The Glass Stage

AMMA’s all-women leadership was hailed as a breakthrough. Its collapse reveals how women in power are judged by rules men never faceAnjana GeorgeIt begins with the soft-filtered indulgence of Father’s Day. Social media overflows with digital applause for men performing the extraordinary feat of boiling water or burning breakfast while tending to a child.

Society collectively melts at this display of male tenderness. We are told to be ‘mindful’ because they are trying. But when a woman steps into the public glare, the luxury of the learning curve vanishes. For her, imperfection is not a charming novelty; it is a structural sin.Nowhere has this cultural pathology been more aggressively weaponized than in the recent collapse of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA). In Aug 2025, the Malayalam film industry made history when AMMA elected an all-women leadership team headed by Shwetha Menon, following the seismic reckonings of the Justice Hema Committee report.

By June 2026, the experiment lay in ruins, ending in mass resignations. Predictably, mainstream narratives instantly reduced the institutional meltdown to a singular, patronising word: a ‘catfight.’This knee-jerk trivialisation exposes a glaring hypocrisy. For three decades, AMMA has been defined by fierce internal power struggles, backroom deals, and massive ego clashes among its male patriarchs. Think back to the legendary, bitter wars fought by the late veteran actor Thilakan, director Vinayan, a young Prithviraj, or Captain Raju against the entrenched power lobby.

Never forget the decade-long cold war surrounding Suresh Gopi. When these men openly accused the association of running a mafia-like dictatorship, faced unannounced bans, or weaponized their massive egos, the public treated it as an ideological thriller, a deep systemic battle over artistic freedom.Why, then, is an organizational breakdown under female leadership instantly reduced to a petty emotional feud? Is the issue truly a gendered inability to govern, or is it society’s visceral discomfort with women actually wielding power and disrupting spaces built specifically to keep them out? When women in power refuse to align with the shadow directors, the retaliation is swift, highly personalized, and designed to force a retreat.

Take the case of actress Ansiba Hassan, who resigned as joint secretary after standing her ground against internal financial practices.“This was never a woman’s fight,” Ansiba Hassan states flatly. “The attacks against me started when I hesitated to accept suggestions put forward by people like Kailash, Tini Tom, Dr Rony, and Joy Mathew regarding taking 20% of the donations brought to AMMA by individuals. Five of us stood against it.

I was character-assassinated, called a terrorist, and sidelined across platforms.”This linguistic containment is used to police women everywhere, from film sets to political stages. Deepthi Mary Varghese, a Congress leader, draws a sharp parallel to the everyday hostility women face on the road. “The recurring comment is, “She doesn't know how to handle it,” she says. “If a woman is in power, men will be polite to her face, but the moment she turns her back, the attitude is that she is not up to the mark. Women have to show double the strength to survive. Our motto must always be to never give up. I wanted Shwetha Menon to stay and fight back rather than quit over a minor allegation. Society should utilize women, not sideline them.”The collapse was about the intersection of identity, visibility, and entrenched power. Dr Bindu Menon Mannil, a media studies expert at Azim Premji University, urges us to look closer at the friction points within this meltdown.“It doesn't seem to be a pure question of gender division; allegations of communal bias also seem to be emerging,” Dr Menon points out. “The women previously allowed a voice were those who aligned with the power lobby of AMMA, and when they started negotiating, there seemed to be a huge pushback. People like Usha Haseena and Ansiba Hassan, minority women, are making uncomfortable statements about what it takes to survive in AMMA.

There was no support offered to women like Shwetha Menon, who had never helmed such a position before, and yet their mistakes were instantly weaponized. We must look at the complexity instead of stereotyping this as a ‘catfight.”Malayalam society has long discussed the journey from the domestic to the public sphere through VT Bhattathiripad’s play, Adukkalayil Ninnu Arangathekku (From the Kitchen to the Stage).

Yet the psychological architecture of that kitchen remains rigidly policed.As researcher and theoretician Devendranath Sankaranarayanan puts it: “We have built a culture that treats a man’s tenderness as an exceptional event, but a woman's sacrifice as the invisible infrastructure. When a man steps into the domestic space, his clumsy efforts are romanticized as progressive milestones. But for women, saddled with an invisible care burden, perfection is a baseline requirement.”This is the impossible duality forced upon women who claim the stage: They must command public office while ensuring the institutional ‘home front’ never fractures. AMMA’s leadership did not simply fail; it was judged by double standards. Shwetha Menon’s post-resignation reflection laid bare this exact trap, exposing how a complete absence of structural backing left rookie mistakes open to immediate, brutal scrutiny. Until society treats women’s disagreements as political, leadership will continue to be dismissed as a ‘catfight’ instead of what it truly is: A fierce struggle over power. Without this shift, the historic transition from the kitchen to the stage remains an unfinished revolution.