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