Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence

by Shrayana Bhattacharya

Feminists have long argued that women’s unpaid, unappreciated role as caregivers is a form of ‘domestic slavery’ which we are socialized into accepting. At the same time, they recognize that women undertake care for family members and loved ones for all kinds of reasons, including to consolidate their position within relationships, to express love and to feel loved in return. But men are rarely expected to perform the effort-intensive parts of caring and loving. As the scholar and writer bell hooks has pointed out, ‘Sexism decrees emotional care and love is the task of women and men come home too tired to deliver emotional goods.’