Music connects in different ways. For some, it is the rhythm and the arrangement. For the others, the pull comes from the words. One may fall into either groups and understand music as a mere source of entertainment.
But in Tamil Nadu, film songs have never been limited to entertainment. They have shaped public thought and political movements. For example, songs associated with former Chief Minister, the late MG Ramachandran, often positioned him as a protector of the poor and as the voice of the people. Lines like ‘Naan aanaiyittaal’, suggested authority and the power to bring change. His songs helped in building not just a film persona, but a political figure who people trusted in. If lyrics can do this for power and leadership, they can also shape how women are percieved.
If you had tuned into a Tamil radio station on International Women’s Day, or switched on a music channel, you are likely to have heard many songs about women. If you had lent a close ear, the pattern would have been hard to miss as many song verses about women lean on idealised femininity or place women within stereotypical roles such as a lover, mother, or a caregiver. Even in widely celebrated songs like Singapenney from Bigil, there are lines that feel limiting, such as the part that goes, ‘prasavathin valiyai thaanga pirandha agni sirage’. What was supposed to sound motivating, ended up framing a woman’s strength through her ability to endure the pain of childbirth, presenting motherhood almost as a purpose she is born into, rather than a choice she can make. Why does this keep happening?
Part of the answer is something we already know. There are very few women lyricists in Tamil cinema compared to men. This gap has been discussed for years. Yet, for at least a decade, the concern has stayed the same and the numbers have barely changed.
This is not because women lack talent. Tamil Dalit lyricist Uma Devi points out that until about 15 years ago, any woman who was in cinema, was only understood as a valuable contributor if she were an actor. “Women were not viewed as people who could take on intellectual roles in the industry,” she says, adding that that perception has only begun to shift very recently, with a handful of women now entering the field as technicians, directors, and writers. However, she says that the gap still remains due to unequal access to opportunities. “A man doesn’t need to ask for an opportunity. He just needs to smoke a cigarette or drink or party, or simply spend time with the person providing the opportunity,” she shares.
Gaping gap
The gender gap and how wide it has been, can be understood with a simple example. Even though women have traditionally been the ones singing thalattu or lullabies for children, it took the film industry nearly a century to hand a woman — Tamil lyricist Thamarai — the pen to write one. Thamarai shares, “Although women were primarily the caretakers who have been singing lullabies, I was the first woman in the industry to write a Tamil thalattu — Kangal neeye in the film Muppozhudhum Un Karpanaigal. I mentioned this on a stage where I received an award for the song.”
Young rapper and lyricist Abishaa highlights that the gender gap also overlaps with the privileges that a person enjoys, owing to class and caste in the independent music industry that is thriving parallely with cinema. “Be it any music label or production house, the support they extend to women artistes is very less, especially for underprivileged women. So, how will women’s voices and their perspectives come out?” she questions.
The result of this gender gap in the mainstream becomes songs like Margazhi Poove from May Madham, where the female lead is singing about walking alone at night and casually stopping for tea at a roadside shop. Such verses are removed from reality as safety still is, after thirty years of the song’s release, a major concern for women. Paired with examples like Singapenney among countless others, it shows how lyrics can either idealise or oversimplify women’s lives, without fully engaging with their lived experiences.
Expressing her thoughts on the specific line from the AR Rahman-hit Singapenney and the line from Kalaiyil Dinamum, which explicitly says that a woman is only becoming when she is a mother, Uma asks, “Manimekalai and Kundalakesi are women from Tamil literature who have sacrificed themselves for the Tamil society. So were Avvaiyar and Velliveedhiyar. Are these women not women? Would you consider them any less of a woman because they didn’t give birth?” She adds that a woman would never write this way — as it seems like “containing me [a woman] to a box.”
Beyond these portrayals, there have also been songs that go a step further and justify or provoke violent behaviour towards women, such as the song Kadhal en kadhal from Mayakkam Enna starring Dhanush, which feels unnecessary even within the film’s context. Although such content has become less visible in mainstream cinema, it has not completely disappeared just yet.
Abishaa points out that similar trends are now showing up in the independent music space. As this scene grows and reaches younger audiences, some viral tracks openly carry misogynistic language and themes. She notes this particularly among emerging Tamil hip-hop artistes such as Pal Dabba and Asal Kolaar, whose popularity and reach are increasing, but the writing does not reflect responsibility or nuance. “For instance Pal Dabba wrote, ‘Mastana figure ah maadi ku vara sollu’ and ‘Malliga oorama thooki potu sei.’ These are so problematic. Many of their songs are also quick to blame a woman,” Abishaa says.
Asal Kolaar, in his viral track Yarra andha paiyan has even made references to Andrew Tate who has built a large fan-following through videos that promote masculinity as synonymous with dominance and control, frame men as being disadvantaged by society, and by reducing women to limited roles within that worldview. Asal, in that song, refers to this figure — who has become closely associated with the rise of online manosphere spaces — as someone who is drawing hate without “logic,” by singing, ‘logic-eh illama parapuranunga hate-uh, apo na mama dhane adutha Andrew Tate-uh.’
Thamarai, here, draws a contrast with the past. She says that although older songs did include misogynistic ideas, the writing still held a certain literary quality. Today, she feels that even this layer has disappeared, with most songs lacking in both nuance and literary depth, leaving little space for appreciation.
No quick fix
If the answer is simply to bring more women lyricists into the Tamil cinema industry or the independent music industry, it won’t solve the problem. Even in Tamil cinema, lyricists point out that, at times, they are pushed to write verses for women in certain ways as these choices are often shaped by male-led creative teams.
Uma says she was asked to write one such song for a film in 2015 or 2016. “They wanted the song to sort of be dismissive about women. I denied the offer. Maybe the film really needed a song like that for a specific situation, but I told them clearly that I won’t write it.”
Thamarai, meanwhile, says she has largely worked with directors and composers who respected her voice and did not dilute the impact of her writing. She gives the example of the song Uyirile she wrote for Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu and how it challenged the stigma of women remarrying. Previously, she points out, songs like Sonnathu Neethaana from Nenjil Oar Aalayam framed remarriage as something a woman resists, even when it is her husband’s dying wish. In contrast, contemporary lines she wrote like ‘Nesika nenjam rendu podhadha…nesamum rendam murai vaaradha? ’ open up the possibility of love returning a second time. For her, this shift signals a broader social change, one that increasingly normalises remarriage for both divorcees and widows/widowers, which her director Gautam Vasudev Menon supported.
The final song, made by the composer, cannot usually be used as a point of comparison between songs made for men and those made for women. Raghavan (@extragavanza), an independent music journalist, says music directors usually respond to the situation in the film, choosing a fast or slow tempo and instruments to match the mood. He adds that directors’ exposure to global music also plays a role in how these songs are built. What stands out to him though, is the difference in how motivational songs for men and women can be understood in terms of their arrangement and genre.
“For motivational songs composed for men, it is usually just rock and metal and maybe even a lot of screaming. But that isn’t necessarily the case for motivational songs made for women. In 36 Vayadhinile, there was Rasathi, a jazz song with Lalitha Vijayakumar as the singer. Pogiren, from the same film, sung by Kalpana, had a very different orchestral arrangement. An old song in the movie Pudumai Pen, called Po oru thendral, a motivation song for Revathi, was orchestral with heavy use of violin and drums,” he notes, adding that compositions for women leads are more complex. He believes it is so because even in “her [a female lead] anger and fury, she will probably have method to her madness.”
Despite the thought put behind the compositions itself, Raghavan points out how many motivational songs for women are often sung by men, barring a few exceptions including Rasathi, Dey (sung by Zeba Tommy from Gentlewoman), and Pogiren.
So, change now has to begin at multiple levels. It starts with the choices audiences make, what they listen to, share, and celebrate. But more importantly, it depends on who holds space within the industry. When more women occupy roles across filmmaking and record labels, it may become easier for opportunities to open up and circulate. With more representation, stories, and songs themselves can begin to reflect a wider range of experiences and gradually reshape how society sees women.