for Emotional Well Being. The main issues identified and discussed were understanding gender fluidity and how many attributes are stereotyped and gendered.

XIV. As can be seen, many SSLA faculty members are invited as resource persons to gender-related seminars and webinars.

• On 16 September, 2019, students of the Seminar on Gender Geographies and Social Justice and those in the major/minor course on Environment, Ecology, and Society were invited to a panel discussion on ‘Marginalized Women Making Place in the Urban Jungle.’ SSLA Prof. Dr. Richa Minocha served as a panelistfor this discussion at the Mumbai Press Club. Other panelists included actor Shabana Azmi, Amita Bhide (Dean, Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences), Neera Adarkar (Urban researcher and principal architect, Adarkar Associates), and Ramya Ramanath (Faculty, DePaul University).     

• The Symbiosis College of Nursing organized a gender-sensitization seminar for  ‘He or She? – Time to Change the Mindset’ on 29 August, 2019. Dr. Richa Minocha served as a resource person to interact with students and faculty on ‘Understanding Gender and Development.

• Dr. Richa Minocha was invited by the Savitribai Phule Pune University for an interactive session with Wendy Harcourt, Professor of Gender, Diversity & Sustainable Development at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague on 5 February, 2020.

• Dr. Richa Minocha was invited by Professor Howard Rosing of DePaul University to conduct a special online interaction, ‘On Gender and Food Justice,’ on 21 April, 2020 with students of the course, Geography, Food and Justice at DePaul.

• Dr. Richa Minocha was invited as a speaker to a national webinar on ‘Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World.’ Hosted by Vishwa Yuvak Kendra in New Delhi, it was a featured celebration for International Women’s Day, 8 March, 2021. 

• Dr. Suchetana Banerjee and Gayatri Mendanha presented at a workshop on Gender Equity and Inclusion: Transformative Pathways in Higher Education in Bhubaneshwar in November, 2019. The Workshop was Organised jointly by WISCOMP and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences.

XX. Workshop Organised by the Community Outreach Cell - The COP Module on Gender

Dr. Sneha Gole who teaches at the Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women's Studies Centre conducted a teaching module on Thinking and Doing Gender for SSLA students. The module was conducted three times during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 academic years between 5th June, 2020 - 30th June, 2020, and 9th December, 2020 – 29th December, 2020 and 14th June to 29th July, 2021. The module’s focus was on creating an understanding of gender, which moves away from the focus on 'men' and 'women' as homogenous and mutually exclusive categories to understanding gender as a structure and an analytical tool which will help us make sense of the world around us, from wars, pandemics to our everyday life experiences to understanding debates from bois locker room to how we romance and love. The project work can be undertaken individually or as a group and will involve picking an issue/ everyday phenomenon and analyzing it through a gender lens, as well as developing an intervention to address common-sense ideas around it. The nature of the project and the intervention will be highly personalized for each student, helping them identify areas that are of concern and interest to them and allowing them to develop analytical and conceptual skills to address the same.

Professor Uma Chakravarti, well known feminist historian, author, and film director visited SSLA campus on 13 April, 2019 and interacted with students and faculty. Her film, Ek Inquilab aur Aaya, was screened on this occasion.

Professor Lata Singh of the Centre for Women’s Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University visited SSLA on 12–13 April, 2019. She interacted with students of the course Understanding Feminism. She was also a discussant at the screening of Prof. Chakravarti’s film.

Professor Roderic Owen of Mary Baldwin College (USA) and a Fulbright Scholar at SSLA, spoke to the students in the Understanding Feminisms course on 5 April, 2019 about ‘Feminism and Global Justice.’

Penelope Markle, R.N., N.P., USVA (ret.), interacted with students in Dr. Minocha’s course, Women and Work, on the theme of ‘Negotiating Motherhood and Workplace: Women in the Caregiving Sector’ on 12 August 2019.

A lecture on Prevention of Sexual Harassment and Regulations and Policy in Higher Education Institutes was conducted by Mr. Gaurav Sharma on 14th September, 2019, for Law students at SSLA. The nuances of the law governing sexual harassment at workplaces in general and educational institutes, in particular, were discussed. Also, legal provisions regarding the nature and constitution of the Internal Committee at an institute were discussed.

Special Lecture organised at SSLA in Blended Learning Mode : Gender and Global Learning Experience

Inaugural GLE Lecture in Blended mode: Dr. Richa Minocha presenting to DePaul students and faculty and Symbiosis students on the theme: Gender, Livelihoods and Food Security, 12 April 2022.

SSLA students visited Savitribai Phule Pune University on 5 March, 2019 as feminist scholar and writer V. Geetha was delivering the seventh Mukta Salve lecture on the theme of ‘Religion and the Feminist Subject: Thoughts on a Possible History.’

Women and Gender Studies students, accompanied by Prof. Richa Minocha, went on a day excursion on 15 March 2022, to explore sites associated with Savitribai Phule in Pune.

EVENTS RELATED TO GENDER ORGANISED BY STUDENTS

The Natak Society

The body is a story, was organised as an online theatre movement workshop on 26th June, '21 by the Natak Society at SSLA. There is a way in performance to build empathy, to connect with people, and to connect with our own bodies-- something that performers, had lost since bodies had become limited to the boundaries of a screen during the lockdown. To try and compensate for this loss, to reconnect with our bodies, to let our bodies tell stories, Natak Society organized an online theatre movement workshop along with Queer Qrew for their pride week in June ‘21. Facilitated by filmmaker and theatre practitioner Gillian Pinto, and theatre practitioner and gender educator Hina Siddiqui, this workshop included close readings of texts from Bhakti poetry and discussions on personal experiences after each activity to understand ways in which the body has been perceived away from the modern markings of gender.

Silence the court is in session - An audio adaptation for the BITS WAVES fest: (27th October to 2nd November, '21). In their submission for the BITS Goa annual WAVES fest, the Natak society worked on an audio adaptation of Vijay Tendulkar’s ‘Silence! The Court is in Session’ (Originally, ‘Shantata! Court Chaalu Aahe’). They played around with the characters and reimagined the story with Samant and Miss Benare as a queer romance. This became a key point in the play since it helped explore Miss Benare’s motivations as a character. It was easy to imagine Miss Benare as queer because the way her character is written in opposition to a dominant patriarchal discourse. One of the most important ways for her to respond to this dominant discourse is by expressing her sexuality and agency freely. The play builds up to an important question about her agency over her body and her unborn child – a very important question that the world is struggling with and going back and forth on today. Miss Samant, initially confused about Miss Benare’s flirtatious passes at her, later accepts and reverts to them, and the other characters of the play don’t recognize it as a romantic encounter.

Traditional Day performance: (12th April, '22)

For SSLA’s traditional day in April themed ‘90s Bollywood’, the Natak Society put up a play showing an audition setting where aspiring actors play 90s Bollywood actors, with tones of nostalgia from the 90s in the music and dialogues. The two central characters built a queer intimacy which comforted one of them who was nervous about their audition and they ended up expressing themselves in the clothes they liked. To make a character comfortable in a role is something realized through these plays, when they are exposed to the public gaze in the clothes that they like to wear, which is often treated as a spectacle. The Natak society hopes to have more conversations about the comfort and care that can be shared with each other through these plays as acting on the other hand also exposes students to vulnerability.

‘Stories by women, about women, for everyone’, an outing: (24th April, '22)

The Natak society students went for an outing to watch an experimental play, a rehearsed reading of 3 stories by Gingertea Drama Productions. Three stories (in Marathi, Hindi and English) written by women were read out and performed, while giving the audience an immersive experience of the three stories by engaging our senses (smell, sound, taste even) with elements of the stories. Gingertea Drama Productions picked out stories of love, desire and labour, followed by questions that the audience was supposed to answer anonymously and the answers were read out in the end, forming stories of their own. This was a great experience for the members who attended in understanding how theatre can be used as a political tool to tell important stories and bring them to life.

‘How I learned to drive’, a play reading: (24th June, '22)

A collaboration with the Thought Project under their key initiative 'Curtain Call', a play reading was organized by Natak Society open to everyone at SSLA. Thought Project is an organization that works at the intersection of theatre, gender, sexuality and mental health.

Present student members of the Natak Society include Diviya Makhija, Zitin Kaul, Khushi Tulsyan, Ribhav Singh, Evina Lakra, Sheuli Banerjee, Trisha Chandra, Nayanika Shome, Sakshi Ramesh, Ali Mahmud, Lakshmi Pillai, Adithi Bhat, Rohail Shekhar, Anushri Shah, Alex Shah, Angela Sabu, Dharshini Kannan, Kompal Zinta, Keerthana Menon, Diya Nayak, Samikshya Panda, Ipshita Roy, Adya Sharma, Muskaan Narwani, Vatsal Khajuria, Kartik Nair, Simran Naik, Subarna Maitra, Urvi Ganjoo, and Gunreet Marwah.

SSLA Presents

SSLA Presents is the annual theatre production put up by the faculty and students of Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts. Each year students from across four batches along with the faculty get together and create a theatre collective. The faculty members and students try to create a space where creativity flourishes. Gender has been one of the common themes that the makers have tried to explore over various productions. SSLA Presents performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (2016), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht (2017), Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and Medea by Euripides (2018), Hayavadan and Boiled Beans on Toast by Girish Karnad (2019), Adaptations of Fear and Misery of the Third Reich by Bertolt Brecht and Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (2021).

Four plays that were produced and directed in the first three years of SSLA Presents were chosen keeping in mind intersectional issues of gender, race, and class- questions of power and violence and resistance. Conceptualised by Ananya Parekh and Nikhil Narkar, the plays tried to highlight the above mentioned issues through the aesthetics and the performance. Almost the entire team consisted of women- as assistant directors, production in charge at various levels, as well as actors. In midsummer nights dream, the plot itself addresses questions of gender and power. Many of our women actors took on male roles. As Ananya Parekh recalls, the dialogues of the women characters, especially those about being a woman in a man’s world were highlighted. In the second play, The resistible rise of Arturo Ui all major male characters were played by women actors. Ananya and Nikhil deliberately highlighted male friendships by using a variety of songs and tried to ask actors to play roles in a gender neutral manner.

The third play, Medea is about women’s conflict and it was an entirely women led production and cast. Many songs were used to universalise certain issues, an all woman chorus was deployed and the play was set in the modern context. Ananya Parekh expressed similar sentiment for the fourth play Oedipus Rex and Suchetana Banerjee who directed Hayavadan and Boiled Beans on Toast echoed Ananya’s thoughts when she said that women actors took on male roles and that she worked hard along with student Tanmay Guha Neogi as Co- Director to help female actors bring in their own ways of performing and feel comfortable with their bodies.