The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849-1905

The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849-1905 PDF Author: Meredith Borthwick
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400843901
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Basing her work on Bengali-language sources, such as women's journals, private papers, biographies, and autobiographies, Meredith Borthwick approaches the lives of women in nineteenth-century Bengal from a new standpoint. She moves beyond the record of the heated debates held by men of this period—over matters such as widow burning, child marriage, and female education—to explore the effects of changes in society on the lives of women and to question assumptions about "advances" prompted by British rule. Focusing on the wives, mothers, and daughters of the English-educated Bengali professional class, Dr. Borthwick contends that many reforms merely substituted a restrictive British definition of womanhood for traditional Hindu norms. The positive gains for women—increased physical freedom, the acquisition of literacy, and limited entry to nondomestic work—often brought unforeseen negative consequences, such as a reduction in autonomy and power in the household. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849-1905

The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849-1905 PDF Author: Meredith Borthwick
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400843901
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Get Book Here

Book Description
Basing her work on Bengali-language sources, such as women's journals, private papers, biographies, and autobiographies, Meredith Borthwick approaches the lives of women in nineteenth-century Bengal from a new standpoint. She moves beyond the record of the heated debates held by men of this period—over matters such as widow burning, child marriage, and female education—to explore the effects of changes in society on the lives of women and to question assumptions about "advances" prompted by British rule. Focusing on the wives, mothers, and daughters of the English-educated Bengali professional class, Dr. Borthwick contends that many reforms merely substituted a restrictive British definition of womanhood for traditional Hindu norms. The positive gains for women—increased physical freedom, the acquisition of literacy, and limited entry to nondomestic work—often brought unforeseen negative consequences, such as a reduction in autonomy and power in the household. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Women and Politics

Women and Politics PDF Author: Sanghamitra Sen Chaudhuri
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Women
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
This Study, In The Light Of West Bengal Experience Stresses That Women Are Still Second Class Citizen In Spite Of The Equal Rights Conferred On Them.

Women of Bengal

Women of Bengal PDF Author: Margaret M. Urquhart
Publisher: Calcutta : Association Press (Y.M.C.A.)
ISBN:
Category : Hindu women
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description


The World of Muslim Women in Colonial Bengal, 1876-1939

The World of Muslim Women in Colonial Bengal, 1876-1939 PDF Author: Sonia Amin
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004491406
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
This highly interesting book studies the cultural context of modernisation of middle-class Muslim women in late 19th- and 20th-century Bengal. Its frames of reference are the Bengal 'Awakening', the Reform Movements -- Brahmo/Hindi and Muslim -- and the Women's Question as articulated in material and ideological terms throughout the period. Tracing the emergence of the modern Muslim gentlewomen, the bhadramahilā, starting in 1876 when Nawab Faizunnesa Chaudhurani published her first book and ending with the foundation in 1939 of The Lady Brabourne College, the book gives an excellent analysis of the rise of a Muslim woman's public sphere and broadens our knowledge of Bengali social history in the colonial period.

Visible Histories, Disappearing Women

Visible Histories, Disappearing Women PDF Author: Mahua Sarkar
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822342342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
DIVArgues that the discursive erasure of Muslim women within colonial and Hindu nationalist discourse underpinned the construction of other identity categories in late colonial Bengal and remains linked to violence against Indian Muslim women today./div

Words of Her Own

Words of Her Own PDF Author: Maroona Murmu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199098212
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Words of Her Own situates the experiences and articulations of emergent women writers in nineteenth-century Bengal through an exploration of works authored by them. Based on a spectrum of genres—such as autobiographies, novels, and travelogues—this book examines the sociocultural incentives that enabled the dawn of middle-class Hindu and Brahmo women authors at that time. Murmu explores the intersections of class, caste, gender, language, and religion in these works. Reading these texts within a specific milieu, Murmu sets out to rectify the essentialist conception of women’s writings being a monolithic body of works that displays a firmly gendered form and content, by offering rich insights into the complex world of subjectivities of women in colonial Bengal. In attempting to do so, this book opens up the possibility of reconfiguring mainstream history by questioning the scholarly conceptualization of patriarchy being omnipotent enough to shape the intricacies of gender relations, resulting in the flattening of self-fashioning by women writers. The book contends that there were women authors who flouted the norms of literary aesthetics and tastes set by male literati, thereby creating a literary tradition of their own in Bangla and becoming agents of history at the turn of the century.

Women and Labour in Late Colonial India

Women and Labour in Late Colonial India PDF Author: Samita Sen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521453631
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Samita Sen's history of labouring women in Calcutta in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considers how social constructions of gender shaped their lives. Dr Sen demonstrates how - in contrast to the experience of their male counterparts - the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued women's labour, establishing patterns of urban migration and changing gender equations within the family. She relates these trends to the spread of dowry, enforced widowhood and child marriage. The book provides insight into the lives of poor urban women who were often perceived as prostitutes or social pariahs. Even trade unions refused to address their problems and they remained on the margins of organized political protest. The study will make a signficant contribution to the understanding of the social and economic history of colonial India and to notions of gender construction.

The Refugee Woman

The Refugee Woman PDF Author: Paulomi Chakraborty
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199095396
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
The Refugee Woman examines the Partition of 1947 by engaging with the cultural imagination of the ‘refugee woman’ in West Bengal, particularly in three significant texts of the Partition of Bengal—Ritwik Ghatak’s film Meghe Dhaka Tara; and two novels, Jyotirmoyee Devi’s Epar Ganga, Opar Ganga and Sabitri Roy’s Swaralipi. It shows that the figure of the refugee woman, animated by the history of the political left and refugee movements, and shaped by powerful cultural narratives, can contest and reconstitute the very political imagination of ‘woman’ that emerged through the long history of dominant cultural nationalisms. The reading it offers elucidates some of the complexities of nationalist, communal, and communist gender-politics of a key period in post-independence Bengal.

Women of The Tagore Household

Women of The Tagore Household PDF Author: Chitra Deb
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9352141873
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Book Description
The story of an accomplished group of Women who, more than any others, moulded Bengal's distinct ethos. The Tagore family has long been the focus of public curiosity. Like its men, the women of this illustrious family have had a great and enduring influence on the life and people of Bengal. Women of the Tagore Household portrays several generations of connoisseurs, aesthetes and lovers of literature who were nurtured under the umbrella of cultural richness and spiritual freedom that the extended family provided. We meet Rabindranath's wife Mrinalini and his sister-in-law Kadambari, who had considerable influence on the young poet; the progressive Jnandanandini who sailed alone to England in the nineteenth century, presenting to ordinary women a vision of courage and daring; and Sushama, who broke out of the confines of music, literature and culinary arts to tread the path of women's empowerment. This book reveals hitherto unknown aspects of women's emancipation in Bengal in which the women of the Jorasanko Tagore family were at the forefront-Chandramukhi and Kadambini were the first two female graduates of India, Protiva opened up music and dramatics to women by preparing musical notations for Brahmo sangeet and Hindustani classical music, and Pragya's prefaces to her cookbooks are still considered storehouses of not only recipes but also homemaking skills. This engaging narrative, spanning over three hundred years, highlights the Tagores' influence on the Bengal Renaissance and brings out the special role the Tagore women played in Bengali history and culture.

The Hour of the Goddess

The Hour of the Goddess PDF Author: Chitrita Banerji
Publisher: Penguin Books India
ISBN: 9780144001422
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
Food constitutes an integral aspect of the intellectual and cultural milieu of Bengal, and rituals, social customs and day-to-day routine are closely intertwined with the preparation of traditional dishes by the women of the household. The quintessential Bengali emphasis on food was brilliantly encapsulated by Chitrita Banerji in Life and Food in Bengal. In The Hour of the Goddess, she returns with an unbeatable combination of cultural insight, personal anecdote and mouthwatering recipes. Intimate yet objective, it examines the complex connection between gender and food preparation, and the intricate relationship between food, ritual and art in Bengal. Written in her inimitable style, the book takes the reader on a journey that spans Banerji's personal growth from girlhood to womanhood in Calcutta. Gastronomy and social commentary combine to form a lucid, thoroughly enjoyable book that covers, among other things, offerings made to gods, restrictions imposed on widows, cooking tools, the role played by maidservants in Bengali households, and customs associated with eating. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, The Hour of the Goddess is a finely crafted masterpiece that is at once memoir, food guide and cultural history.