Women writers and readers are sometimes piqued by the fact that women’s commercial fiction, women’s romance and chick lit are not given the same seriousness that stories written for men are. Women’s experience that is marked by exclusivity can have great merit for women. Men’s fiction written exclusively for men naturally has more interest for men. But, some women say that women take interest in men’s fiction but men do not show interest in their work in the same manner.

The reason seems to be that women are generally more inquisitive than men and live in a world that has been dominated by men for thousands and thousands of years. They have been shown the way by men to do so many things, outside the home. Inside the home it is they who tend to show the way. The home is a smaller area of space (sometimes with far reaching consequence); the outside world is a larger space with consequences of a different kind. When novels deal with homes and the outside world (in its serious dimensions) they get the attention of people because of their mature, serious and significant subject matter. But if novels contain frivolous stuff like the envy of a woman whose friend has hooked more men in a year than she has in a decade (or the story of how attractive one can be) the story will not involve men to the same extent. The same would be equally true of a male-centric story that touches upon a trivial matter.

Women’s fiction must have the potential to elevate womanhood or to make a woman feel good being a woman instead of feeling slighted in a man’s world. Just thinking about the skin, clothes, hairstyles and perfumes could never be equated with the heart, serious relationships, agonies and ecstasies. A story that tells of a home-making or home-breaking experience will always be more significant than one which deals with an affair of much less significance. Affairs may appeal to some men and women for some time but they will never impact them as much as novels that foreground more deep human experience.

I cannot speak for others with the same authority but I know that the women in The Tailor’s Needle deal with very deep emotions and experiences. There are lighter moments in the novel but these are only moments in the novel, not its basic fabric. Take for instance the woman-character, Jamuna. She has the smallest role. She is a second wife of a wealthy man who has lost his first wife and needs another woman to look after his children. He has little feeling for her and yet she must feel for him if she is to survive in the household. She will always be in that position. She marries him only because she is neither from a rich family nor is she good looking. Without marriage she will just wither away. The sadness of her story is touching in a serious way. Chick Lit is alright with women but must not strive to rope in too many men.