Women in India have suffered greatly for the past centuries, as they face significant contravention of human rights. The struggle for rights is disconcerting for Indian women. Although despite all the struggle, women in India are starting to take steps to become valued members of society. The state government has been encouraging women to start their own corporations and businesses. Men have accepted women working, but most are still holding on to the stereotypical jobs that women should…
Today women in India have far greater constitutional rights than before, but are still exploited in the society. A typical Hindu family or society is divided hierarchically, where women are always placed at the bottom. Goddess worship in Hindu society has not necessarily entailed women an equitable position in the society. Even the Hindu epics are evidence of this claim, and are supported by two major incidents.…
In India, tradition has spawned a chain that imprisons women. It is rusted with rape, acid throwing, and forced prostitution. And as a woman myself, I have seen the links of this chain during visits to Sri Lanka. To marry, women are pressured to pay a dowry and provide a house. If a woman is destitute, she will not marry or have a family. The culprit, tradition, cleaves a chasm between the rights of men and women to prevent a bridge of gender equality.…
Women and men have always had opposing differences since the beginning of time. In this paper I am going to discuss the role of the women of India verses the role of women in America and I am going to tell you why I think the women of India are treated disgracefully. Female feticide, dowry deaths and domestic abuse offer a gruesome background of basic cruelty in India. In a typical society in India a person will find that there are still beliefs and traditions about women that are not relevant to the American woman, but instead are an inheritance from their brutal past. This is the case in traditional women, women of rural societies, and women of urban societies (Vidyut , 2007).…
The purpose of the research paper is to examine the role of women in Hinduism and how it impact their lives .This paper will look at how narratives from sacred texts influences women’s role in society in the past and in the present. The role of women in Hinduism is often disputed, and positions range from equal status with men to restrictive. Hinduism is based on numerous texts, some of which date back to 2000 BCE or earlier. They are varied in authority, authenticity, content and theme, with the most authoritative being the Vedas. The position of women in Hinduism is widely dependent on the specific text and the context. Positive references are made to the ideal woman in texts such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, while some texts such as the Manu Smriti advocate a restriction of women's rights. In modern times, the Hindu wife has traditionally been regarded as someone who must at all costs remain chaste or pure. This is in contrast with the very different traditions that have prevailed at earlier times in Hindu kingdoms, which included highly respected professional courtesans such as Amrapali of Vesali, sacred Devadasis, mathematicians and female magicians the Basavis, the tantric kulikas. Mahabharata and Manu Smriti asserts that gods are delighted only when women are worshiped or honoured, otherwise all spiritual actions become futile, as evidenced by the narrative from the Mahabharata “Deities of prosperity are women. The persons that desire prosperity should honour them. By cherishing women, one cherishes the goddess of prosperity herself, and by afflicting her, one is said to afflict the goddess of prosperity” (Mahabharata,).…
The fundamental issues of caste not only affect the privileged and the working peoples, ethnic and racial minorities, and religious piety, but also the roles of men and women within the framework of gender relations. Through male domination of the public sphere, specific female roles were constructed. The primary concept of caste supported depictions of oppressed and subordinate women, which can be examined through the early literature of India. Women were no longer independent and free; they became a male commodity necessary for perpetuating hereditary elitism.…
Deepa Mehta’s Water focuses on widows in India in the year 1938, which was a time when men dominated society and did not accept women’s rights. Women were not allowed to make their own decisions. Many were married off at a young age to older men through arranged marriages. In Hindu Culture at that time, if women were widowed at a young age, the women were expected to throw their bodies on their husband’s funeral pyre and burn to death. This custom is known as sati. However, sati did not happen all the time. Sometimes women were given a choice, they were still outcasts but were allowed to live in very unfortunate circumstances. This alternative was a decision made by the in-laws and the parents to put their daughters in the Ashram (widow house). In this paper, it will be argued that feminist conflict theory can be used to understand changing attitudes toward widows in India, through the lens of Deepa Mehta’s, Water. Through feminist conflict theory, we can understand that the widows’ major problems are due to the patriarchal society. The goal of the feminist view is to eliminate male domination, so women can have equal attention in a patriarchal society. Things have slowly changed in India regarding widows, as women became more equal and less subordinate.…
Women 's position in Hinduism has always been unclear. Women were traditionally expected to serve their husbands and to have no autonomous interests. Because Hinduism comes from many different sources and traditions, Hindu sacred writings have many philosophical contradictions. On the one hand, some Hindu sacred writings, predominantly of the earlier period, gave immense value to women and were venerated as a symbol of the divine, on the other hand, other Hindu sacred writings discriminated women to incredible extremes. Women were treated as inferior beings. For example, long time ago, when a man died, his widow had to commit suicide by throwing herself on his funeral pyre. This was going on for long time until the colonial power (England) forbids it with strict laws. Another example is an old Hindu writing "(Manu 9.3) Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. "…
The men of the Hinduism culture were treated as gods, held to high standard. The women on this culture could never gain enough to be look at as equal to men. The women were wealth nothing unless they were own by a man, “The wife, son, and the slave, these three are declared to have no property; the wealth witch they earn is acquired for him to whom they belong... (Doc., Manu).” This shows that without an owner she is worth nothing. The teaching of men go as far as educating boys to never trust women it is in her nature to take and use her body as a tool for gain. “It is the nature of women to seduce men in this world; for that reason the wise are never unguarded in the company of females (Doc., Manu).” The women were bond to their house as if slaves (without shackles), to cook, clean and service her husband.…
In conclusion, gender factors in Classical India and in some parts of today’s society have not progressed at all. One can still see this kind of treatment in parts of society where women have no rights in society much less for herself. It is hard to imagen that women have struggled and are still struggling with these kinds of treatments. It is time that women are considered equal to men in every aspect of life and in all parts of the…
For Indu, realization of womanhood works as barrier that does not allow her free movements as a sensitive human being. The first realization of womanhood comes with the beginning of menstrual cycle when a warning was given by kaki, “you are a woman? You can have babies yourself” (79). The realization of womanhood was not an elevation of her position but it was a realization of her weakness that could never permit her to seek “wholeness” in a male dominated society. Indu’s reflections on her own inner state of mind suggest that these feminine issues are not to be idealized and they must be estimated in context of the mental reactions of women who are subjected to it. Indu is disgusted with Jayant but she surrenders herself to the will of Naren. Corresponding either Indu’s consciousness. Jayant and Naren are two distinctive terrains corresponding with Indu’s consciousness. If Jayant affords physical contentment to her, Naren is her hope for emotional fulfilment. Naren feels the deep sensational thrust inside Indu and he openly confesses, “Why do you deny the fact that you’re a woman”. “She also feels an irresistible current of sensation in the physical contact of Naren. He challenges her futile idealism. Through Naren, Shashi Deshpande asserts that woman has every right to exhibit her desires. It is a natural response to innate instinctive behaviour. The male companionship is essentially needed in…
Indian novelist and short story writer, Anita Desai is specially noted for her insightful depiction of the inner life of the female characters in her writings. In most of her novels Anita Desai dwells on the themes incongruity, incertitude and hazards of human relationship particularly the man-woman relationship. D.H. Lawrence points out:…
in SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN SHASHI DESHPANDE’S THAT LONG SILENCE, THE DARK HOLDS NO TERROR AND ROOTS AND SHADOWS…
This is to certify that the ‘Study Of Feminism In Shashi Deshpande’s Novels, a research self-study, has been based on the literature available to me. The Research Study has been under taken according to the norms set by your esteemed institution ‘National Institute For Research and Education New Delhi ’, The Study though not a exhaustive exercise, but a peripheral exercise experience faced by the female protagonists of Shashi Deshpande, have gone over the past four decade of predicament of women’s existence. The total indepth experience of women in all her roles, their inner assets, achievements, problems, frustrations, and their intrinsic impact on the future generations cannot be summed up and introspected and documented completely. The Thesis or any part of the work has not been submitted for any other degree to any university. This work is my honest and earnest study of the element of feminism in Shashi Deshpande’s female protagonists. The research work is submitted to your institution “National Institution For Research and Education for the purpose of Assessment.…
They are compelled to be muted. Their voices do not get an opportunity to speak out of the women’s problems and needs. Their desires always get lost before the grand narratives of patriarchy, even the national history and narrative rarely recognize the major contribution of the females in the texts or document. Whenever the woman is portrayed, she is put in the second position below the man. She is always kept silent. Identifying this issue, Indian critic and feminist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak asks— can the subaltern speak? in her essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’. To answer this question, she says: “There is no space from which the sexed subaltern subject can speak . . . The subaltern cannot speak” (Spivak 103-104). The reason, Spivak shows, is that Indian woman is always given a label of Sati or good wife. “Sati as a woman’s proper name is in fairly widespread use in India . . . Naming a female infant ‘a good wife’ has its own proleptic irony . . .” (102). By giving a great woman portrayal to the Indian woman, the grand narrative of patriarchy stereotypes the status of woman in the society. Through this, a boundary is imposed on the Indian women’s lifestyle and so-called freedom. While examining the power and position of Indian women, Spivak observes a fragile…