What is the link between a Bollywood star and the well-being of Indian women? All | Shrayana Bhattacharya

Shah Rukh Khan may be a legend of Indian cinema and a star of blockbuster Bollywood films, but you wouldn’t expect to see him appear in socio-economic studies. And yet, for nearly two decades, the actor has been at the heart of my research into the economic lives of ordinary Indian women.

It all started in 2006, when I was a research assistant on a project with the Institute of Social Studies Trust and the Self Employed Women’s Association, a trade union. My job was to interview women who worked from home and made incense sticks and clothes at home for less than minimum wage in a poor neighbourhood of Ahmedabad.

But the women, many of whom were actively campaigning for a pay raise, were bored and frustrated by the questions I was asking. They complained that this research would never lead to concrete change. I also felt uncomfortable with yet another well-intentioned but perhaps pointless quest for data.

So I changed tack, leaving formal research aside. To break the ice, I started asking them which movie stars they liked. Suddenly, women who had previously been reluctant to talk started laughing. Many mentioned Khan as their favorite; the tone and texture of the conversations opened up. I noticed this same shift in energy when I tried the same tactic in other places I went to do fieldwork.

That serendipitous atmosphere of joy and delight sparked by the mention of Khan introduced me to a group of women I would follow for most of my adult life, culminating in the publication of my book, Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh, in 2021. The search led me to the actor himself in 2022, when Khan invited me to his home and thanked me for connecting him. good use as a research technique.

What do nearly two decades of conversations with Khan's female fans reveal?

First, pleasure and leisure are important indicators of women’s well-being and purchasing power. By repeatedly following and interviewing a representative sample of women willing to talk about their fandom and personal journeys, I was able to trace the trajectory of their emotional and economic lives, as well as the evolution of their livelihoods and romantic relationships over the years.

The conversations showed that the ability to watch a movie star was an easier way for many women to catalog and discuss their struggles to find disposable income, free time, safe spaces, employment, and financial independence. After all, Khan’s fandom required women to have access to markets, money, mobile phones, and media to watch his interviews, songs, and films.

I have heard too many stories of violence against women simply for watching a movie alone or keeping a picture of a movie star in their bedroom. Fandom was seen as an uncomfortable sign of female sexuality. Movie tickets and private film screenings were not simply individual purchases. They were collective acts of pleasure in a society that seeks to regulate women’s bodies and maintain the purity and honor of caste. Being a Khan fan was an unusual and subtle form of resistance to restrictive gender norms.

Second, access to paid employment helped shift these gender norms within the families and communities I observed over the decades. Paid work opened up opportunities to make new friends and networks beyond the family circle, and to imagine new ways of being and acting in the world. The changes were profound among the mother-daughter pairs I followed.

Unlike their mothers, the daughters of working women have abandoned the idea that marriage is essential to their identity and have sought greater romantic autonomy. It’s better to explore, be single and watch Shah Rukh on screen when men or life make you sad, the daughter of a home-based worker told me.

The story of each woman I followed shows that there was a significant social shift happening at the heart of the gender narrative: ordinary women all around us who are neither heroes nor victims; those who may be unfamiliar with feminism; those who are busy renegotiating the rules within their marriages, relationships, and workplaces.

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Finally, when I asked these women what they thought about the empowerment that politicians promised them in this year’s election, none of them cited partisan politics, laws, or statistics to explain their views of the different candidates. They expressed hopes for a policy that would make it easier and safer for them to laugh and have fun.

Across class and caste, despite different voting preferences and diverse interests, every woman demanded credible efforts to recognize women's unpaid contributions to care, build friendly policing, and improve connectivity through transportation and technology so that women can occupy the public sphere.

But those hopes for gender parity could be dashed in the near future. In a ranking of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index 2024, India ranks first. the last five for women's economic participation. Only a quarter of urban women of working age occupy paid jobsunfortunately behind men (75%); and government-employed nursing assistants continue to struggle against poverty wages.

When women do better, there is a backlash domestic violence is higher in districts where women are more likely to be employed, and professional women are penalized dating websiteIndia may have won its freedom from its colonialists, but women continue to fight for their independence every day. And as the fight for freedom continues, as reality disappoints, the fantasy of a movie star offers relief and refuge.