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Selvy
Thiruchandran, a feminist and an expert in women's education, in the informative Foreword, informs us that the articles/chapters, the book is composed of, have already been published in a special issue of Nivedini, a reputed journal, striving to promote South Asian dialogue on women's issues. Her contention that academic feminism within the institutions and women's movements in space are both essential ingredients of resistance against gender bias and oppression and are mutually supportive, arguably sounds valid. And, therefore, the book holds women's movement “as an arm of academic feminism “, she highlights. In the influential, analytical Introduction, the editor touches upon the contemporary agenda for women's studies and movements in India — grappling with contemporary concerns for women in diverse fields, particularly in the context of contemporary
globalisation.
However, Fatima Burnard Nadesan sensitises the readers to the atrocities and discriminations the Dalits in India live with, particularly to the plight of Dalit women in Tamil Nadu (which has the fifth largest Dalit population in India). That they are victimised by caste oppressions and state violence besides gender discrimination, she highlights, with a documentary account. Against the framework of deplorable existence of deprived Dalit women, she foregrounds the emergence and fight of the Dalit Women's Movement in Tamil Nadu in procuring relief and justice to the poor victims Sumitra Parmar charts the journey of feminist novel written in English in India, which has come a long way from Saguna — A Story of a Native Christian Life (1894) by Krupabai Satthianadhan, who is credited for being the first Indian woman novelist in English, to the contemporary times. Besides, she makes a critical appraisal of Root and Shadow by Shashi Deshpande, as a seminal feminist text. Though in line with the other well discussed novels of Deshpande, which she touches upon, Roots and Shadow also deals with the themes of family, marriage and selfhood, yet, as she stresses, toppling the established traditional system, it is the most “radical “ and “subversive “. However, particularly in times when women do not want to be tagged as feminist, she highlights Deshpande as a self-proclaimed feminist writer whose feminist opinions expressed both verbally and in writing are particularly useful for women engulfed by the contemporary challenges of balancing tradition with modernity. Rehana Ghadially discourses on a difficult and sensitive issue — can the number of Nikhanamas i.e. marriage contracts produced by different Muslim groups serve the rights of Muslims women in India? Providing us an insight into Muslim world scenario, demonstrating deep divisions within the community over the issues (marriage, divorce and family) which are vital to women's lives, she educates us on the efforts of Islamic feminism and Muslim Women's Movement in reforming the marriage contract to safeguard Muslim women's rights. Maitrayee Chaudhury discusses the shifting perspectives of contemporary feminism and women's movements specially in a globalising context. Subhadra Mitra Channa argues for the interaction between women's position and cosmological ordering (how the people perceive the world around them) of any society questioning the notion of the universal subordination of women upheld by many Western feminists. To illustrate her argument, she analyses the factors contributing to the enhanced status of Himalayan pastoral women evidenced by their centrality in social life and village economy. Referring to nature vs culture debate and its effects on gender relations, she explains to us that since the Himalyan pastoral community known as the Jads do not segregate nature from culture but the habitation from the wild, the women control human habitation and men the wild which they regard as “superior to all things human”. Added to this, with the absence of the notion of an illegitimate child a Jad woman can bear and nature a socially accepted child with a Jad identity, independent of the husband. U.Kalpagam can be singled out as the most articulate and persuasive of all scholars, for the chain of arguments precisely and lucidly expressed on women's studies in the final chapter. Highlighting the engaging debate — should women's studies be renamed as family studies — she argues in favour of women's studies. That women's life experiences are fundamental to the epistemology of women's studies, she analytically contends. The feminist discourse, by well-known scholars and activists, is packed with thought-provoking arguments and documentary evidence. The readers are familiarised with key components of current feminist thought and movement.
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