Gender/Women Under Colonialism

Introduction

• The nature of the women’s question in the colonial period was complex.

• Women were subjected to a traditional order that restricted their social and public positions.

• The social reformers in the 19th century played a pivotal role in bringing women’s conditions to the center stage.

• Western ideas and legislations by the colonial authorities, under pressure from reformers, aimed to create conditions conducive to emancipation.

The Historical Perspective on Women Emerging in the 19th Century

• The historical developments regarding women continue to captivate human intellect today.

• There are various perspectives on the woman question, including Conservative, liberal Feminist, Marxist, Socialist Feminist, Post-modernist, and Deconstructionist schools of analysis.

• Numerous studies on women and work, middle-class women, and women and nationalism have emerged.

• These studies range from general overviews to highly specialized monographs focusing specifically on women.

• This is due to the efforts of the feminist movement, the International Decade of Women, and academic projects focusing on the status of women in India.

• Scholars working on women now come from varied perspectives, including women in history and history of women.

• In the 19th century, women’s suffrage and equality were key issues in the Western world, whereas in India, these questions emerged during the integration into colonial society and culture.

• The anti-colonial movement in India also raised issues concerning women, influencing the nature of the woman question in colonial India.

• The debate included the aping of Western values by Indian women, the idealization of India’s golden era when women were active in knowledge and achievements.

• These ideas contributed to the complex debate on women’s roles, which became entangled with culture, ideology, hegemony, and politics of representation in the national liberation movement.

• Social reform and women’s issues, which thrived under the anti-colonial movement, lost momentum post-independence until women’s groups revived these concerns in contemporary India.

• Early works on women’s conditions, such as those by Altekar, focused on how Hindu culture either provided or limited the roles assigned to women throughout history.

• Examples like Gayatris and Maithrayees, who challenged sages, demonstrate that women were capable and knowledgeable figures.

• The dominant view suggests that women were historically subordinated to the roles of domesticity, reproduction, and nurture.

• The ideal image of women was one of reverence as mothers, often overshadowing the reality of women working alongside men in fields, mines, and factories in the 20th century.

• Middle-class women and their issues gained more focus during the anti-colonial movement, as they were more easily heard due to their social standing and educational background.

• Issues raised included women’s education, women’s representation in various bodies, and property rights.

• Visual representations often depicted the subordinated, purdah-clad women as voiceless and waiting for emancipation from the drudgery of domesticity and subordination.

• Writings from both Indian and European authors, such as Katherine Mayo’s “Mother India”, sensationalized the condition of women in India.

• These writings and debates sparked a range of responses from Indian intellectuals, raising discussions about modernity, Westernization, progress, and development in the 19th century.