Women have historically been told to shut up and not reply back. There is deeply ingrained societal indoctrination that conditions women to speak lesser than their male counterparts. History shows ample evidence when women did not even dare to write using their real names.
I write, for writing helps me challenge, not just issues but also my own positions, my own vantage points, my own comfort zones.
Journalism as a profession has also primarily been male-dominated and this is more so when one speaks of the northeast and Assam. There are only a few women writers who have made it up there and considered ‘successful’ enough. Irrespective of the success bit of it, it is time women are encouraged to write. To write not only to publish, but to develop an art and skill of writing, to enjoy this beautiful experience of penning down, to voice the angst, to subvert the dominant narrative, to question and to critically argue. Women’s experiences of living in militarised zones of Assam and the northeast are different than that of men, which rarely find space in the mainstream discourses. It is time more women take up writing and expressing their first-hand accounts of life, of experiences, battles and survivals from a region that has historically been marginalised.
I write, therefore I am!