Women’s Organizations and Feminist Consciousness in Modern India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29070/40mddg31Keywords:
Women’s Organizations, Feminist Consciousness, Modern India, North India, Social Reform, Women’s Education, Women’s Movement, Nationalism, Gender Equality, 1850–1947Abstract
This research paper will look into the formation and growth of women organizations and the feminist consciousness in modern India between 1850-1947 in the context of North India. The study delves into the progressive shift in gender roles, when women began to do more outside of the home, to education, social reform, public life, and politics. In the 19th century, serious debates emerged relating to women's role in Indian society due to several practices including child marriage, purdah, lack of education for women and social inequality. Women's progress started with social reform organizations and education programmes and gradually more women set up and joined groups where they expressed their own concerns and interests. Special focus of the research is on women association, educational institutions, reform movements, publications and political groups in the promotion of collective awareness and the fostering of feminist consciousness. Effort is made to pay special attention to the North Indian areas, especially the United Provinces, Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan with its rapidly fluxing social and political dynamics allowing significant space for women's activism and leadership. The study uses historical research method and analytical research methods which utilize primary and secondary data in the form of writing created at that time, newspapers, organizational records, historical documents, books and studies. These results offer strong evidence for the role of women's organizations as an agent of change in people's lived experiences of gender inequalities into a shared collective awareness and organized action. This study suggests that the feminist consciousness in India emerged and took shape as a result of an interaction of social reform, education, organizational movement and national movements. The paper follows the theme of North India and emphasizes on regional experiences thereby enriching the discussion on earlier perceptions and the basis for the women's movement and feminist thinking in India today.
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