Gender, Law, and Resistance in India

Gender, Law, and Resistance in India PDF Author: Erin P. Moore
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816522385
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Theft, poisoning, affairs, flights home, refusals to work, eat or have sex, threats to divide the joint household, and sly acts of sabotage are some of the domestic warfare tactics employed by Muslim women attempting to resist patriarchy. Gender, Law, and Resistance in India dramatically illustrates how a patriarchal ideology is upheld and reinforced through male-governed social and legal institutions and how women defy that control. Based on anthropological fieldwork in rural Rajasthan in northern India, Erin Moore's book details the life of an extended Muslim family she has known for twenty years. In many ways the plight of the central character, Hunni, is representative of dilemmas experienced by the majority of north Indian peasant women. Ultimately an account of cultural hegemony and defiance, Gender, Law, and Resistance in India reveals how so-called "modern" state institutions and practices reinforce traditional arrangements, resulting in women being silenced, deprived of equal rights before the law, and returned to their male guardians. Still, women resist in overt and covert ways. The first ethnographic work to focus principally on the law and legal institutions of gender and agency in South Asia, this unique volume examines the interpenetrations of north India's pluralistic legal systems. Moore adeptly connects engrossing case histories to national dialogues over women's rights, discussing these issues in terms of Muslim personal laws, secularism, and communal violence. Gender, Law, and Resistance in India is a rich and truly significant contribution to gender studies, South Asian studies, and sociolegal studies.

Gender, Law, and Resistance in India

Gender, Law, and Resistance in India PDF Author: Erin P. Moore
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816522385
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
Theft, poisoning, affairs, flights home, refusals to work, eat or have sex, threats to divide the joint household, and sly acts of sabotage are some of the domestic warfare tactics employed by Muslim women attempting to resist patriarchy. Gender, Law, and Resistance in India dramatically illustrates how a patriarchal ideology is upheld and reinforced through male-governed social and legal institutions and how women defy that control. Based on anthropological fieldwork in rural Rajasthan in northern India, Erin Moore's book details the life of an extended Muslim family she has known for twenty years. In many ways the plight of the central character, Hunni, is representative of dilemmas experienced by the majority of north Indian peasant women. Ultimately an account of cultural hegemony and defiance, Gender, Law, and Resistance in India reveals how so-called "modern" state institutions and practices reinforce traditional arrangements, resulting in women being silenced, deprived of equal rights before the law, and returned to their male guardians. Still, women resist in overt and covert ways. The first ethnographic work to focus principally on the law and legal institutions of gender and agency in South Asia, this unique volume examines the interpenetrations of north India's pluralistic legal systems. Moore adeptly connects engrossing case histories to national dialogues over women's rights, discussing these issues in terms of Muslim personal laws, secularism, and communal violence. Gender, Law, and Resistance in India is a rich and truly significant contribution to gender studies, South Asian studies, and sociolegal studies.

Women and Law in Colonial India

Women and Law in Colonial India PDF Author: Janaki Nair
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description


Women’s Rights and Law Codes in Early India, 600 BCE–570 ACE

Women’s Rights and Law Codes in Early India, 600 BCE–570 ACE PDF Author: Sita Anantha Raman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0429535686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
This book looks at the first eight Sanskrit law codes written in India, between 600 BCE and 570 ACE. It focuses on the legal, religious and ethical customs which were codified in this period and their impact on the social and political life of women. The volume analyzes texts such as the Dharma Sūtras, the Arthaśāstra, the Manu Smŗiti, the Yājňyavalkya Smŗiti, and Nārada Smŗiti, amongst others. It studies discourses on justice, conduct, virtues and duties, and how early laws were used to systematize patriarchy and the varna caste system in South Asia. It examines how patrimonial laws and male property rights highlighted social anxieties about female chastity and varna lineage, which led to the subordination of women and the lower varnas. These anxieties are most evident in codes from the late Vedic and early classical eras when diverse new settlers arrived upon the subcontinent. At this time, kings decentralized governance and allowed local groups to practice communal laws, while they meted out court justice with a specific law code. As the state became prosperous from trade conducted by merchants of diverse castes, sects, and classes, and social peace was ensured by officials from disparate backgrounds, kings began to rely upon a law code that aspired for equity above intolerance. These chapters examine heterodox Therāvada Buddhism and Jainism, their origins in the oligarchic state, their impact on the royal Sanskritic state, as seen in canonical literature. They especially focus on women’s roles in heterodox sects, and the emergence of new spaces for women, as such changes were adopted in disparate ways and degrees by other South Asian communities. The volume will be a useful resource for students and researchers of history, women and gender studies, social anthropology, sociology, and law. It will also serve as an information guide for readers who are interested in the political, and social life of women in early India

Women and Domestic Violence Law in India

Women and Domestic Violence Law in India PDF Author: Shalu Nigam
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000692035
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
This book critically examines domestic violence law in India. It focuses on women’s experiences and perspectives as victims and litigants, with regard to accessibility to law and justice. It also reflects on the manner in which the legal process reproduces gender hierarchies. This volume: Analyzes the legal framework from a gender perspective to pinpoint the inherent stereotypes, prejudices and discriminatory practices that come into play while interpreting the law; Includes in-depth interviews and case studies, and explores critical themes such as marriage, rights, family, violence, property and the state; Presents alternatives beyond the domain of law, such as qualitative medical care and legal aid facilities, shelter homes, short-stay homes, childcare facilities, and economic and social security provisions to survivors and their children. Drawing on extensive testimonies and ethnographic studies situated in a theoretical framework of law, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of law, gender, human rights, women’s studies, sociology and social anthropology, and South Asian studies.

Women, Power, and Property

Women, Power, and Property PDF Author: Rachel E. Brulé
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108870600
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
Quotas for women in government have swept the globe. Yet we know little about their capacity to upend entrenched social, political, and economic hierarchies. Women, Power, and Property explores this question within the context of India, the world's largest democracy. Brulé employs a research design that maximizes causal inference alongside extensive field research to explain the relationship between political representation, backlash, and economic empowerment. Her findings show that women in government – gatekeepers – catalyze access to fundamental economic rights to property. Women in politics have the power to support constituent rights at critical junctures, such as marriage negotiations, when they can strike integrative solutions to intrahousehold bargaining. Yet there is a paradox: quotas are essential for enforcement of rights, but they generate backlash against women who gain rights without bargaining leverage. In this groundbreaking study, Brulé shows how well-designed quotas can operate as a crucial tool to foster equality and benefit the women they are meant to empower.

Law and Gender Inequality

Law and Gender Inequality PDF Author: Flavia
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book provides an invaluable analysis of the current trends of the debate on Uniform Civil Code located within a highly charged and communally vitiated political scenario. It goes on to expose the communal undertones of some recent well published judicial pronouncements.

Accidental Feminism

Accidental Feminism PDF Author: Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069119999X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Exploring the unintentional production of seemingly feminist outcomes In India, elite law firms offer a surprising oasis for women within a hostile, predominantly male industry. Less than 10 percent of the country’s lawyers are female, but women in the most prestigious firms are significantly represented both at entry and partnership. Elite workspaces are notorious for being unfriendly to new actors, so what allows for aberration in certain workspaces? Drawing from observations and interviews with more than 130 elite professionals, Accidental Feminism examines how a range of underlying mechanisms—gendered socialization and essentialism, family structures and dynamics, and firm and regulatory histories—afford certain professionals egalitarian outcomes that are not available to their local and global peers. Juxtaposing findings on the legal profession with those on elite consulting firms, Swethaa Ballakrishnen reveals that parity arises not from a commitment to create feminist organizations, but from structural factors that incidentally come together to do gender differently. Simultaneously, their research offers notes of caution: while conditional convergence may create equality in ways that more targeted endeavors fail to achieve, “accidental” developments are hard to replicate, and are, in this case, buttressed by embedded inequalities. Ballakrishnen examines whether gender parity produced without institutional sanction should still be considered feminist. In offering new ways to think about equality movements and outcomes, Accidental Feminism forces readers to critically consider the work of intention in progress narratives.

Reclaiming the Nation

Reclaiming the Nation PDF Author: Vrinda Narain
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802092780
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Living in pluralist India has had critical consequences for Muslim women who are expected to follow a determined and strict code of conduct. The impact of this contradiction is most evident in the continuing denial of gender equality within the family, as state regulation of gender roles in the private sphere ultimately affects the status of women in the public sphere. Reclaiming the Nation examines the relationship between gender and nation in post-colonial India through the lens of marginalized Muslim women. Drawing on feminist legal theory, postcolonial feminist theory, and critical race theory, Vrinda Narain explores the idea of citizenship as a potential vehicle for the emancipation of Muslim women. Citizenship, Narain argues, opens the possibility for Indian women to reclaim a sense of selfhood free from imposed identities. In promoting the hybridity of culture and the modernity of tradition, Narain shows how oppositional categories such as public versus private, Muslim versus feminist, and Western versus Indian have been used to deny women equal rights. A timely account of the struggle for liberation within a restrictive religious framework, Reclaiming the Nation is an insightful look at gender, nationhood, and the power of self-determination.

Enslaved Daughters

Enslaved Daughters PDF Author: Sudhir Chandra
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199088780
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
This is the second edition of a remarkable study of a young woman's defiant stand against Hindu orthodoxy and the colonial legal establishment in the late nineteenth century India. It revolves around a suit for 'restitution of conjugal rights' filed against Rukhmabai, who was married at age eleven and refused to go and live with her husband. This lucid and engaging account captures the dramatic unfolding of the litigation, as well as the huge social and political debate set off by it. The narrative skilfully weaves together the details of the case with larger issues of gender and law, colonialism, culture, reform, and modernity. This edition includes a new Afterword in which the author analyses a vexatious libel case into which the rival party dragged Rukhmabai with a view to breaking her will, even before the original suit has been settled. This book will interest students and scholars of gender studies, family law, feminist perspective of history, legal history, and also general readers.

Hindu Women's Property Rights in Rural India

Hindu Women's Property Rights in Rural India PDF Author: Reena Patel
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409493407
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Hindu women in India have independent right of ownership to property under the Law of Succession (The Hindu Succession Act, 1956). However, during the last five decades of its operation not many women have exercised their rights under the enactment. This volume addresses the issue of Hindu peasant women's ability to effectuate the statutory rights to succession and assert ownership of their share in family land. The work combines a critical evaluation of law with economic analyses into allocation of resources within the family as a means of addressing gender relations and explaining resulting gender inequalities.