In the first page of the introduction for Seeing Like a Feminist (2012), the author Nivedita Menon showcases a simplified version of the book's thesis with two analogies. The first one is that of the duplicitous nature of the nude makeup look, and the other being the unseen layers behind a final version of a fully formatted Microsoft Word document. Menon suggests that patriarchies, just like nude makeup, are social orders which "requires the faithful performance of prescribed rituals over and over again" (Menon, 2012) and are enforced through various social constructs such as family, body, and sexuality. In the book, she examines these constructs as mentioned above through feminist frameworks similar to that of the 'reveal formatting' function in Word. The author argues that these frameworks/tools help us to deconstruct and understand the complicated construction of what appears to be a "smooth and complete" surface of a social order controlled by the patriarchy.

While an attempt at a productive discussion of the entirety of Menon's book or its plethora of arguments is out of the scope for this article, this review of Seeing Like a Feminist will focus on specific threads running through the first two chapters, titled 'Family' and 'Body', through the use of the framing devices and tools for analysis Menon presented in her introduction.

The Patriarchal Anxiety

Each chapter in the book is subdivided into several sections. The chapter Family, divided into ten such sections and seemingly disconnected at first, each section melds into the next eloquently. The author starts the first chapter with a brief real-life incident from rural West Bengal, where a young girl named Moni was punished for "acting like a boy" and for refusing to part with her friendship with an older woman newly arrived in the village. In the eyes of the patriarchy, crossing strict codes and rituals of the gender binary is an unthinkable offence. Here Menon notes the fragility of the supposed 'naturality' of the binary protected by the patriarchal forces. 

She questions the patriarchy's constant (and hypocritical) need for self-validation while explaining Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity in the next chapter with the example, "Even a fifty-year-old, burly moustachioed man who has fathered children cannot say, 'It is well established by now that I am a man; tomorrow, I can wear a sari to work.' At no point in our lives can we be confident that our gender identity is secure; we can never let up on this performance" (Menon, 2012). 

While rightfully critiquing the commercialisation of Valentine's day, the author notes the extreme reaction from the Right-wing religious and political outfits against it since the 1990s. Threats against Valentine's day celebrations have been issued by various such outfits as recently as 2015. In a similar vein, just two years after the publication of Seeing Like a Feminist, a new movement arose from Kerala by the name, Kiss of Love. Started as a reactionary non-violent protest against incidents of moral policing, it soon spread to other parts of the country. The movement was met with fierce opposition from the Right for upsetting "traditional Indian values" even though the method of protesting was groups of consenting adults hugging and kissing in public, an act protected by both Supreme Court and Delhi High Court through recent judgments.

The author cites B. R. Ambedkar's observation on the disruption of caste identities through inter-caste marriages in Annihilation of Caste as a plausible explanation which could explain the trigger to the violent reaction stemming from the patriarchy's gatekeepers. He writes, "[W]here society is already well knit by other ties, marriage is an ordinary incident of life. But where society is cut asunder, marriage as a binding force becomes a matter of urgent necessity" (Ambedkar, 1936). Therefore, the anxiety of the dilution of their control over women's sexuality (thereby the sanctity of marriage) could be considered as a reason for the patriarchy's distaste for these "foreign influences". The same reasoning can be applied to honour killings/custodial deaths and lesbian suicides.

"Gender as a way of thinking and as a concept, pre-exists the body; it is gender that produces the category of biological sex. And gender produces sex through a series of performances" (Menon, 2012). Since late 2019, Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF) and Trans-Exclusionary Separatist (TES) have gained a significant spotlight due to J. K. Rowling's embracing of TERF rhetoric of prejudice against transpeople - transwomen in particular. Due to Rowling's popularity and social reach, her article J. K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues, which expounds on her views about trans people and was quoted by an American senator against a bill protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination (Wakefield, 2020). 

As such, it is interesting to note that the second chapter of Seeing Like a Feminist, Body, retroactively could be read as a critique of the TERF/TES movement, even though Menon is not preoccupied with the said topic in this chapter. The author addresses several key points people who identify themselves as gender critical (they consider TERF as a slur, and not all GC people are radical feminists) are "concerned" about, particularly the inclusion of transwomen in women's spaces. They argue that there is a strict distinction between biological sex and the social construct of gender, which is precisely what Menon counters in this chapter. She challenges the biological perception of the body through a more recent scientific understanding, where chromosomes and hormones are not as binary as the early 20th-century science believed them to be.

Conclusion

Seeing Like a Feminist explores a wide variety of aspects of feminisms in its relatively short page count. And its ability to engage with almost all topics in a cohesive and structured way is commendable. Menon's use of uncluttered language and deconstruction of complex topics such as gender performativity is easier to read and understand. It is undoubtedly one of the most accessible pieces of literature available to the layman for a brief overview of feminisms and their intersectionality from the Indian context.