Writer, lecturer, political activist, Ruchira Gupta was in a conversation with Jadavpur professor Paromita Chakravarti in a session of An Author’s Afternoon. It was held on 11th December, 2015 at Taj Bengal Kolkata. She is a frequent spokeswoman on issues of gender equality and is the Founder of Aapne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-sex trafficking organisation.

Ruchira touched upon various subjects like feminism, rape, love marriage among other gender issues. She said that she was influenced by Gloria Steinem and calls herself a radical feminist. She admits being influenced by her childhood spent among her Gandhian parents and Gandhian principles. Ruchira explained that the term feminism is now associated with men too. “If we are feminists, then we will have a more equal society, where we can participate with women equally and that’ll be much more fun so we’ll have sex with collaboration rather than sex with domination.” Ruchira quoted a man who told her this.

Ruchira says that patriarchy exists everywhere – not only in India but even in America. She is hopeful that the times are changing and more and more women are taking control over their lives like choosing to remain single or single women having children. Ruchira discussed number of essays from her compilation of the – As If Women Matter: The Essential Gloria Steinem Reader.