Feminism in "The Rooftop Dwellers"

In “The Rooftop Dwellers,” Anita Desai exposes the sexist issues that women in India have faced in the past. Desai does so through the characters Tara and Moyna. In the short story, Moyna is a young woman who is trying to create a life of her own, but doing so in the society in which she lives makes this difficult. For example, when Moyna was trying to find a place to live, she was regarded as suspicious because she was a single, working woman. Also, after she finally found a place to live, her having a male visitor complicated her peaceful coexistence with her landlords because that is also not looked very highly on. To further highlighting sexist issues that women in India have faced in the past, Desai subtly introduced the idea of an arranged marriage for Moyna, at the end of the story. Tara, is another female character who faces oppression. Tara is more of a rebellious character who embraces feminism much more aggressively than Moyna, but even she is sometimes shut down by men. For example, there is a scene in the story in which she tries to propose a more creative name to her employer, and instead of being taken seriously he hires another employee (a man) to supervise the work place, and demotes her in a  sense that her new job responsibility is to assist this new employee. Luckily for the Tara and Moyna, and the women who may have regarded “The Rooftop Dwellers” and its issues as inspiration to break free from societal norms of female oppression, Desai writes these women as women who never let their obstacles bring them down.