Author: J Devika
Editor(s): J Devika
Publisher: Stree
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 212
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8185604746
Description
This collection of early writings of Malayalee women, translated for the first time into English, give us, in the words of V Geetha, texts that dazzle. Written between 1898-1938, they reveal the vigorous debate over modern gender relations that was taking place in this period. Women reflected on what was Womanly, on education, duties, vocation and civil roles, an ongoing discussion, first influenced by reformism and later by nationalist and communist ideas, which remains alive today.
As the newly educated elite, these women, the editor, J Devika, suggests, posed an alternative, which she calls the order of gender, an ideal form of social ordering projected into the future and re-discovered in the imagined Golden Age of Hindu society, in which the only unsurpassable social division would be of gender. This would be sustained through the complementary exchange of gendered capacities, men as industrial producers in the political, economic and intellectual fields, and women as efficient and active overseers of the domestic domain. Thus many of the first-generation feminists like Pennammabhayi and K Chinnamma actively promoted this new active domestic ideal for women. K Lakshmy Amma, however, was forthright in arguing-Woman is not merely a child-producing machine, Is Man’s freedom merely a means of bolstering the slavery of Woman?
A revolutionary perception that the border between the home and the outside world was beginning to dissolve was emerging, yet those writing in its favour would not have wanted to usher in a social revolution as such. Chinnammalu Amma’s essay suggests that women’s capacities now could be put to use in schools, hospitals, philanthropic institutions, local bodies, politics. Bhageeraty Amma urged women to write, considering the status of women and Malayalam literature to be inextricably linked
Thus the Womanly was now identified with a certain kind of power and not with a certain space, the domestic. At the same time, though, the ideal of a taxing modern domesticity was being formed that placed women in sole charge of child rearing. However, there were women who wished to convert domesticity into a place of comfort and repose for themselves, and Mrs I C Chacko’s essay indicates this with enviable self-confidence. Marriage itself was being contested. Rejecting dowry, Padmavaty Amma suggested abandoning marriage if a suitable groom was not found while others urged that since a woman’s consent was not asked for, the marriage was not valid.
The anthology also contains many spirited rejoinders to distinguished male intellectuals who opposed women’s employment or intrusion into public space, as can be seen from the pieces by Anna Chandy, a 24-years-old law student, who refuted a learned male judge, and C P Kalyani Amma, among others. J Devika also discusses what is excluded from the Womanhood that is being talked about as well as a need to define what is non-Womanly.
The authors in this collection hailed mostly from those groups which obtained access to modern education and ways of life like the Nairs, Syrian Christians and Ezhavas. But there are other voices too, notably from a few women of the Nambutiri Brahmin caste who were at the forefront of reformist activism and two by Muslim women, the eighteen-year-old M Haleema Beevi who organized a conference of about two hundred women and Ayesha Mayan, who was involved with women’s education.
A path-breaking and beguiling collection translated with meticulous care and a deliberately gentle touch that brings these valuable texts alive, linking the feminist movement with its past.
Contents
FOREWORD TEXTS THAT DAZZLE V GEETHA
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
N A AMMA
The Demerits of Female Education-A Refutation
K LAKSHMY AMMA
Manly Duty
MANNTARAVEETIL LAKSHMY AMMA
An Account of My Life and of My Home-Making
K P M
Are Women Weak?
K CHINNAMMA
The Place of Women in Education
C P KALYANI AMMA
The Craze for Imitation
MRS K KANNAN MENON
Modern Women and Their Husbands-A Rejoinder
K M KUNHULAKSHMY KETTILAMMA
Literature and Womankind
SAROJINI
Womanliness
B PACHI AMMA
Women and Freedom
K PADMAVATY AMMA
Malayalee Marriage Modified
VENGALIL K CHINNAMMALU AMMA
The Place of Women in Society
VATAKKECHARUVIL P K KALYANI
An Appeal to the Hindu Women of Kerala
KONNIYOOR K MEENAKSHI AMMA
Nair Women and the Home
TOTTAIKKATTU MADHAVI AMMA
A Reply
MRS I C CHACKO
Our Women
K MARY THOMAS
Women’s Independence
EDITORIAL
Will Not Women Awake?
ANNA CHANDY
On Women’s Liberation
ELAMKUTTIL NARAYANIKUTTY AMMA
Women and Khadar
B BHAGEERATY AMMA
Women and Literture
PARVATI NENMINIMANGALAM
Womanliness
NARIKKATIRI DEVAKI ANTARJANAM
Women Should Not Abandon the Kitchen
PENNAMMABHAYI, CHAMBAKKULAM
Our Economic Position and Women
PARVATY AYYAPPAN
On Womanly duuty
ITTICHIRIYAMMA
Womenfolk and Reform-Matters, Necessary and Unnecesary
AYESHA MAYAN
Our Duty
M HALEEMA BEEVI
Welcome Speech
KOCHATTIL KALYANIKUTTY AMMA
Some Obstacles in the Way of Equality between the Sexes
REFERENCES