Women in Indian Society - A Reader

Women in Indian Society - A Reader

Product ID: 6941

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Author: Rekha Mody
Rehana Ghadially/
Editor: Rehana Ghadially
Publisher: Sage Publications
Year: 1996
Language: English
Pages: 310
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170361028

Description

This absorbing collection of twenty-one articles examine and challenger the various roles ascribed to women in the context of a rapidly changing society. It provides a coherent analysis and fresh perspectives concerning the issues and problems that affect women's life in India.

Indian society has undergone many rapid changes in the relatively short time that has elapsed since the country gained independence. These changes have created their own pulls and pressures and the one segment of Indian society that has, perhaps, been most affected is women. While the rest of the world is changing they are nearly always required to conform to age-old and traditional images and stereotypes.

This absorbing collection of twenty-one articles, some previously published and others especially commissioned, examine and challenge the various roles ascribed to women in the context of a rapidly changing society. There are two concerns that bind the essay together – first, that the reality of women’s subordination can best be understood by traditional and mythical portrayals of women; and, second, that this understanding must be balanced by a sensitivity to the ‘immediate’ context (for example, the present-day violence against a woman’s person and personhood).

The contributors to this volume belong to a wide variety of background ranging from activists to academics. Between them, they provide perspectives from the grassroots as also the disciplines of anthropology, psychology and sociology.

The book is divided into five sections which cover (a) contextual, analytical and theoretical views of women; (b) empirical research organized around existing stereotypes about men and women; (c) an exploration of common forms of violence against women; (d) the way women are portrayed in diverse media (e.g., films and television); and (e) a description of the growing efforts to sensitize people to the inequalities between the sexes.

Providing as it does a coherent analysis and fresh perspectives concerning the issues and problems that affect women’s lives in India, this book will appeal to all those who wish to know about and understand the position of women in Indian Society.

Contents

Preface
Introduction

CHAPTER I: CONTEXT
Women and the Hindu Tradition
Feminine Identity in India
Woman versus Womanliness in India: An Essay in Social and Political Psychology
Feminism: Indian Ethos and Indian Convictions

CHAPTER II: STEREOTYPE
Sex Role Stereotypes in Northern India and the United States
Sex Role Attitudes of College Students in India
Parental Sex Role Orientation and Sex Stereotypes of Children
The Concepts of ‘Femininity’ and ‘Liberation’ in the Context of Changing Sex Roles: Women in Modern India and America

CHAPTER III: VIOLENCE
Violence in the Family: Wife Beating
Bride-Burning: The Psycho-Social Dynamics of Dowry Deaths
Sex: Determination and Sex Pre-selection Tests: Abuse of Advanced Technologies
Female Infanticide in Contemporary India: A Case-Study of Kallars of Tamilnadu
Rape in India: An Empirical Picture

CHAPTER IV: MEDIA
The Eternal Receptacle: A Study of Mistreatment of Women in Hindi Films
Feminism and the Cinema of Realism
Portrayal of Women on Television
Women and Sexism: Language of Indian School Textbooks

CHAPTER V: AWARENESS
Emergence and Proliferation of Autonomous Women’s Groups in India 1974-1984
Forming a women’s Group in Chandigarh: Experiences of Male Activist
Teaching Men about Women
Indigenous Feminism in a Modern Hindu Sect

The Contributors
Bibliography
Author Index