The political and social life of India in the last decade has given rise to a variety of questions concerning the nature and resilience of patriarchal systems in a transitional and post-colonial society. The contributors to this interdisciplinary volume recognize that every aspect of reality is gendered, and that such a recognition involves a dismantling of the ideological presuppositions of the so-called gender neutral ideologies, as well as the boundaries of individual disciplines.

This Book Critically Analyses The Success Achieved By Gandhi In Mobilizing Women On A Mass Scale For The Cause Of The Country`S Independence.

South Asian women have frequently been conceptualized in colonial, academic and postcolonial studies, but their very categorization is deeply problematic. This book, informed by theory and enriched by in-depth fieldwork, overturns these unhelpful categorizations and alongside broader issues of self and nation assesses how South Asian identities are ‘performed'. What are the blind spots and erasures in existing studies of both race and gender? In what ways do South Asian women struggle with Orientalist constructions? How do South Asian women engage with ‘indo-chic?' What dilemmas face the South Asian female scholar? With a combination of the most recent feminist perspectives on gender and the South Asian diaspora, questions of knowledge, power, space, body, aesthetics and politics are made central to this book. Building upon a range of experiences and reflecting on the actual conditions of the production of knowledge, South Asian Women in the Disapora represents a challenging contribution to any consideration of gender, race, culture and power.

The word doyenne signifies the various expressions of female, feminine, and feminist aspects of contemporary literature in India, through multiple theoretical frameworks. Contemporary Women’s Writing in India is an edited collection dealing with a range of these issues set in the society of Indian culture. Indian women’s literature is still a fertile ground for critical enquiry. There are three sections in the collection: Section I deals with specific instances in history, historical constructions, and representations of gender. Section II offers a varied spectrum of feminist critical discourse on contemporary Indian women’s writing, intersecting with the frameworks of post-colonial theory, deconstruction, perspectives on race and ethnicity, and eco-feminism. Section III touches upon the notion of the woman’s body and psyche through the varied perspectives of psychoanalysis, feminism, and post-feminism. By thoroughly exploring a range of issues, Contemporary Women’s Writing promises to take the reader by the hand, and journey through the unfamiliar but refreshing landscape of women’s literature in India.

This book examines the varied influences and accomplishments of the Indian Ladies’ Magazine, the first Indian magazine established and edited by an Indian woman—Kamala Satthianadhan—in English, written by women, for women. Influences include Victorian, Edwardian, and Modern literature and culture as well as traditional Indian literature and culture during the late colonial, pre-independence period. More than a literary journal, this publication also addressed social reforms, from “ladies’ philanthropy” to “women’s mission to women”; the emergence of Indian “identity politics” in response to the nationalist and independence movements; the Indian Woman Question in the context of female education debates and shifting concepts of “womanliness”; cultural exchanges recorded by Indian travelers to America; and the emergence of Indian nationalism, between World Wars I and II, leading to independence. This publication recorded and participated in the most pivotal moment in modern Indian history and did so by appealing to both the conservative and progressive socio-political urges marking the era.

Using the contemporary workings of property law in India through the lives and thoughts of middle-class and poor women, this is a study of the ways in which cultural practices, and particularly notions of gender ideology, guide the workings of law. It urges a close reading of decisions by women that appear to be contrary to material interests and that reinforce patriarchal ideologies. Hailed as a radical moment for gender equality, the Hindu Succession Act was passed in India in 1956 theoretically giving Hindu women the right to equal inheritance of their parents’ self-acquired property. However, in the years since the act’s existence, its provisions have scarcely been utilized. Using interview data drawn from middle-class and poor neighborhoods in Delhi, this book explores the complexity of women’s decisions with regard to family property in this context. The book shows that it is not passivity, ignorance of the law, naiveté about wealth, or unthinking adherence to gender prescriptions that guides women’s decisions, but rather an intricate negotiation of kinship and an optimization of socioeconomic and emotional needs. An examination of recent legal cases also reveals that the formal legal realm can be hospitable to women’s rights-based claims, but judgments are still coded in terms of customary provisions despite legal criteria to the contrary.

Women's Oral History: The "Frontiers" Reader is an essential guide to the practice of gathering and interpreting women's oral accounts of their lives. During the 1970s, whenøwomen's history was just developing, the lack of historical information about women's lives was glaring. Oral history quickly emerged as a vital and necessary tool for documenting the lives and experiences of women, who rarely recorded it for themselves?much less for posterity. Standard models of practicing oral history, however, were inadequate to the job of organizing and interpreting women's lives, and new models that addressed the distinctiveness of the lives of women?in all of their diversity?were needed. As one of the earliest journals devoted to feminist scholarship in the United States, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies was in the vanguard of the emerging field of women's oral history when it published its first landmark issue on the subject in 1977. Three subsequent issues exploring the evolving field has secured Frontiers' reputation at the forefront of women's oral history. Women's Oral History includes nineteen essays, each addressing the particularity of women's lives and experience. The collection provides both "how to" interview guides and examples of current research in sections covering basic methodology and rationale; the myriad uses of women's oral history; and discoveries and insights gained from oral history applications. The essays raise thought-provoking questions, glean original insights about the lives of women and the practice of history, and call for women to write and record their own histories.

How do women express individual agency when engaging in seemingly prescribed or approved practices such as religious fasting? How are sectarian identities played out in the performance of food piety? What do food practices tell us about how women negotiate changes in family relationships? This collection offers a variety of distinct perspectives on these questions. Organized thematically, areas explored include the subordination of women, the nature of resistance, boundary making and the construction of identity and community. Methodologically, the essays use imaginative reconstructions of women's experiences, particularly where the only accounts available are written by men. The essays focus on Hindus and Muslims in South Asia, Sri Lankan Buddhist women and South Asians in the diaspora in the US and UK. Pioneering new research into food and gender roles in South Asia, this will be of use to students of food studies, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies.

Ranging from studies on sport and national education and pulp fiction to infanticide, psychiatric therapy and religion, these essays on the various forms, expressions and consequences of the British 'civilizing mission' in South Asia shed light on a topic that even today continues to be an important factor in South Asian politics.