A Review of Working Girls by Paromita Vohra
“Close your eyes. What do you see when you think of a working girl?” A film begins with this question. Most of us imagine upper-middle-class ‘office-going’ women. And by the end of the film, this image lies shattered, as do so many of our presumptions about gender and labour.
Working Girls is a film directed by Paromita Vohra, a filmmaker, writer, and founder of Agents of Ishq, a popular multimedia project on love, sex, and sexual politics in India. In July 2025, Vohra released her latest film, made in collaboration with ‘Laws of Social Reproduction’, a project hosted by King’s College, London. Her documentary chronicles the lives of women across different cultural, geographical, socio-political, economic, and age demographics, united by one common factor: the invisibilisation of their labour by society.
These women are from all over the country: Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata, Pune, Madurai, Mumbai, and Shillong. We meet women in red-light areas, ASHA workers protesting for higher wages, Aadal Padal dancers in Tamil Nadu, sex-workers campaigning against HIV-AIDS, surrogate mothers, farmers, housewives, domestic workers, and women enrolling in the police academy. Rooted in the lives of all these women whose labour is often dismissed, yet refusing to impose a dominant narrative on them, Working Girls allows its characters to take full ownership of their stories.
On the one hand, the film explores little-known histories of these professions and their continued negligence and attempted erasure by the law. On the other hand, it also brings to the forefront, the relationships women share with their professions. I was particularly struck by how it complicates the misleading stereotype of women as victims or damsels in distress. For instance, Vanita, a sex-worker in the film, says she would continue with her profession of her own accord, despite having a partner and a stable job, because sex-work is what brings her independence. “I will never give up sex-work, because when I had nothing, I had sex work. Sex work is work.” This was an unsettling testimony for viewers like myself who have only ever been exposed to the mainstream narrative of sex-workers being victims of an exploitative system, in need of rescue.
Along similar lines, a woman running such an establishment questions, “We are citizens; we vote; why won’t we demand our rights?” Vishaka, a sex-worker from Kolkata looks into the camera with the fire of rebellion burning in her eyes, asserting that this is their Adhikaar- Pratishthar Lorai (a fight for the reclamation of their rights). This brings to light a peculiar conundrum—the Indian law very conveniently neither legitimizes nor delegitimizes the profession, choosing instead to disregard its very existence. Sex-work is often linked to trafficking and it is a common perception that banning sex-work will reduce sex trafficking. However, this notion stands contested when a sex-worker in Pune observes that even if women might be trafficked into the profession, they were still dependent on it, in the absence of other sources of livelihood.
A similarly strong will for survival and desire for dignity is echoed by the Adal-Padal dancers in Madurai. Women across different ages express their love for their work and the energy boost their performance brings them. Contrary to the shame and taboo attached to their profession, it is liberty—whether of dancing with passion or travelling or earning more in a single night than many white-collared jobs—that they proudly associate with their work. Seen in this light, how different is this really from our own dreams of turning our passions into sources of livelihood?
As the film moves to Mumbai, we witness the story of a surrogate mother, Rita. As Rita walks us through the lanes of her old basti in the city and reflects on how far she has come since then, we can’t help but marvel at the sheer grit and resilience of women like her who fight against all odds to survive, regardless of whether their labour even gets recognized as ‘work’. In a world where the more privileged amongst us are so preoccupied with work and remuneration, stories like Rita’s offer a humbling perspective.
The inhuman labour of domestic workers and women farmers too are exposed in the film. “We can either rest nor eat”, declares a farmer, as she raises concerns over price disparity and the lack of legal safeguards. This inadequacy is also evident in the absence of social protection and labour rights for domestic workers, who continually face exploitation. While women take on a range of caregiving roles, they raise questions about the government’s care for care-workers.
Throughout the film, Vohra’s gaze is not one of pity. Rather, the director’s solidarity with her subjects helps her establish a sense of comfort with them that in turn translates into an intimacy they share with the camera, thereby offering them full agency over their stories. This aligns with Vohra’s strong criticism of “ways of speaking about women which do not talk about them at all”. Instead of reducing them to symbolic figures, the film honours its subjects as full human beings who are simply allowed to be. Even while the film portrays the everyday struggles of the lives it tracks, it bubbles with their irrepressible humanity: heartbreak, beauty, joy, solidarity, affection, pleasure. This is complemented by Vohra’s unique style of filmmaking, with its lively animations, humour, wit, and irony—all of which capture intimate spaces with extraordinary dignity and patience, while also dismantling rigid notions of ‘serious’ documentaries.
Paromita Vohra’s Working Girls in many ways defies, resists, and even redefines many notions of borders. The film challenges us to rethink our definitions of ‘work’ and also of any society that fails to be inclusive of so many who hold it up with their labour.
— Written by Chenab Guha, 1st year, B.A. Hons. Journalism and Media Studies