Volume 004

Education

Education: What Makes It Feminist?

August 2022
Volume 004 Education
What happens when we put the two words, ‘feminist’ and ‘education’, together? What kind of walls shake? Which seams may open? What may tumble out?

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Many years ago, in the hills of Nepal, 12-year-old Shuvangi walked to school with her mother, who was headed to a classroom of her own. It was a school meant for adult education, and for some time, mother and child were students together. Her mother, eventually, had to give it up in favour of the responsibilities that awaited her in the household, and with it, the possibility of a different life eroded under the weight of duty.
A friend of Tabassum told her about the river. “The first thing I saw when I went there was garbage. What will I shoot here, I thought. But then, I sat down quietly and began observing. I saw the river, the fisherman, the boat ferrying the people from one shore to the other.
Humans in the Loop is a Krukhi-Hindi film directed by Aranya Sahay, inspired by Karishma’s essay for the publication FiftyTwo, made in collaboration with the Museum of Imagined Futures (MOIF). It focuses on the intersection of technology and society. Developed as part of the Storiculture Impact Fellowship that supports socially relevant storytelling in media, MOIF is a platform for creators, researchers, and activists who use storytelling to question the systems shaping our world.
A day that is ordinary? A day within the everyday? Feminists have theorised the everyday extensively. Everyday is when the doing happens. The work is done. The cooking, the editing of the draft, the googling, the waiting for the eggs to boil, legwork, emails, paying of bills, waiting with the camera as the time lapse happens, finding the letters for that one word in Rathi, having a drink with a Tharu brewer in Chitwan. All of these are the doing. The Act of Doing, the critical step before making.
It was curiosity that led Ashraf Hussain and Ajfarul Sheikh to turn their steps towards their local madrasa, a place that they would pass by often, but had no occasion to enter.
A teacher walks the aisle of the classroom with a stick in his hand, waiting to use it on anyone who falters in their dictation test. Bhisham Sahni opens this scene of a classroom in his story ‘Imla’ where the same teacher when positioned outside the classroom changes his walk and talk. How do the structures of power change around the same teacher?