{"title":"Counting the Numbers: Nationalism and the Question of Surplus Women","authors":"Anandita Pan","doi":"10.1177/09715215231210526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231210526","url":null,"abstract":"The ‘evils’ of sati and widowhood constituted two of the major elements of social reformation and women’s progress in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These ‘evils’ were rooted in casteist and sexist ideologies and practices, an aspect that remained largely unrecognised by the dominant reformist agendas. The narrative of social progress of women focused only on the upper class and upper-caste women whose lives were prescribed by brahmanical and patriarchal ideals of chastity, purity, and devotion to husband. Consequently, ‘patriarchy’ was interpreted as a traditional system oppressing the upper-class upper-caste women. The social reformations such as companionate marriage, widowhood, sati, were practices predominant only in upper-caste communities. It is also significant to note that social reformation was intended to revive the ‘great’ Hindu tradition and rid it of its bad elements exhibited through the practice of sati. This article, through a comparative reading of the discourses on sati and widowhood by Raja Rammohan Roy and the idea of endogamy by B. R. Ambedkar, examines the roots of brahmanical patriarchy to delineate the gendering of caste in imposing a false homogeneity of nationalism.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"703 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139160446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dr Hunter’s Plague: Gender, Race and Photography in British India","authors":"David Arnold","doi":"10.1177/09715215231210522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231210522","url":null,"abstract":"From politicians to physicians, the opening years of India’s plague epidemic (1896–1900) have conventionally been treated as a male-dominated sphere of activity. This article argues for the centrality of female actors—as doctors, nurses and ‘ward ayahs’—and across the social spectrum from dalits to Europeans. Photography demonstrates the prominence and diversity of women’s plague roles; it helps to complicate a text-based narrative of plague at the intersection of gender, race, class and colonialism. Images augment and not merely document. The value of combining visual and textual sources is underscored by focusing on a single institution, the General Plague Hospital in Poona (Pune) and on a woman doctor, Marion Hunter, whose photographic presence and whose views in and after India highlight the tensions and contradictions of a gendered as well as racialised imperial presence.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"124 50","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138953538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gender Portrayals and Perceptions in the New Age Society of India","authors":"Sunil Barthwal","doi":"10.1177/09715215231210530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231210530","url":null,"abstract":"There has recently been a shift in the portrayal of women in Indian media, from a domestic background and docile image to a more professional and empowered representation. This study explores whether such changed portrayals in the media are also positively perceived and if there is an impact on the status of women in the social reality of India. The study examined gender perceptions through focus group discussions with participants from Gen X and Gen Z cohorts. Gen Z, conditioned in an age of technology and liberalisation, was expected to have different gender perceptions than Gen X, conditioned in a pre-liberalised traditional India. The discussions revealed the participants’ complexities, dilemmas and compromises regarding gender stereotypes and the modern versus traditional portrayal of women in Indian media. While Gen X participants were bound to old gender structures and equations, the iconoclastic Gen Z participants appeared to be onsetting a change in gender perceptions of India.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"82 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139236053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Population Control and Eugenics: Dhanvanthi Rama Rau and Margaret Sanger in the Making of India’s Family Planning Programme, 1930s–1960s","authors":"Daksha Parmar, Mohan Rao","doi":"10.1177/09715215231183624","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231183624","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the contribution of two pioneering women, Dhanvanthi Rama Rau and Margaret Sanger in shaping the official Family Planning Programme (FPP) of India. Rau, popularly known as the ‘Mother of India’s Family Planning’, was at the forefront of the debates on birth control. From the early twentieth century, Rau was in correspondence with Margaret Sanger—eugenist and the messiah of medicalised birth control from the United States of America (USA). Based on archival collections from various libraries in India and the USA, this article attempts to explore the concerns of Rau and Sanger in raising questions about population control 1 and family planning in India. The concern of improving the health of mothers and children was, for them, a scaffolding on which to build the agenda of population control. As their advocacy of contraception was shaped by eugenic 2 and neo-Malthusian ideas, they were successful in institutionalising a programme of family planning that called for an immediate reduction in the birth rate. This was to be achieved through gendered population control policies and practices.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135965217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: B. S. Sherin, Gendering Minorities: Muslim Women and the Politics of Modernity","authors":"Hem Borker","doi":"10.1177/09715215231183521","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231183521","url":null,"abstract":"B. S. Sherin, Gendering Minorities: Muslim Women and the Politics of Modernity. Orient BlackSwan, 2021, 240 pages, ₹615 (Hardbound). ISBN: 978-93-5287-669-3.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135965206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Vasanthi Raman, The World of the Banaras Weaver: A Culture in Crisis","authors":"Uma Chakravarti","doi":"10.1177/09715215231183514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231183514","url":null,"abstract":"Vasanthi Raman, The World of the Banaras Weaver: A Culture in Crisis, Second South Asia edition (Routledge, 2020), xxiii + 339 pages, ₹1495 (Hardback), ISBN 978-0-367-44351-1.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135965203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Jeemol Unni, Vanita Yadav, Ravikiran Naik and Swati Dutta, Women Entrepreneurship in the Indian Middle Class: Interdisciplinary Perspective","authors":"Tara Nair","doi":"10.1177/09715215231183517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231183517","url":null,"abstract":"Jeemol Unni, Vanita Yadav, Ravikiran Naik and Swati Dutta, Women Entrepreneurship in the Indian Middle Class: Interdisciplinary Perspective. Orient BlackSwan, 2021, 271 pages, ₹1,075 (Paperback), ISBN: 978-93- 5442-145-7.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135965204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Usha Thakkar, Congress Radio: Usha Mehta and the Underground Radio Station of 1942","authors":"Veena Poonacha","doi":"10.1177/09715215231183519","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231183519","url":null,"abstract":"Usha Thakkar, Congress Radio: Usha Mehta and the Underground Radio Station of 1942, (Penguin Random House, 2021), 353 pp., ₹699 (Hardback), ISBN 978-0-670-09566-7.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135965216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Women and Waste: The Question of Shit-work","authors":"Barbara Harriss-White","doi":"10.1177/09715215231183613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09715215231183613","url":null,"abstract":"One of the fastest-growing sectors of the Indian economy is waste. Its labour illustrates Deliege’s paradox of material essentiality combined with social stigma and marginalisation. Between 2015 and 2019 the production and disposal of waste in a small South Indian town was traced through its circuits of industrial production (agro-processing), distribution (of people and of food), consumption, the production of labour (human wastes) and the reproduction of society (health care activity). The material substances of waste, their physical organisation and gendered labour processes are mapped onto each circuit. This enables a discussion of three questions: (a) regulative institutions in the formal and informal waste economy; (b) the gendering of property and work in the capitalist waste economy and (c) the gendered significance of collective action. The privatisation of waste work has caused a deterioration in work conditions throughout the waste economy. Literally and metaphorically, waste work is shit-work in which women experience the worst conditions in both physical and economic terms.","PeriodicalId":44810,"journal":{"name":"Indian Journal of Gender Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135965221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}