Gender, Feminism and Post-Colonial India International Perspectives on Gender
Week 12
Structure of lecture Introduction and Context Gender and Nation-building Why Full Equality was not Realised Sex Ratios and the Missing Girl Child Indian feminisms SlutWalks and Pink Chaddis Disowning Dependence Conclusions
Introduction and Context Nehru’s ‘tryst with destiny’ Constitution of 1950 established a secular,
democratic Republic Feminism had been subordinated to
Nationalism Women were central to Indian
independence What was women’s destiny
following independence?
Gender and Nation-Building Important new legal rights for women post-independence, including to vote and to education
Reform of personal laws re marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, BUT resisted and Islamic Personal Law retained
First 5 Year Plans failed to recognise women as workers Instead of economic rights women got welfarism Content of women’s emancipation was contested Banerjee: ‘challenging the patriarchal ethos of our
society had never been on the agenda of the Indian
state’ (1998, p. 4)
Report of National Planning Committee ignored (based on 1940 data, published 1947)
One third of Indian women did productive work, for poorer wages than men
Proposed policies to treat women as economic actors in own right; improve working conditions rather than banning women; ‘wages’ for housework; husbands to share in housework
Ignored by Nehru’s government Report resurrected in 1995 by Maitreyi Krishnaraj Why were dreams of full equality for Indian women not
realised?
Why full equality not realised1. Immediate chaos of Partition
2. Dominant economic model of modernization, privileging economic growth over social justice
3. Women’s contradictory roles in nationalist project and vision - to signify both modernity and to safeguard tradition
- to enter the public sphere and yet remain tied to the family
‘The discourse of equality – of women as the same as men and entitled to the same treatment – ran into a head on collision with the dominant ideological construction of women as wives and mothers…’ (Kapur, 2012, p. 5)
4. Maintenance of class privilege by elite feminists
5. Fragmentation of women’s movement
You peacocks of high caste
preening your plumes
in the Narmada Valley
your call echoes and rouses
each corner of the world
but my sister’s struggle
to dam the swollen streams of arrack*
choking them
their hoarse voices
will lie buried in
Teluga earth
(Sasi Nirmala, ‘Muttugudda Kapputunna’)
* Andra Pradesh women’s movement against sale of alcohol
Why speak of the other?
Another woman wants to buy me
She wants me as the gold lace
to her upper caste new sari.
She wants me as the crimson
on her lips.
(Sasi Nirmala, ‘Dalituralu’)
Source: Rani, Challapalli Swaroopa (1998) ‘Dalit Women’s Writing in Telugu’, Economic and Political Weekly, April 25
6. Rights on paper are not the same as rights in practice:
do women know they have them?
do women know how to claim them?
do they have legitimacy?
is there redress if women are denied their rights?
do women ‘choose’ not to claim?
eg. poor women in Kangra district of
Himachal Pradesh don’t claim their rights
to inherit under the hard-won Hindu
Succession Act 1956 (see Berry)
Towards Equality report in 1974
shattered myths of Indian women’s
full emancipation
Indian Sex RatiosYear Females per 1000 males (total population)
1901 972
1951 946
1961 941
1971 930
1981 934
1991 927
2001 933
2011 940Source:
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/data_files/india/Final_PPT_2011_chapter5.pdf
Year Girls per 1000 boys (under 6 years)
1961 976
1971 964
1981 962
1991 945
2001 927
2011 914
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/data_files/india/Final_PPT_2011_chapter5.pdf
The Missing Girl Child
Poster at a Delhi Hospital
Action Aid Campaign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP22lCP3c5w
How is sex-selective abortion explained?What policy responses are identified to combat it?What consequences are there of so many missing women?
Indian Feminisms Long and vibrant history Communist women in 1950s
and 1960s criticized welfarism 1974 Towards Equality report
galvanized autonomous women’s
movement Innumerable grassroots campaigns Much legislative success, but ongoing problems of
implementation History of direct action and innovative tactics Emphasis on women’s strength and agency, not just her
suffering
1980 National Federation of Indian Women March
December 2012,Bangalore Demonstration
SlutWalks and Pink Chaddis
Kolkata, 2012
Pink Chaddhi Campaign
Feminism-Lite? A bold, disruptive reclaiming by women consumer-citizens
asserting their sexuality? Or a narcissistic stunt to attract the media that reproduces,
rather than challenges, a derogatory term? Assert women’s right to a social life, to choose what to wear
and to freedom from sexual violence Vs claims that women (and their family) must police their
clothing and use of public space to avoid rape Refuse to divide women into those deserving freedom from
sexual violence and those not, who ‘ask for it’ Assert rape as a crime the rapist is responsible for Refuse ‘dominance feminism’
Disowning Dependence
ENSS: new social movement of single women Imagine new space outside patriarchal family Create new family forms pooling labour and resources Successfully claimed social, economic rights and legal
rights Claims to land not yet met: too threatening to
heteropatriarchy Land rights constitute and are constituted by gender,
kinship and heteronormativity; socially and culturally embedded
Conclusions Women gained important rights in public sphere but
limited by on-going construction as dependants in family State initially failed to recognise women as workers Many elite women acted in own class interests De jure rights for women have not meant de facto rights Fragmented women’s movement resurged in 1970s Sharp contrast between women holding highest offices
and low status of women seeing millions not born Indian women keep fighting for full equality, especially
freedom from sexual violence for all women Is this a key moment in Indian women’s assertion as
independent citizens choosing how to live? The religious right is threatened by women’s
independence and the struggle is ongoing
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