Gender Agenda newsletter: Pretty girls - The HinduUpdated - September 14, 2026 10:37 am IST(This article is part of the Gender Agenda newsletter. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Sunday, subscribe here.)Earlier this week, a video of a mother-daughter duo doing an Instagram transition reel fell victim to the internet moral police. Several people on X (formerly Twitter) watched a mother abandon her old salwar-kameez and trade it in for a blue sleeveless crop-top, like what her daughter wore. This offended some. ‘What’s happening to our culture,’ they asked, distributing and quote-tweeting the video. Oftentimes, X sounds like a khap panchayat. It makes me wonder why women have to continue negotiating everyday life.Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi addressed this at a women-only conclave in Pune. This article speaks about how he framed women’s autonomy as ownership of their bodies and their lives. “Instead of considering women merely as a constituency to be protected, Rahul Gandhi questioned the very cage’ in which women are confined on the pretext of safety,” the article says. This framing matters. It shifts the focus from male protection to female possession. Some days after this, his mother, Sonia Gandhi, was the target of AI-generated memes that jumped on a retro-photo trend that asked ChatGPT to picture people in the 1980s. They used the old trope of a woman at a bar surrounded by men. Urvashi Butalia, the founder of feminist publishing house Zubaan Books, who writes about the questions of land, labour, caste, health, and violence, speaks about how Indian feminism has been shaped by ground realities. From the anti-price rise agitations of the 1970s to the Chipko movement, from the Shaheen Bagh protests to the dignity march — women have existed fully in public life and have made their own decisions. There are no single figureheads in the Indian movement. Instead, there are thousands. Each of them has insisted on living on their own terms, while empowering others to do the same. This insistence remains urgent today. The fight persists, inherited by each generation that carries the torch forward. Someday, it will mean nothing to see a mother-daughter duo in matching T-shirt and jeans dancing to Zara Larson’s ‘Pretty Girl’. WORDSWORTH Gender budgeting A strategy to achieve equality among all genders by focusing on how public resources are collected and spent. Economist Lekha S. Chakraborty, who worked on some of India’s first gender budgeting initiatives, was published in the coveted Routledge, an economics journal, on August 20. She spoke about how being raised by a single parent and economic constraints motivated her to persist in exploring this intersectionality between money and gender, as she worked with a reluctant government in the 2000s, she said.TOOLKITSet in Thanjavur, R. Seshasayee’s new novel, The Grammar of Silence: Five Centuries. Three Women. Towards Liberation. follows the lives of three women through different centuries, navigating various oppressive structures of society. How they overcome them through a characteristic, mindful defiance of convention forms the crux of the story. “It is silence and a sense of sorority that binds together these women across the centuries, as also their lived experiences. Their triumphs, like those of other women and men of their era, have largely fallen by the wayside, swept away by time. Yet these heroines stand out, as though time itself has separated the wheat from the chaff,” reads a review in The Hindu.OUCH!As far as I and my vote are concerned, the Aam Aadmi Party has reached a point where I appear in their dreams as a ghost. They keep chanting ‘Raghav Chadha, Raghav Chadha’ day and night. I feel the Aam Aadmi Party is like an ex-girlfriend whose boyfriend dumped her and moved on, but she is still crazy about him and in love with him. I am worried that one day, like a jilted lover, they might end up cutting their veins in my memory. I am very concerned about them.Raghav Chadda, Rajya Sabha MPPEOPLE WE MEET Kimberly Pereira, COO, Maya Pistola Agavepura, says that the alcohol beverage space has several mansplainers. Having worked in hospitality and aviation before, Kim says that she has learnt to navigate the space. “I joined Pistola as we launched in 2022, and it’s been incredibly exciting to be part of a journey where we’re not just building a brand, but also helping create a new category for Indian agave spirits. I’ve learnt to navigate it through competence, consistency, and confidence. I no longer feel the need to prove that I belong in the room. I’ve earned my place at the table, and I’m comfortable owning it,” she says. Published - September 13, 2026 02:13 pm ISTSign in to unlock member-only benefits!Access 10 free stories every monthSave stories to read laterAccess to comment on every storySign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single clickGet notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products${ ind + 1 } ${ device }Last active - ${ la }