Between the Lines: Unlikeable Women by Namrata

Published every Friday, Between the Lines is a weekly column by Namrata. This week, she explores the literary power of negative female characters.

For the longest time, women in South Asian literature were imagined in binaries—goddess or doormat, ideal wife, or dangerous seductress. Their worth was tethered to sacrifice; their strength painted in passive resilience. But a new literary movement is slowly chipping away at this predictability. Today, more writers are choosing to explore the murky edges of womanhood. These women lie, betray, abandon, manipulate, and refuse to apologise for it.

They are not here to win approval. They are here to claim space. Across the subcontinent, writers are crafting women who push against the grain of respectability. These characters aren’t evil. They are complicated. And in their complexity lies a kind of freedom.