Gender Sexuality and Media-2

LGBTQ in India and Media

• The advent of social networking platforms (SNPs) has led to

active online communication between many minority groups
in order to support each other
• Research has shown that internet use assists operators with
similar background and interests in bonding and forming
associations
• Internet forums designated for LGBT adolescents help them to
cope with the special challenges at the turning point in their
life concerning their identity, and helps decrease the risk of
detrimental outcomes, such as depression or even suicide.
(Cerni & Talmud, 2015)
• Primary observational study of the online profile of LGBTQ
respondents have confirmed that they use Facebook to meet and
interact with queer people, and also use it as an avenue to express
their fears and desires
• Primary research had revealed online platforms like Gaysi9 and
Gaylaxy10, and publishers like Queer Ink11 have helped create
spaces for LGBTQ people to interact, share and collaborate.
Numerous digital influencer from the LGBTQ community are
working towards creating awareness and a digital eco system to
support each other.
• online SNPs are providing support beyond the virtual world,
Facebook provides Gay Housing Resource Assistance. It provides
LGBTQ people who moved out from their families with other
LGBTQ roommates
• By striking off section 377 and making homosexuality legal in
India, the government has given a lot of faith and confidence
to the LGBTQ community.
• The w.w.w// has created a unique support system for the
community by allowing people to connect in order to engage
in a process of dialogue in the form of online activism, that
translates into Pride marches and protests.
• heterosexual Indians are being acquainted with their LGBTQ
and non-binary friends, family members, neighbours, and
colleagues and acceptance brought in due to the advent of
social media in India
 A New Era of Women’s Rights

•  women’s media like Ms. magazine, founded by U.S. feminists in the

early 1970s; Manushi, an Indian feminist journal founded in the
mid-1970s; and Isis International Bulletin, published first in Rome,
then later in Manila.
• representation in mainstream media to establish their own
publishing houses, today numbering many dozens (see 
www.wifp.org/DWM/publishers.html).

• Women’s organizations like the South African group Gender Links have
assumed dual missions of establishing their own journals, like Gender and
Media Diversity Journal, as well as undertaking training for journalists in
order to address persistent patriarchal messages in news, advertising,
films and television programs,Genderlinks, 
www.genderlinks.org.za/page/publications
 Gender and Cinema
• Cinema has shaped the cultural, social and political values of people of
this country.
• Patriarchy :Women in Bollywood have been uni-dimensional characters;
it’s good or bad.(1950-90s). Pati Parmeshwar (1988) depicted women as
passive, submissive wives as perfect figures and martyrs for their own
families. Their grievances, desires, ambitions, feelings, perspectives are
completely missing from the scene. For eg: Abhimaan (1973)
• 1990- 2000 , The heroine is always secondary to the hero. Her role is
charted out in context of any male character which is central to the script
Agneepath (2012) . Cinema depicts woman as sacrificing her successful
career to experience domesticated bliss, when the husband strays, the
other woman is blamed. Missing from such portrayals are the women who
can lead her life independently and take decisions.
• On the positive side, there are few film-makers who have reacted against
the stereotypes set by mainstream cinema and have dared to explore
subjects from the women’s perspective. Contemporary films like No One
Killed Jessica (2011), Cheeni Kum (2007), Chameli (2003), Ishqiya (2010),
Paa (2009) and Dirty Picture (2011), Astitva(2000).
References:
• 26 Invisible to visible: social media and its role in establishing identity of
LGBTQ in India. Authors. Neha Dimri, Parag Goswami. Pearl
Academy, India.

• Stereotyping woman in India ,Vatika Sibal, Journal for Interdisciplinary

Studies · March 2018