Review of The World Before Her (2012) by Oluwakemi O — 13 Jan 2013

Poignant and gut-wrenching. One young woman spends her life training for violent Hindu extremism. Her father proudly desribes beating and burning her as punishments. She expresses a gender variance and a desire to never marry, while her father insists she MUST marry, and even if it's a bad marriage, it is her duty to stay and produce children. She says it is her father's right to beat her, because he was kind enough to not kill her at birth for being a girl.

Meanwhile, 20 women prepare to compete in the Miss India pageant. They talk about being modern and free to follow their desires, but also speak of women being savagely beaten for being out with a man or consuming alcohol. The pageant judges require them to wear white bags over their heads and bodies with eyeholes cut in them, so they can be judged on their legs without the "distraction" of their hair and bodies. One contestant's mother speaks of her husband's desire to murder her daughter at birth, and her defiance resulted in him leaving her a single mother.