When the sight of a handbag greatly upset the patriarchy
When a handbag made news this past week, it would not be out of place to remember that sexist attitudes have not changed much since the Gandhi-Thatcher era.
In the male-dominated era of her politics, Indira Gandhi shunned overt signs of femininity, taking her handbag out only while travelling abroad. Margaret Thatcher, on the other hand, was seldom seen without it. Metaphorically, you could visualise her taking a swipe at the patriarchy with her structured handbag in hand.
In her earlier avatar as an investment banker, Moitra would have been able to afford a designer bag, or three. But few things upset the patriarchy as much as the sight of an outspoken, independent woman.
For the rest of us, handbags are a necessity in a pocket-scarce female wardrobe for such essentials as cash, cards, a hairbrush, sanitary napkins, lipstick, sanitiser, a phone, a notebook, and a pen or two.
So, when a handbag made news this past week, it would not be out of place to remember that sexist attitudes have not changed much since the Gandhi-Thatcher era.
The spark was lit during a debate on rising prices in Parliament when Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Mahua Moitra tucked her monogrammed Louis Vuitton handbag out of sight. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson, Shehzad Poonawalla, seized the moment to tweet: “Marie Antoinette Mahua Moitra was hiding her expensive bag.”
I cannot claim to know why Moitra chose to hide her bag. Perhaps she realised the political imprudence of flashing a bag that retails at around ₹150,000 and costs more than the average annual salary of the citizens she represents. Or perhaps it was nothing.
In her earlier avatar as an investment banker, Moitra would have been able to afford a designer bag, or three. But few things upset the patriarchy as much as the sight of an outspoken, independent woman.
Never short of a comeback, Moitra’s response was with a defiant tweet of a montage of seven photographs of her with the same bag in Parliament.
There’s a difference in how Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monogrammed suit was spoken about in his first term and the unceasing chatter around what women wear and how they look.
Nobody calls out male politicians for their Swiss watches, expensive pens, and hand-woven jamawar shawls. But Mayawati will be pilloried for wearing diamonds and silks on her birthday and called “worse than a eunuch” by a woman BJP Member of Legislative Assembly, Sadhana Singh.
Mamata Banerjee is derided for her rubber slippers and crumpled cotton sari, with BJP state president Dilip Ghosh saying she should have worn Bermuda shorts while displaying an injury on her leg. Smriti Irani can be mocked on television for her career as an actress by Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam. And Gul Panag is easily photoshopped with a strategically placed Aam Aadmi cap just before the 2014 election. The list is endless, but you get the idea.
Hypocrisy, to use Poonawalla’s word, is not hiding an expensive accessory, hypocrisy is pretending you don’t own one. If men can abandon the once ubiquitous Gandhi cap and if khadi, the symbol of our freedom movement, can be replaced with polyester, what is so unusual in modern India about a woman’s expensive handbag that she has earned and legally purchased?
It’s time for women to own who they are, and tell men to just mind their own business.
Namita Bhandare writes on gender and other social issues and has 35-plus years of experience in journalism. She has edited books and features in a documentary on sexual violence. She tweets as @namitabhandareRead More
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