Recent Studies on Indian Women : Empirical Work of Social Scientists
Contents: 1. Travails of the Indian woman: from purdah to modernity/Janet Huber Lowry and Kamal K. Misra. I. Socio-cultural context: 2. The "Ideal Indian Woman": social imagination and lived realities/Subhadra Mitra Channa. 3. Advice to housewives: 'Conduct Book' tradition in Orissa/Sachidananda Mohanty. 4. Between the visible and the invisible: gender relations in a tribe in India/Arima Mishra. 5. Dalit women's voices in rural Andhra Pradesh, India/N. Sudhakar Rao. II. Marriage and family: 6. Timing of marriage in India: vision and reality/D. Radha Devi. 7. "Seeking a Suitable Match": economic development, gender and matrimonial advertisements in India/Richa Chauhan. 8. Patriarchy and paternalism in intimate partner violence: a study of domestic violence in rural India/Niveditha Menon and Michael P. Johnson. 9. Two images of matriliny: the Khasi and the Nair/Celine Augustine. 10. Widowhood and the law in India: a sociological analysis/Ramola B. Joseph. 11. "A Small Family is a Happy Family": the politics of population control in India/Sheela Prasad. III. Empowerment of the marginalized: 12. Women, Adivasis, Subalterns: perspectives on the empowerment of Santal women/Marine Carrin. 13. Women's empowerment and self-help groups: an overview of strategies and initiatives/B. Suguna and G. Sandhya Rani. 14. An examination of empowerment of women: a study of women in Kerala and India/Sajini Shajy and Shajy Isac. 15. Elite women's roles in empowering oppressed women: volunteer work in NGOs in Kolkata, India/Aditi Mitra and Jean Van Delinder. IV. Women in new roles: 16. The Kela women of Orissa and the changing entrepreneurship/Jyotsna Mohanty. 17. Women scientists in India: a socio-economic survey/Roopa Ravikumar. 18. Parties, patronage and gender in the Panchayati Raj/Aparna Thomas. Index.
"This volume, which is an Indo-American academic venture, contains 18 theoretically innovative and empirically penetrating essays, including and introductory chapter. The contributors to the volume are distinguished scholars from the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, political science, population studies, economics, English literature, geography, economics, etc., with a sustained interest in gender studies in the Indian context. Therefore, multi-disciplinarily with empirically grounded research is the greatest strength of this volume. The volume contains chapters which can cater to the academic needs of scholars having interest on gender issues in India, no matter what is their academic training and background. Some of the chapters in the volume are the down-to-earth experiences of the contributors that have immense policy-oriented import. The issues covered in the volume are wide-ranging as are the expertise of its contributors, which include the philosophy of ideal womanhood, issues of women's empowerment, legal dimensions of widowhood, paternalism and domestic violence, images of matriliny, literary and political dimensions of gender, Dalit and tribal women and their varied perceptions vis-a-vis other Indian women, scientists and entrepreneurs, matrimonial preferences, marriage timings, politics of population control, and so on. The volume will be of special interest equally to students, researchers and policy makers on gender." (jacket)
