Author: Ritu Menon
Ruth Vanita/Several Contributors
Translator(s)/ Editors(s): Mary E John
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 657
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780143063773
Description
Women’s studies first emerged in India during the 1970s as a forceful critique of those processes that had made women invisible after independence—invisible not only to society and the state, but also to higher education and its disciplines. Since that beginning, so much has happened in this already vast field that it would be hard to find a major issue or subject that has not been addressed by scholars and activists.
This comprehensive reader sets out to provide a map of the development of women’s studies and the ever expanding terrain that it has been investigating. The introduction explores the growth of the field from the upheavals of the 1970s to the transformed conjunctures of the 1990s. In the process, the often elusive relationships between women’s studies, the women’s movement and the structures of higher education are highlighted. Over eighty edited essays have been brought together in this single volume under distinct thematic clusters—from the new beginnings of the 1970s to politics, history, development, violence, the law, education, health, family and household, caste and tribe, religion and communalism, sexualities, and literature and the media. This reader is for both newcomers to women’s studies and for those who have long been part of it.
Contents
Sources and Copyright Acknowledgement
Preface
Introduction
1. NEW BEGINNINGS
From Accommodation to Articulation: Women’s Movement in India
NEERA DESAI
The Making of a Founding Text
VINA MAZUMDAR
Women in Revolt: A Historical Analysis of the Progressive Organisation of Women in Andhra Pradesh
K. LALITA
Initiatives against Dowry Deaths
MADHU KISHWAR AND RUTH VANITA
The Bodhgaya Struggle
MANIMALA
Implications of Declining Sex Ratio in India’s Population
ASOK MITRA
2. POLITICS
‘Socialist-Feminist’ Organizations and the Women’s Movement
GAIL OMVEDT
The Question of Autonomy
NANDITA GANDHI AND NANDITA SHAH
The Enabling Process of Empowerment
NARAYAN K. BANERJEE
On the Concept of ‘Empowerment’
MANORANJAN MOHANTY
Interview with Satyabhama ‘Nani’ Lawand
SHARMILA JOSHI
The Elusive ‘Woman’: Feminism and the Women’s Reservation Bill
NIVEDITA MENON
The fourth World Conference on Women: A Report from China
INDU AGNIHOTRI
3. HISTORY
Beyond the Altekarian Paradigm: Towards a New Understanding of Gender Relations in Early Indian History
UMA CHAKRAVARTI
Of Begums and Tawaifs: The Women of Awadh
SALEEM KIDWAI
Positivism and Nationalism: Womanhood and Crisis in Nationalist Fiction – Bankimchandra’s Anandamath
JASODHARA BAGCHI
Periyar, Women and an Ethic of Citizenship
V.GEETHA
Her-Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women
J.DEVIKA
Citizens, Workers and Emblems of Culture: An Analysis of the First Plan Document on Women
MAITRAYEE CHAUDHURI
August Anarchy
RITU MENON AND KAMLA BHASIN
Pramila Tai
STREE SHAKTI SANGHATANA
4. DEVELOPMENT
Women’s Work in Indian Census: Beginnings of Change
MAITHREYI KRISHNARAJ
Why do Women Need Independent Rights in Land?
BINA AGARWAl
Broader Issues for Discussion: Women’s Development Programme, Rajasthan
SAHELI, SABALA SANGH, ACTION INDIA, DISHA, WOMWN’S CENTRE, FOW,AWAZ-E-NISWAN
Women, Kerala and some Development Issues
K. SARADAMONI
Feminism, Poverty and Globalization
MARY E. JOHN
How Real is the Begey of Feminization?
NIRMALA BANERJEE
Women in Struggle: A Case Study of the Chipko Movement
KUMUD SHARMA
Decolonizing the North
VANDANA SHIVA
5.VIOLENCE
Rape and the Construction of Communal Identity
KALPANA KANNABIRAN
Politics of Widow Immolation
SUDESH VAID
Domestic Violence
MALAVIKA KARLEKAR
The Impossible Subject: Cast and Desire in the Scene of the Family
SUSIE THARU
Speaking Peace: An Introduction
URVASHI BUTALIA
6. LAW
An Open Letter to the Chief Justice of India
UPENDRA BAXI, VASUDHA DHAGAMWAR, RAGHUNATH KELKAR, LOTIKA SARKAR
Family Courts: From the Frying Pan into the Fire?
FLAVIA AGNES
Human Rights Lawyering: A Feminist Perspective
NANDITA HAKSAR
Sexcapades and the Law
RATNA KAPUR
Enforcing Cultural Codes: Gender and Violence in Northern India
PREM CHOWDHRY
The Two-child Norm and Population Policy
MOHAN RAO
7. EDUCATION
Women and the Nation: The Trouble with Their Voices
PARTHA CHATTERJEE
Strishiksha or Education for Women
TANIKA SARKAR
Education for Women’s Equality” National Policy on Education, 1986
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
The Story of my Sanskrit
KUMUD PAWDE
Gender Inequality in Primary Schooling in India: The Human Rights Perspective
KARUNA CHANANA
Creating an Enabling Environment
ZOYA HASAN AND RITU MENON
Gender and Curriculum
DIPTA BHOG
8. HEALTH
Backpain, the Feminine Affliction
VEENA SHATRUGNA, NIRMALA SOUNDARAJAN, P. SUNDARAIAH, LEELA RAMAN
Contraceptive Research: Is there a Gender-Neutral Approach?
VINEETA BAL, VANI SUBRAMANIAN AND LAXMI MURTHY, SAHELI
Reproductive Health: A Public Health Perspective
IMRANA QADEER
Our Health Our Heritage
SHODHINI
Our Mind Our Madness
BHARGAVI V. DAVAR
A Disabled Feminism?
ANITA GHAI
9. HOUSEHOLD AND FAMILY
The Tyranny of the Household
DEVAKI JAIN AND NIRMALA BANERJEE
Economics and Patriliny: Consumption and Authority within the Household
RAJNI PALRIWALA
The Widows of November 1984
JAYA SRIVASTAVA
Learning to ‘Adjust’: Conjugal Relations in Indian Popular Fiction
AMITA TYAGI SINGH AND PATRICIA UBEROI
ON the Uniform Civil Code: Uniformity vs Equality
BRINDA KARAT
10. CASTE AND TRIBE
Dalit Women: The Downtrodden among the Downtrodden
RUTH MANORAMA
Writing Caste, Writing Gender: Dalit Women’s Testimonios
SHARMILA REGE
Dalit Women: The Conflict and the Dilemma
ANNIE NANALA
Caste and Women
LEELA DUBE
Women and Gender in the Study of Tribes in India
VIRGINIUS XAXA
Ethnicity and Gender: Identity Politics among the Khasi
TIPLUT NONGBRI
11. COMMUNALISM AND RELIGION
The Shah Bano Case
RADHA KUMAR
Women’s Movements in a Secular Framework: Redefining the Agendas
FLAVIA AGNES
Women’s Movement and Religion
GABRIELE DIETRICH
Politics of Diversity: Religious Communities and Multiple Patriarchies
KUNKUM SANGARI
Pragmatics of the Hindu Right: Politics of Women’s Organizations Tanika Sarkar
12. SEXUALITIES
Unravelling the Kamasutra
KUMKUM ROY
The Devadasi, Dharma and the State
JANAKI NAIR
Sex Workers’ Manifesto
DURBAR MAHILA SAMANWAYA COMMITTEE
Lesbian Emergence
CAMPAIGN FOR LESBIAN RIGHTS
The Troubled Existence of Sex and Sexuality: Feminists Engage with Censorship
SHOHINI GHOSH
Querying Marriage and Family
RINCHIN
13. LITERATURE AND MEDIA
Alternative Interpretation of the Ramayana: Views from Below
NABABEETA DEV SEN
Binodini Dasi: An Actress in the drama of public Modernity in India
SUSIE THARU
Life after Rape: Narrative, Rape and Feminism
RAJESWARI SUNDER RAJAN
Telugu Feminist Poetry
VASANTH KANNABIRAN AND VOLGA
Integrating whose Nation? Tourists and terrorists Raja
TEJASWINI NIRANJANA
The Medium is the Message
KALPANA SHARMA
Gender Construction in the News Media
SONIA BATHLA
Notes on Contributors
Index