Transformational Liberation in the Age of COVID-19: A Comparative Theology of “the Good Woman”

The rhetoric of a “good woman” as religious and national hero undergirds systemic oppressions in India, oppressions that have widened during the COVID-19 pandemic. To deconstruct this reductive perspective and explore the liberatory possibilities of a more nuanced view, this chapter examines the ambiguous depiction of the “good woman” ( satī ) in the Cilappatikāram (a fifth-century Tamil epic) through a comparative theological engagement with the poetry of Dalit (outcaste) feminist writer-activist Meena Kandasamy and the memoirs of kinnar (third gender) activist Living Smile Vidya. In Kandasamy's imagining of Ms Militancy, and in kinnar dedication to a goddess with severed breasts (Bahucharā Mātā), the embodied power of severed body parts can lead to a nonbinary theology of gender that creatively appropriates, transforms, and empowers the “the good woman.” The Cilappatikāram , in conversation with third-gender and Dalit outcaste practice, may point to a transformational liberatory power for a (post) pandemic world.