Gender Studies - Page 10

Subarna Bhattacharya

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce, Pune, E-mail: subarna.bhattacharya@live.com

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s12n3

Abstract

In feminist studies, the relation between gender and travel has been addressed in many important critical discourses. Feminist critics have pointed out that travel writing had for long remained oblivious about women’s travel, one reason being that travel was, forever, a masculinist exercise. Underlining the gendered aesthetics of travel writing, feminist criticism has read women’s travelogues as interesting sites of struggle between repeating the normative patterns of male travelling and casting an ‘alternative’ gaze. However, reading women’s travel writing simply as feminist narratives against their masculinist counterparts can be an oversimplification, as it may mean ignoring the deeper complexities underlying the texts. Being an autobiographical form, travel writing creates textual spaces where the formation of selfhood happens through a constant negotiation of the ‘self’ with the ‘world’, not only in terms of gender, but also other subject identities like race, class, and culture. In this context, my paper proposes to read Jamaica Kincaid’s Among Flowers. A Walk in the Himalaya (2005), as a female travel writing, where the question of gender intertwines with her non-white, ex-colonial, diasporic identity during her travel in Himalayan Nepal. My focus would be on examining the writer’s narratorial self as a female agency, influencing, and negotiating her postcolonial identity. The paper will try to address how the travelogue functions as a register of female experiences, while Kincaid, as a post-colonial black traveller, negotiates her position within the existing imperialist paradigm of white travelling.

Keywords: travel, travel-writing, gender, feminism, postcolonialism

Sugyanta Priyadarshini

KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. riro231110@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0001-7660-6162

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s11n6

Abstract

Transgender is a blanket term wrapping individuals whose gender identity, expression or behavior transgresses their biological sex. They are often put on the periphery in terms of finances and the social inclusion. The varying stereotypes of sexual binary recognize the transgenders as socially misfit and economically unaccepted. Emotionally, the transgenders face hardships and lack of social support that push them at the social cross-roads in terms of denial and rejection. Nevertheless, this emotional distress is generally aggravated by the family, friends and acquaintances. This paper examines the emotional binary of Transgenders and parents after their detachment by using an automatically based system on facial gestures called Facial Action Coding system (FACS). Further, their affirmative emotions, such as, Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Surprise, and Fear is rated with an intensity rate justifying the strength of the respective emotion.  The FACS analysis of emotion of sadness resulting in depression is evaluated by using 20-item measure of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D).  The paper also explores the facilitative coping experiences after the recognition of the sexual identity by noting down the broad scale of emotional bandwidth. However, facial expressions of transgender respondents and their parents are recorded and are selected based on snow ball sampling. The research work has analyzed emotions of transgender respondents and their parents to know the ground reality of real troubles they come across standing on periphery of the society.

Keywords: Transgender, Parents, FACS, Emotions, Facial expressions, CES-D.

Chhavi¹ & Rajiv Bhushan²

 ¹National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Hostel- b NIT Jamshedpur – 831014, choudharychhavi06@gmail.com, 0000-0002-2044-0172

²National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Associate Professor Department of HSSM Jamshedpur – 831014 India, rbhushan.hum@nitjsr.ac.in, 0000-0002-3646-2181

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s11n2

Abstract

Mahesh Dattani is one of the leading Indian dramatists who responded to the problems of sexuality on the canvass of Indian theatre. He examined various facets of subjugation and marginalization rampant in Indian society. His plays focus on the sub-urban Hindu family and its trifle with gender and alternate sexuality. His plots revolve around the damaging implications of patriarchal constructs and his characters strive for liberty and self-satisfaction beneath hegemonic masculinity, compulsive heteronormativity and prejudiced cultural domain. Regarding his famous play Dance Like a Man, this paper critically examines the existing socio-cultural domain which practices politics of exclusion of androgynous identities behind the façade of peacefully cohabiting heterosexual Indian family and shows how Dattani, has remarkably countered the presentation of the polarized association of gender roles with conventional practice through performance of his protagonist. Set against the backdrop of patriarchal mindset, this paper delineates that the victim of patriarchal norms is not a woman but a man, who has traits of androgyny. It gives a brief account to highlight the significance of androgyny and portrays how androgyny is directly proportional to creativity. It elucidates how androgynous men undergo searing experiences of stigma and social untouchability in a traditional setup and how patriarchal norms reinforce dominant powers of society to stunt the growth of their personality.

Keywords: Androgyny, Creativity, Exclusion, Hegemonic masculinity, Patriarchal norms.

Tanupriya

Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Christ (Deemed to be University), Delhi NCR, E-mail: tanupriya@christuniversity.in

 Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s11n1

Abstract

Hijras or transwomen in India are gendered identities, but their identities cannot be reduced to the conceptual framework and analysis of ‘sex’, ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’. Being the minority in India, transgender lives intersect with caste, class, kinship and hierarchy. The study locates these intersections within the scope of the select hijra autobiographies; The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story by A. Revathi and I am Vidya by Vidya. The study looks at the notions of ‘family’ which are traditionally woven in heteronormative and patriarchal setups. It examines the gharanas system or subsystems in hijra communities that redefines the structures and hierarchies of the family, and designating the fellow elder hijras with the relation of mata (mother) and cela (disciple), thus forming a kinship which is located beyond the caste, class and religious structures. The emphasis is to study how families are inserted in heteronormative perspectives and argues a redefining of the notion of ‘family’,and to establish and recognize the newer perspectives on ‘family’ which lies outside the traditional setup.

Keywords: Caste, Class, Family, Subsystems