Gender Studies - Page 7

Relocating Colonial Women in Resistance: An Interpretation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nastanirh and Chaturanga

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T. K. Krishnapriya1, Dr Padma Rani2, Dr Bashabi Fraser3

1Junior Research Fellow (UGC), Manipal Institute of Communication, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India; Email: krishnapriya.t1@learner.manipal.edu; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5795-1275

2Director & Professor, Manipal Institute of Communication, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India; Email: padma.rani@manipal.edu

3Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing, Director, Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs), School of Arts & Creative Industries, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh; Email: bashabifraserwriter@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.38

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Abstract

The Colonial Bengal of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a place of contradictions. For instance, despite certain evident advancements in the resolution of the women’s question, some of the emancipatory attempts of the period marked a rather dubious account of women’s liberation as patriarchal underpinnings hegemonized the efforts.  Amid this complex backdrop, the colonial women’s position is further jeopardized by the western feminist scholarship that contrives colonial third world women as perennial victims and beneficiaries of emancipatory actions from the West. The paper attempts to relocate the colonial women and their resistance by negotiating the fissures in their construction. This study, informed by bell hooks’ (1990) postulations on margin and resistance, simultaneously seeks to form a bridge between the experiences of marginalized women beyond borders. Rabindranath Tagore’s Nastanirh (1901) and Chaturanga (1916) are chosen for close textual reading to examine the experiences of colonial women.  The author’s women protagonists often embody the social dilemma of the period. Tagore’s Damini and Charu exist in the margin of resistance whilst Nanibala occupies the margin of deprivation.  Significantly, Charu and Damini traverse the precarious “profound edges” of the margin to imagine a “new world” free of subjugation. Thus, the resistance offered by these women subverts the predominant conceptions of victimhood of colonial women, and it enables them to be posited as active agents.

Keywords: Tagore, hooks, Colonial Bengal, Resistance, Agency

 

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The Metamorphosis of a Female Subject into a Gendered subject: A Study of Easterine Iralu’s A Terrible Matriarchy

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Bompi Riba1 and Karngam Nyori2
1Assistant Professor, Department of English, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh, Pin-791112, ORCID id: 0000-0002-0341-2348. E-mail:  bompi.riba@rgu.ac.in

2Ph.D Research Scholar, Department of English, Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh, Pin-791112, ORCID id: 000-0002-3477-141.  Email: nkarngam@yahoo.com

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.24

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Abstract

It is a universally practised phenomenon across society to conveniently create a dichotomy that is based on the physiological difference between a male and a female. This difference is further defined by the dichotomy of gendered roles and labour that are imposed on them. The hegemony of the gendered ideology makes it all so natural to assign gendered role to a baby the moment it is born. Its body serves as a continuing signifier for the gendered structure of a patriarchal society. Since these gendered ideologies are disseminated through established institutions such as education, religion and law; their manifestations can be found in culture, religion, clothes, discourse, movies, and even in gestures that this polarity between a man and a woman is accepted as natural. There still is no general consent among the cultural anthropologists that an unambiguous matriarchal society existed. Classical scholars like Johann Jakob Bachofen tried to argue that matriarchal society existed on the basis of unreliable historical sources such as Iliad and Odyssey (Bamberger, p.263). Easterine Iralu’s A Terrible Matriarchy intrigues the reader with this highly deceptive title that ironically bares the patriarchy of contemporary Naga society. However, if these reasons are taken into account that Feminism is all about equality and that matriarchy is the flip side of patriarchy with all its horrors; then she is not far from the truth in prefixing “terrible” to “matriarchy”. This article is an attempt to familiarize the milieu of a quintessential Naga girl and her resistance to the anxious process of self-denial imposed upon her by her grandmother who embodies the concept of ‘terrible matriarchy’. The article also concentrates on the typical mechanism of gender construction and how such mechanisms are responsible for metamorphosing a female subject into a gendered subject.

Key words: Angami-Naga society, female subject, gendered subject, matriarchy, patriarchy

A Study on Gender Differences in Workplace Communication across Organizations

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Dr. Kabita Kumari Dash1, Dr. Susanta Kumar Dash2 and Dr. Swayamprabha Satpathy3

1Assistant Professor, Srusti Academy of Management, Bhubaneswar. Corresponding author. Email: vahi.Kabita@gmail.com

2Professor, Odisha University of Agriculture & Technology, Bhubaneswar

3 Associate Professor, Shiksha “O” Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar. Email: swayamsatpathy@soa.ac.in

 Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.15

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ABSTRACT

Communication is an important aspect of human existence. It has a huge impact on the functioning of any organization. Organizations progress if there is close and greater coordination among both genders. The present study was conducted at Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha. Socio-academic data on 120 employees of three different types of organizations, viz. Government, NGO and Corporate, taken at random were included in the present study. This is an empirical study on gender differences and their effect on workplace communication in various organizations. The objectives of this study are to find out the gender differences in communication in different workplaces and analyze the effects of socio-academic factors like age, qualification and experience on gender-related communication. The study findings depict qualification and gender was found to be dependent across the organizations with ?2 estimate of 8.542. More employees were found to be engaged under moderate qualifications from both genders. The age and experience of employees were revealed to be independent of the gender of employees in the present study. The distribution of males recorded significant dependency of age and organization with ?2 value of 20.081 revealing a higher frequency of higher age group employees in government and non-government institutions in comparison to corporate. Both the new entrants and highly experienced females had lower communication abilities than their male counterparts. However, in the middle part of employment, the females showed an edge over males with regard to this variable. Females in the age group of 31 to 40 years recorded significantly better organizational communication than their male counterparts.

Keywords: Gender difference, Workplace, Communication, Organization, Socio-academic data

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Bridging Black Male and Female Standpoints through Autoethnographic Cultural Symbiosis in Gloria Naylor’s The Men of Brewster Place

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Adishree Vats

PhD Research Scholar, School of Languages and Literature, SMVD University, Kakryal, Jammu, India; Assistant Professor, Department of English Studies, Akal University, Talwandi Sabo, Bathinda, Punjab, India. Email: vatsadishree8@gmail.com

  Volume 13, Number 3, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n3.11

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ABSTRACT:

The present paper argues that Gloria Naylor in The Men of Brewster Place (1998) spectacularly recreates, from a black female’s viewpoint, a solemn literary leeway for African American men’s narratives, and recommends an obligatory shufti to their hidden lives as to how the apparatuses of dominion objectify, suppress and marginalize African American men as well. These men have also been victimized, marginalized and objectified on the basis of their race, class and sexuality by the stereotypical mainstream power structure just like their female counterparts. Furthermore, the paper endeavours to scrutinize how it is unworkable to accomplish a genuine Black Feminist Standpoint without essentially appreciating Black Men’s Standpoint. Black men, who although are suppressors when it comes to their relationship with black females, simultaneously are also being suppressed beneath the tutelage of the mainstream hegemonistic-cum-stereotypical power system. As a sequel to Naylor’s first novel, The Women of Brewster Place (Naylor, 1983), The Men of Brewster Place attempts to autoethnographically lend some voice to her male characters, who complemented her female characters in the first novel.

KEYWORDS: Black Men’s Standpoint, Black Feminist Standpoint, Autoethnography, Exploitation, Racism, Classism, Sexism.

Tactics of Survival: Social Media, Alternative Discourses, and the Rise of Trans Narratives

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Khushboo Sharma1 and Arun Dev Pareek2

1Research Scholar, Department of Languages, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur-303007, Rajasthan, India.

2Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur-303007, Rajasthan, India. ORCID: 0000-0001-5427-9906. Email: arundevpareek@gmail.com 

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.44

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Abstract

In 2018, when Nandini Krishnan decided to write a book on trans men of India titled ‘Invisible Men’, perhaps she expected great accolades. After all, she was raising a topic that was relegated to the periphery of peripheries, an identity that often went astray in translation. But was the intent enough to write something impactful and honest? At the same time in Indian Cinema, Akshay Kumar geared up for a stereotyped role as a trans woman. What’s the connecting dot between these two? They ended up being nothing but highly skewed queer representations by cis-folks. Meanwhile, an alternative movement was brewing on social media as Alok Menon narrated poems of subversion, dressed as a challenge to everything heteronormative. The current paper aims to examine these voices of subversion, of trans narratives, as formed and catalyzed on social media and across various mediums of general discourses. The paper would also explore the rise of trans narratives in literature with special reference to ‘Me Hijra, Me Laxmi’ by Laxminarayan Tripathi and ‘A Life in Trans Activism’ by A. Revathi. Both exploratory and descriptive research methods are used for deriving the theoretical analysis from primary and secondary sources.

Keywords: trans narratives, literature, voices, subversion, challenge

 

Revisioning Subalternity: A critical study of Ramayana through Mandavi and Urmila

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Aditi Tiwari1 & Priyanka Chaudhary2

Research Scholar, Department of Languages, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Orchid id: 0000-0002-3751-5310. Email: meetadititiwari@gmail.com

Professor and Head, Department of Languages, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Email: priyanka.chaudhary@jaipur.manipal.edu

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.43

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Abstract:

Ramayana is a narrative knitted through multiple voices but is written around the story of Rama, neglecting the voices of the minor characters. The contemporary South Asian authors breaking the conventional norms of Ramkatha tradition have provided agency to such characters through their contemporary renderings. The study tries to bring forth such hidden nested narratives of the unheard characters of Mandavi and Urmila who are identified either in relation to Sita or their husbands, to re-define the idea subaltern. The paper will analyse the social and political oppression faced by the two female characters because of the existing gender and power hierarchy existing in the text, the unconscious oppression and suffering neglected by the author, reader and the characters of the text as well. The paper will try to analyse the contemporary renderings as an agency and subaltern space for the voice of these subaltern unsung characters of Ramayana, understanding how the concept of unconscious subaltern and normalization of oppression on these character in the epic, demarcating the related myths.

Keywords: Gender-power hierarchy, Myth, Oppression, Ramayana, Subaltern

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Infidelity to True Story and Novel: Locating the Auteur in Rituparno Ghosh’s Dahan

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Akaitab Mukherjee

Assistant Professor, School of Social Sciences and Languages (SSL), Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Chennai Campus, Tamil Nadu, India, akaitab.mukherjee@gmail.com, ORCID id-0000-0001-6410-9898

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.42

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Abstract

Rituparno Ghosh (1961-2013), a celebrated Bengali film director who started making films in 90s, often borrows plots from literary and other cultural narratives.  The essay aims to explicate Ghosh’s early film Dahan (1997) which is an adaptation of distinguished Bengali novelist Suchitra Bhattacharya’s novel with the same title. Bhattacharya’s novel is influenced by the real incident in which a couple was harassed by four youths at Tollygunge Metro Station in Kolkata on 27th November, 1992. The film also acknowledges that it is indebted to the true story. The essay explicates the adaptation of the two sources by the auteur. It examines the duplication of authorial concerns in this adaptation while following the narratives of two texts. Ghosh remains unfaithful to the literary text and the cultural memory of the true story to establish his authorship. As Ghosh’s films portray the middle-class women in a patriarchal society, following Janet Staiger’s reconsideration of the theory of auteur in the context of queer movement and identity politics in the 1970s, the essay argues that the performance of infidelity to the literary and true story to establish authorship is auteur’s “technique of the self”.

Keywords: Auteur, fidelity, Dahan, Based on true story, Rituparno Ghosh

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Reframing Reproduction in Vernacular Periodicals: A Study of Contraception in Late Colonial Bengal

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Ayana Bhattacharya

M. Phil scholar at the Department of English, Jadavpur University. ORCID id: 0000-0001-7160-6323. Email: b_ayana@yahoo.in, b20.ayana@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.41

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Abstract

With the emergence of the thriving literary public sphere around the close of the 19th century across colonial India, the issue of birth control was being debated in various magazines by economists, sexologists, doctors and members of women’s organizations. The discussions on reproductive rights of women and dissemination of contraceptive information published in various vernacular periodicals can be situated within a network of other contemporary discourses on “economizing reproduction” that were gaining visibility around this time. The present paper would like to explore the perceptions of women’s reproductive body at the beginning of the 20th century that were being forged through coalescing narratives on bourgeois norms of obscenity (aslilata?), biopolitical concerns of an emerging nation state in the last throes of anti-colonial struggle, and various takes on (heteronormative) interpersonal relationships between future citizens. It is within this specific context that I would like to examine articles on birth control published during the early 1930s in the ‘self-styled’ Bengali women’s magazine Jayasree? launched by revolutionary leader Leela Nag. By situating the opinions voiced by the men and women writing in the pages of this literary periodical vis-à-vis contemporary intellectual trends of birth control movement in India, this paper seeks to study the interactive textual ecosystem within which the writers and readers (the implied future authors) of Jayasree? were functioning.

 Keywords: birth control, reproductive politics, obscenity, bio-power, ‘right’ consciousness.

Review article: The Politics of Gender Hybrid Representation of Delhi

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Shruti Rawal

Department of English, St. Xavier’s College, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Email: shrutirawal@stxaviersjaipur.org

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.40

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Abstract

The growth of the metropolitan phenomenon has resulted in the emergence of new power centres in all the countries of the world. These cities have geographical, political and economic significance. The narratives of these cities have been captured by the writers for centuries in their fictional and non-fictional work. The research intends to focus on the representation of the city of Delhi in two prominent works: Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel and Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Both the texts are located in the city of Delhi and have a prominent transgender character at its core and the study aims to understand the writer’s intent and manner of drawing similarities between the city and the character. It also proposes to explore this hybridity of gender as a deliberate tool to represent the city of Delhi. The failure of anyone binary to capture the essence of the city and the advantage of the androgynous approach will be discussed in the paper. It will also endeavour to understand how the phenomenon of cities has led to the creation of spaces that promote hybridity.

Keywords: Delhi, transgender, spaces, androgyny

The Uneasy Gaze – Appearing for Interviews to get Married – An Empirical Investigation into the Pre-marital Arranged Marriage Negotiations in Urban Kolkata

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Sucharita Sen
PhD Scholar, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Email: sucharitasen13@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.33

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 Abstract

Indian society, when viewed from a Foucauldian feminist perspective offers a curious and unique example of societal scrutiny over its members. This overt exercise of power influences individual behaviour, attitudes and has a profound influence on decision making. In this context, this paper argues, within an empirical framework, the limitations of freedom of choice for women in pre-marital arranged marriage negotiations. Women find themselves coercively thrust into uneasy situations of objectification, forced to mould themselves to fit into hegemonic patriarchal parameters. They are lambasted if they fail to fulfil the required expectations. Based on a survey of 250 young brides and prospective brides of upper-caste, middle-class background in urban Kolkata, I argue that the pre-marital negotiations in arranged marriages systematically subjugate the women. Faced with societal and familial pressure, the women often find themselves marginalised and subjugated in the process of arranged marriage.

Keywords: Women, Patriarchy, Arranged Marriages, Objectification.

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