NewAge Longreads

—   New Age/ Sony Ramani by Tina Nandi TODAY, as Bangladesh joins the world in observing International Women’s Day, this Women’s Day arrives in the shadow of July 2024 — a political rupture whose meaning, authorship, and outcomes are still being negotiated. Political transitions are often commemorated as moments of progress, yet they also expose how fragile and contingent women’s gains remain. In Bangladesh, women’s revolutionary labour has repeatedly been made hyper-visible

by Mithila Mahfuz FOR the last two years, we have been witnessing the popular rise of a type of masculine identity which has rung alarm bells in feminist and women’s activist circles. This very rigid model of masculinity is seen proliferating in public spaces, including and especially social media. The faces of the ‘July boys’ have often promoted and embodied such masculinity. Right-wing groups are at one with it. We all know this type of man online or offline. Most of us fem

—    New Age photo by Hasina Rahman MARCH 8 is International Women’s Day. And as I sat with that this morning — as a woman, as a humanitarian — I found I couldn’t separate my own reflection from the faces of the women and girls I see every day in the camps of Cox’s Bazar. Perhaps that is exactly as it should be. Because what does this day mean when you’re inside a shelter that was never meant to be permanent? What does it mean when you are eight years into displacement, nine

by Anita Jahid ON A busy working day, a woman stands at a crowded bus stop and shifts her scarf slightly, careful to conceal the faint bruise on her arm, the mark she received at home the night before. As she boards the bus, she clutches her bag tighter when the vehicle lurches forward. She is not only trying to keep her balance; she is calculating risk: where to stand, how to avoid unwanted contact, and whether she should get off early. The calculation does not end when she

by Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem I KEEP thinking about the conversations with my progressive and feminist friends and allies right before the 2026 election results in Bangladesh. Many were holding their breath because of the prospect of a Jamaat-e-Islami-led government. The Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Shafiqur Rahman’s pre-election remarks about restricting women to work for five hours instead of eight hours and his beliefs against women’s political leadership raised significant feminist an