Samhita Mukhopadhyay is a writer, activist and executive editor of feminist website Feministing.com. Her first book Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life discusses contemporary dating mores and gender roles, and the challenge of finding fulfilling relationships in a patriarchal world.
Emily Manuel: Let’s start out by giving the general gist of the book, what were you trying to achieve?
Samhita Mukhopadhyay: I felt a tremendous frustration with what I felt were the dominant narratives about romance in the mainstream media. I really saw the book as an intervention. Not really rewriting the fairytale, or this is how you live happily ever after, not necessarily a follow these guides into the relationship of your dreams, but to really critically analyse the dominant mess that we have internalised about romance and to really serve as an intervention into what I felt was making young people unhappy. Continue reading