Women should take back the night
Rahul Gandhi recently addressed women's autonomy and safety, arguing that women should have the right to occupy public spaces without patriarchal restrictions. The article connects this political stance to feminist theory and the broader need to redefine cultural norms regarding women's mobility.
Why it matters
The discourse on women's safety and autonomy is a central theme in contemporary Indian political and social debates.
The Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, recently caught patriarchy by the horns at Pune’s ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ women-only conclave .
He confronted the vulnerability of women in public spaces by explicitly framing women’s autonomy as ownership not only of their bodies but of 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. This intervention echoes a seminal argument on women’s mobility by Rebecca Solnit in her book Wanderlust: A History of Walking , where she explores how the freedom to walk alone at night and to discover the world on one’s own terms has historically been a male prerogative — a right denied to women.
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