Women.Mutiny - Edited by Sandhya Renukamba

EDITOR: Sandhya Renukamba

GENRE: Anthology, Feminism
RATING: 3 stars


A collection of stories about women who rebel against societal norms. There are 19 stories by 16 authors, the youngest of whom was just 15 years old.

While I liked the idea of having a so-called “feminist” anthology, the implementation left me with somewhat mixed feelings. I loved the theme of women taking a step to better their lives rather than waiting for a prince charming or a divine miracle to come their way. The stories don’t necessarily have happy endings but they certainly have hopeful endings.

However, I don’t like it when what is tagged as ‘feminism’ is primarily male bashing and mother-in-law bashing. A few of the stories were just that. It felt like they were taken straight from a B-grade 80s/90s Bollywood movies, with the twist being that the woman rebels against those outdated ideas. While this might be true in many parts of the country even now, reading the same thing again and again felt repetitive.

I would have appreciated a greater variety in the application of the theme. There is no dearth of topics that could have been part of this anthology. However, most of the titular ‘mutiny’ seems to be against traditional familial restrictions. There are so many other avenues of society where woman need to break stereotypes and go against what's "proper", what’s expected, what’s “correct female behaviour”. I wish more stories had been braver in their approach and thought outside the box called ‘home’. They could have offered a lot more meat to chew upon.

At the same time, the tales in this collection show how the mould is being shattered, how prejudices are being overcome, how women are taking things in their own hands and making a better life for themselves. That’s a good start. Many of the stories are inspiring, and hopefully, at least a few readers will begin their own mutiny, taking strength from this collection.

As there are a variety of authors, the writing styles too differ. Some clicked with me, some didn’t. Some were perfectly built up, some could have done with more structure. I didn’t find any grammatical or language issues, that’s a huge plus for me.

These were my favourite stories from this anthology:

Choice - Shalini Mullick - 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Ginger Tea - Barkha Shah - 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Mothers, They Know Us Better Than Ourselves - Shalini Mullick - 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Push Away The Cobwebs - Seema Taneja - 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Will All Our Sacrifices Be In Vain - Ujwala Shenoy Karmarkar - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

3 stars, based on the average of my rating for all the stories.

The book is available on KU India.