Editorial: ULR Issue 12, Gender & Its Discontents

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the latest issue of the Usawa Literary Review!

In this edition, we find ourselves immersed in a theme as urgent as it is timeless: Gender. It is more than a word—it is a prism through which we view the world, a living, breathing language that shapes how we understand identity, power, and place. What stories has gender told us? What stories has it buried? And how do we begin to unearth and rewrite them?

Language, after all, does more than communicate. It liberates, it confines; it whispers assumptions and shouts biases we barely notice. What gender do we instinctively assign to words like cadaver, citizen, or person? What do these instincts reveal about the world we inhabit—and the one we wish to create? Let us pause here. Let us interrogate the unquestioned and reimagine words as sharper, braver, bolder—as possibilities instead of limits.

Remember that sharp moment in Fleabag when Belinda Friers dismisses women’s awards as “infantilizing bollocks”? A reminder, isn’t it, that the very act of separating achievements by gender can diminish them—turning accolades into enclaves. Language does this. Categories do this. And yet, at its best, language can free us, if we choose to make it so.

In Wordslut, Amanda Montell urges us to consider the weight of words—words like penetration, which center masculinity while rendering femininity an afterthought. Consider phrases like “women scientists” or “female presidents”—terms meant to celebrate but that instead reinforce the notion of exception. What are we really saying here? Whose possibilities do these phrases shrink, whose worlds do they narrow?

And what of the myths? Eve, crafted from Adam’s rib. Lilith, punished for refusing to yield. How many stories like these have shaped our understanding of gender—of who gets to speak, to lead, to exist unapologetically? Let’s return to them, not as passive listeners but as architects of new meanings. What if Lilith was not banished but set free? What if Eve created herself?

This issue holds stories that resist, question, and reclaim. They amplify voices that have too long been ignored and celebrate experiences that defy neat boxes and boundaries. The cover art by Bakula Nayak calls out to you—listen, look closer, and let it question the truths you hold close.

Together, let us reimagine gender—its language, its stories, its myths—and step into the endless possibilities beyond.

Yours,

Smita Sahay
Editor-in-Chief