Who’s Afraid of Ambitious Women?
Why does "ambition" mean different things for men & women?
“Describe yourself in five words.”
Back in the days when slam books were in the top-tier of social currency, this was everyone’s favourite question. You didn’t want to come across as too vain, but still wanted to be appropriately cool. You wanted to be approachable, but also project a hint of unattainability – especially to your teenage crush. You wanted to be earnest, but at the same time wanted to be “above it all.” A task worthy of linguists, and yet, if you were a teenager in the 1990s in India, you know exactly what I am writing about. Five adjectives, high stakes.
I had a roster of adjectives which I used, but one stayed firm in almost every slam book I filled. “Ambitious.” I liked how the word sounded, but more importantly, I was ambitious. I wanted to be everything, and all at once. I wanted to be famous, intelligent, well-respected, popular, rich – everything. It was a word that fit. And so many years later, still fits.
But invariably, “ambitious” would get me negative points. It wasn’t considered a good quality to be. I could use “smart,” “intelligent,” and even “sensitive” and it would be fine. But “ambitious” always teetered uncomfortably close to being overconfident. And no one liked a know-it-all.
Let’s do an exercise. Think to yourself of how you have seen the word “ambitious” be used. And then, think of the connotation.
“Arre, I haven’t heard good things about her. Badi ambitious type ki ladki hai.”
“He’s an ambitious, young man. I am sure he will go ahead in life.”
They are both describing the same quality in a person. A strong wish to achieve something, according to the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition of “ambition.” And yet, when it’s used for a woman, it’s almost seen as negative – a quality to be reigned in, to be controlled, to be tempered. For a man, it’s an indicator of talent and future success. Why?
How can an adjective be so gendered?
I thought again of the double-sword of ambition when I saw “Shakuntala Devi” this week.
For those of you who didn’t know, Shakuntala Devi was an Indian math genius, who was often hailed as a “human computer.” She wasn’t formally educated, yet she could perform incredibly complex calculations involving numbers in seconds. And she did perform these calculations. In stage shows across the world, she interacted with the audience, hankered them for a complex sum, and made mathematics…cool. She was also a complex woman – which genius isn’t – and in her life took up astrology and politics too. Vidya Balan plays Shakuntala Devi in her biopic with characteristic charm and talent – and she smashes it out of the park.
But what struck me with the film was how it was a display – indeed, a celebration even – of Shakuntala Devi’s unapologetic ambition. “Mujhe sab chahiye,” she says in the film once, referring to the dilemma between raising a daughter and displaying her genius. This is a woman who is not afraid of her talent, and neither is she interested in downplaying it to make the world uncomfortable.
“Why be normal when you can be special,” Shakuntala Devi asks her daughter, Anu played by Sanya Malhotra. Her daughter wants a “normal” life, and in a way, working to achieve that normalcy is her ambition. But to hear one of India’s finest actress champion ambition as a trait that can sit prettily on a woman, felt reaffirming. She’s not a perfect woman, by any means. But her ambition is who she is – and why shouldn’t it be?
This idea of “why shouldn’t I be ambitious?” is also reflected in the ways in which Aparna Shewakramani navigates the tedious world of the arranged marriage market in India. Everyone, and their sister, has written an opinion about the wildly successful Netflix show “Indian Matchmaking,” so I won’t add to the noise. Only this – the same ambition which made Aparna a “ziddi” woman in Sima Taparia’s eyes, made me want to be her friend.
Aparna knows she has worked hard to be where she is, she likes that she has goals for her life, she wants to do more (travel!) and wants a partner who not only respects that, but loves that about her.
Why should she be expected to be temper her ambition, because it makes her more “acceptable’?
“Describe yourself in three adjectives.”
One of the (many) perils of dating apps is this question. Apart from how obviously performative every aspect of making a profile on a dating app is, this question is enough to spark an existential crisis. Or two.
But I think I have locked down on at least one adjective.
“Ambitious.”
Because, why the hell not?
LINKS OF THE WEEK:
I love reading crime fiction, and Tana French is one of the best we got. I read “Into The Woods” by her in one five-hour session, and immediately bought the next book in the series. Janet Maslin in the New York Times brings you a handy guide of where to start with her books.
“Tana French has written seven novels, with an eighth due in October. There are important things they have in common. They’re superb. They’re set in Ireland. They pull you way down rabbit holes. They play devious tricks with memory. And they’ll work as haunting diversions from the stasis of now.”
We all know of Eunice de Souza, the professor, the poet and the novelist. In this beautiful tribute, Joanna Lobo gives us a glimpse into Aunty Nonnie.
“When she returned to India after her stint abroad, her trunks were full of books and gifts. Her return caused a fair bit of drama. Neighbours gathered in their balconies – my family waited out on the street – to welcome her. She came in a Victoria carriage, dressed in a sari and a long coat, with a big bindi on her forehead, and on her arm, a white man. No one remembers what happened to the man.”
How are people having sex in a pandemic, with lockdown still a reality in most parts of India? Richa Kaul Padte interviews some couples for Vogue India, and tackles an overlooked aspect of Our Times — longing for physical touch.
“I spoke to nearly 30 people for this piece. They are all extremely aware of transmission risks. They are also, like all of us, living through unprecedented, uncertain and frightening times. Several people have begun sustaining online relationships during lockdown; now, they’re desperate to meet. In a terrible irony, human contact carries within it both balm and illness.
Total risk-elimination is a myth. What if we focussed, instead, on risk-mitigation—safer ways of meeting our human need for connection, which often exists in a tangled space with sexual connection?
As Sharanya says: “It's not as straightforward as ‘I [do or] don't want to sleep with this person’. But to be hugged—oh, to be hugged!”
I have been fascinated by r/relationships for a while now — a corner of the Internet where people write in with all sorts of personal dilemmas, seeking advice from the vast expanse of the Internet. I wrote about it, for this newsletter, here. Amelia Tait in Vice writes how some of these stories are just that….creative fiction stories.
“There is no way of knowing how many popular posts on r/relationships are faked – Shal, one of the owners of the @redditships Twitter account, believes it’s only “a very small fraction”. Last year, a journalist from The Atlantic interviewed the moderators of r/relationships and discovered that the space is heavily controlled – moderators are more than happy to delete threads and ban users, and any post that is linked to elsewhere on the internet is removed (Darcy’s story was deleted, though mods told her it was because it belonged in r/sex, not because it seemed fake).”
If you still have the stomach for more Indian Matchmaking content — Ankita Dwivedi Johri writes about real matchmakers for the elite in India. They all say horrifying stuff, but it’s when they started talking about their fees that my eyebrow really went up.
“Goswami’s firm slots families based on their financial worth: the basic membership is for families worth Rs 1 cr-50 cr (Rs 29,500 as initial payment, Rs 1.18 lakh after the wedding); premium membership for those worth Rs 50 cr-100 cr (Rs 59,000 as initial fee plus Rs 1.77 lakh later), and royal membership for the Rs 100 cr-1,000 cr bracket (Rs 1.18 lakh fee followed by Rs 2.36 lakh).”
That’s it from me, for this week.
As you’ll notice, the links of the week include very little news. And that’s not because I am not an unwilling spectator to the circus that is India — whether it’s in coverage of SSR’s murder, how we are still dealing with COVID-19 and of course, the foundation ceremony for a temple in Ayodhya. It’s just that when confronted with despair — and now that it’s not a professional hazard — I have started actively looking for joy. (A temporary coping mechanism, I know.)
As always, I’d be happy to hear from you — and will promptly write back.
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