13 August 2011. ‘Bringing Gender into History: Women, Property and Reproduction,’ book review of ‘The Power of Gender and the Gender of Power: Explorations in Early Indian History’ by Kumkum Roy, in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 46, No. 33 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Rethinking Women's History: The Advent of History of Women in India
International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research, 2023
In recent years, research on Women's History has reached new heights concerning its rigor and magnitude-the most comprehensive thus far accomplished. Notably, it has brought to light the exceptional contribution of women throughout human history,which shows their importance in shaping society and their significant place in it today. To comprehend women's history, we must initially comprehend its definition and viewpoints. This unique type of historical study serves as a basis for exploring the work and contribution of women in History while deviating from classical approaches used in history writing. It was foundational in advancing women's studies in India while undertaking various subjects related to female experiences. The journey of Indian women began with an undaunted spirit of reclamation. Without question, this marked a turning point that propelled Indian women's studies toward greater heights and enabled comprehensive exploration into various domains pertinent to the female experience. To understand this trajectory better, we must go back to our days in school and revisit information highlighting the heroism of trailblazers like NurJahan and Rani Laxmibai-those who took on British forces alongside their husbands. These extraordinary female figures created history by remaining steadfastly equal to men or being supported extensively by influential male allies. Still, many other unsung heroes made indelible contributions alone, serving various roles from activists to politicians to revolutionarieseach decisive in shaping India's past towards laying down a brighter pathway for women worldwide. Understanding women's history is essential in comprehending their instrumental role in shaping our Nation. As such, academia across various disciplines must continue paving paths to encourage younger generations to document these myriad stories.
Gendering history in the 21st century
draft paper , 2023
Revisioning possibilities of gendering history in the 21 st century Thank you for your kind invitation to address this seminar on Gender in Indian History: Constructions, Representations and Reality. The initial seminar had been planned before the pandemic and the lockdowns that accompanied it in 2020, which changed our lives in significant ways, sometimes beyond recognition. Much more has happened since then, and we are faced with other immediate and long-term challenges-of endemic conflict and warfare, of the apparently all-pervasive spread of artificial intelligence, and of climate change. Each of these are unprecedented in terms of their nature and scale, and while they may be connected in complex ways, our understanding of these connections, as indeed of these phenomena, remains tenuous.
Reconstruction of Women's History of India
EUROPEAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH, 2015
The patriarchal orientation of history writing has made history silent about women's past. She has been neglected not only in the patriarchal society of India but also in historical records and contemporary works. The traditional historiography if at all talks about women, then it mostly concentrates on the history of "worthy women" or notable women. Many traditions and customs were created to suppress women. Religious beliefs and male hegemony of the society forced them to live as inferior group. They were not free to speak or move. Their freedom and rights were slashed. At the same time, historical records have maintained silence about women's contribution towards society. It is not that women did not take part in the progress of the society but it was the patriarchal culture which was standing against women's name and fame. As a result women lost her place in the historical records. However, in the middle of the twentieth century, scholars, and historians basically women writers and thinkers started focusing their attention on women's history and tried to write them into history. Though it is a difficult task to reconstruct women's history of India but the new historical approaches, new methods to study past helped to make a framework for understanding the history of women of India.
Studies in People's History, 2020
Drawing on fragmentary examples from women's histories in colonial India, this paper underlines the problems and possibilities in historiographies of modern India. Feminist scholars argue that the three terms-women, gender and sex-have often been used interchangeably. However, the commonsensical term woman is neither a natural category (of non-men) nor a homogeneous community (of sisterhood), for there are historically many ways of being a woman in different times. Further, gender is not merely a natural or biological identity of a person. It is a historical , social and political construction of how to be a man or a woman. Even sex is no longer seen as the biological ground upon which gender is constructed, as sexualities too are socially produced and regulated by dominant discourses, which establish one kind of sexuality as normal and relegate others into the domain of deviance, perversion or criminality. Through selective readings from discourses around women's education and conceptualisation of the modern women in colonial India, the paper reflects on how a gender-sensitive perspective produces a more complex and textured view of historical processes. While patriarchies were recast in more powerful, though subtle ways, they were also subverted, or at least questioned, in colonial India. Feminist historians have underlined the fact that both social reforms and nationalism have had an ambiguous relationship with the gender question. It is also not enough to say that while men fought for Indian independence, women also did. Nor is it sufficient to argue that Indian women have been 'hidden from history' and must now be made visible by remembering their contributions. In order to grasp the role of gender in history adequately, we need to understand the gendering of history itself. It was thus argued in the pioneering anthology Recasting Women that reforms actually re-imprisoned modern women into new cages of male desires. 1 However, much recent work has complicated this argument by recognising the potentialities and possibilities of reformist and nationalist endeavours. After all, this was also a period when caste hierarchies and patriarchies were interrogated and qualified to an extent. Often unintentionally, the changes instituted in these times also paved 1 Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, eds., Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, Delhi, 1989. Studies in People's History, 7, 2 (2020): 192-204