The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850-1920Grounded in a variety of rich and diverse source materials such as periodicals meant for women and edited by women, song and cookbooks, book reviews and court records, the author of this pioneering study mobilises claims for the existence of an Indian feminism in the nineteenth century. Anagol traces the ways in which Indian women engaged with the power structures-both colonialist and patriarchical-which sought to define them. Through her analysis of Indian male reactions to movements of assertion by women, Anagol shows that the development of feminist consciousness in India from the late nineteenth century to the coming of Gandhi was not one of uninterrupted unilinear progression. The book illustrates the ways in which such movements were based upon a consciousness of the inequalities in gender relations and highlights the determination of an emerging female intelligentsia to remedy it. The author's innovative study of women and crime challenges the notion of passivity by uncovering instances of individual resistance in the domestic sphere. Her study of women's perspectives and participation in the Age of Consent Bill debates clearly demonstrates how the rebellion of wives and their assertion in the colonial courts had resulted in male reaction to reform rather than the current historiographical claims that it was a response purely to threats posed by 'colonial masculinity'. Anagol's investigation of the growth of the women's press, their writings and participation in the wider vernacular press highlights the relationship between symbolic or 'hidden' resistance and open assertion by women. |
Contents
Christian Womens Discourse and Work | |
Hindu Womens Discourse and Work | |
Women Crime and Survival Strategies in Colonial India | |
Contesting Discourses on Marriage and Marital | |
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Common terms and phrases
Age of Consent Anandibai argued arguments Arya Bhagini assertion Bengali bhaginivarg Bombay Presidency Brahmin British caste chapter child marriage classes Colonial India comp conjugal rights Cornelia Sorabji courts crime criminal custom debates Delhi demonstrated despite discourse female infanticide female reformers feminism feminist gender Girijabai girls Hindu women Hinduism husband Ibid Indian Christian women Indian male Indian women indigenous instance institutions issue Joshi Jubilee Album kalavantins Kashibai Kashibai Kanitkar Kelkar Krupabai Lakshmibai late nineteenth century Maharashtra Mahila Maharashtrian women male reformers Marathi marital married men’s middleclass missionaries Mumbai nationalist OIOC Pandita Ramabai petitions Poona prostitutes Pune Ramabai Ranade religion religious remarriage resistance restitution of conjugal rituals role Rukhmabai Samaj Saraswati Mandir Seva Sadan sexuality shastras Sholapur social reform society Sorabji Tarabai Shinde traditional Western whilst wife wives woman womanhood Women’s Education women’s movement women’s organizations women’s press