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While going through the readings what we've seen is that gender is a social construct impressed upon us by societal power systems, and that our gender dictates what role we play in society creating an unfair power struggle. We've also seen that these norms have been challenged whether it be by revolutionaries calling for the abolishment of Sati or by women taking a stand for themselves in a society that's against them. Although there is a lot of work to be done in the realm of gender, there is a lot of progress being made as well.

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1. Geetha, V. Gender (Theorizing Feminism). UK ed., Bhatkal and Sen, 2002.

2. “Izzatnagari Ki Asabhya Betiyaan Ll Immoral Daughters in the Land of Honour.” YouTube, uploaded by Nakul Sawhney, 15 Jan. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=APJ6jMxIysg&feature=youtu.be

3. Nair, Janaki, and Mary John. A Question of Silence: The Sexual Economies of Modern India. Zed Books, 2000.

4. Mani, Lata, et al. Contentious Traditions. Amsterdam University Press, 1998.

All pictures via Google

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Makes us question importance of the label for someone's place/ value in society.

Gender is evolving constantly- do we need gender anymore?

Are men and women really equal or is equality defined differently?

Are traditions and customs relating to gender still needed, even when they don't satisfy the needs of people and instead go against them?

Should the biological difference to be praised as a social evil?

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Overall we found the texts to be significant in the ideas that it presented and we found the readings to be incredibly interesting. However we did see a few pitfalls with the readings. We found that most of the vocabulary was quite hard to understand particularly in Lata Mani’s text. We also found that the ideas presented were repeated again and again and it meandered a bit before a point was made.

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It made us think about how norms and ideals are so powerful because while everyone can’t adhere to them they seem universal. For example women from the lower class  can’t adhere to the norm of staying at home and taking care of their family because they have to work in order to survive

It also challenged our idea of the fat that people who belong to the lower class are more likely to practice Sati as we found that people from the upper and middle lass of India were equally or even more likely to practice Sati and hold on to outdated notions like viewing women as objects.

It challenged the idea of sati. The idea of widow burning since olden times are mostly debated which added on to the historic social evil constructs. But it is always a doubtful question whether sati is abolished even in this 21st century advanced era.

We also considered the abolition of sati was completely for the justice of women but the text reflects the fact that even the colonizers or Christian missionaries considered sati as a tool to oppose or to defend the state.so the justice of women was not their primary concern.

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While reading about everything we actually found that when we were talking about gender we couldn't talk about it without bringing in caste, class or religion and we realized that we can’t talk about a single aspect of society without bringing in the others because all of them affect us in equal stead. Relating to Nakul Singh's doc, honour killings of people marrying in the same gotra has a lot to connect with gender, as girls are blamed to be disrespectful and a disgrace to the family. This issue reached to the extent that people were okay with their families marrying in different religions, but not the same gotra. Mostly women have been oppressed under this issue, which has led to countless number of  cases of missing women who in real life end up dead or married off in secret forcefully.

When we talk about the Lata Mani reading,  the practice of sati got connected which can actually be considered as a social evil as well. Sati in a large way connects to the gendered social evils in society.

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It made us go deeper into the topics we were studying. It made us think more about the societal systems that are at hand when perpetuating gender stereotypes. Earlier when we thought of labels we would see the people behind them but now we see them as they are, devices of restriction. It makes us think if we restrict people in order to label them or if we label people so that we can restrict them. It also made us question who created these stereotypes?. We also learned that there was a lot more to gender than we had thought and that it was a broad term which housed several other concepts.

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'Sexuality': A Short Conceptual Genealogy

The Initiatives of Feminism

The Question of Modernity

Recovering a Golden Age

The Emergence of New Sexual Economics

The Ideal of Celibacy

Demography

Anthropology

Cinema and the Media

Alternate Sexualities

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Is gender a natural category or a social construct? How does gender determine social order and power relations? How have these power relations been questioned and challenged?

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Is gender a natural category or a social construct? How does gender determine social order and power relations? How have these power relations been questioned and challenged?

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What to g(end)er?:  A collection of interviews

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Makes one think if sexuality is an 'issue' that certain groups of society only have. The author mentions how certain concepts like sati, celibacy, etc., are practiced by middle class and upper middle class. This shows or indicates the vulnerability of this social group and how it is prone to fantasies.

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The villainization of women in mythology

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While the introduction seemed to be more centered around the national and colonial bubbles, the fact that the authors brought up discussions about gender and sex with time as a dependent from the past to present during the midst of the cyclone of taboo.

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In the Indian Publications attention to questions of scripture and insistence on the safety of Sati’s prohibition was well considered through Baptism. Practical concerns remained paramount for the East India company officials and administrators as the only ones in the final analysis with the power to legislate against widow burning. Effects of the consolidation of missionary discourse after 1813 led to legalization of missionary activity in that year including the Baptists in the colony a security of tenure that they had not enjoyed.  The practices of sati brought in the evil notion of the society that needs to be still examines with clear supervision. The involvement of women in philanthropy also stood out when considering the gender aspects which further affected their labour and work.

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The idea of sati which is one of the most discussed issue since past has evoked my thoughts to think about the various realms of gender discussion faced in the society even now.

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Appropriation of Hindoos and sati serve as the milestone of analysis when considering the social constructs of the society. Mythological explanation of the Hindoos often forms the ground for philosophical thoughts as well. Religious, philosophical and mythological angles of the Hindoos helps to learn then hierarchisized notion of society.

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Also the book talks about how the popularization of the vernacular press encouraged debates around the topic of Sati. It also addresses the views of the popular newspapers of the time on Sati and talks about the connection between property laws and Sati.

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Latha Mani argues that the sati debate in the early nineteenth century marginalized its very subject ,the widow. The book dissects the idea of colonialists , nationalists , traditionalist and Christian missionaries and attempts to draw a similie between them. Through the medium of post-nationalist , post-orientalist and post colonialist feminist approach , Latha Mani challenges the notion that sati was a voluntary and religious act of wifely devotion.The books make a serious attempt to bring to the forefront the subaltern agency of the widow and materiality of her suffering.

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There is an expansion in the horizon of analysis from the early journals of the baptist to the trajectory of nineteenth century discourse. Baptistic linguistic abilities were crticised. And Baptists defended themselves by claiming tha every translation was verified by pundits.However, the underlying superiority of the European over indiginous knowledge can be viewed. Here the representation of pundits itself bring out the hidden male superiority.

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The book makes room for more wide-ranging approaches for tackling the sexual economies of desire and violence among men and women in modern India.

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The major themes or concepts covered in the essays are covered in the introduction in brief.

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Lata Mani - Contentious Traditions The Debate on Sati

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Lata Mani - Contentious Traditions The Debate on Sati

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Mary. E. John and Janaki Nair - A Question of Silence: The Sexual Economies of Modern India

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Mary. E. John and Janaki Nair - A Question of Silence: The Sexual Economies of Modern India

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Problems of the Khap Members, relating to the "same gotra issue":

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Problems of the Khap Members, relating to the "same gotra issue":

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1. "Khap Panchayats" are essentially self-appointed bodies dominated by influential men from the Jat community.
They believed that things that educated young children are the root cause of people marrying whoever they wish to.

2. Khap members openly mentioned Co-Ed schools, education, Television, Mobiles to be active problems and not solutions in making the society aware of how the world is actually supposed to be.

3. Khap members also formulated a system of some sort wherein they boycotted families whose kids were involved in same gotra marriages. We see a case wherein this family wasn't even provided a clay pot for the ashes of their son who was murdered by the khap members for marrying in the same gotra.

4. Khap members are so determined in ruining the lives of the innocent that despite being in jail, they were able to hire contract killers to come after people who went against them.

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Nakul Singh Sawhney created a documentary on the families belonging to the land of honour, where families have chosen their respect in the village to be a greater asset than their love for their own children. So much so, that these families are even ready to sacrifice the lives of their kids. From Khap members to the police itself, we see a lot of people responsible for saving lives, but they chose to take lives instead, again, all in the name of honour.

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Nakul Singh Sawhney - Izzatnagari Ki Asabhya Betiyan ( The Immoral Daughters in the Land of Honour )

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Nakul Singh Sawhney - Izzatnagari Ki Asabhya Betiyan ( The Immoral Daughters in the Land of Honour )

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In the 18th century on account of several political movements people started seeing the world as a place where they had the power to make and change laws not just abide by them. After the French revolution in 1789, revolutionaries declared that all humans were equal and free. Women argued that if all humans were in fact equal and free then did women not deserve the same rights as men? . But they were shot down by people that claimed that although they were equal they did not deserve the same rights as men as they did not possess any reasoning ability or critical thinking skills.

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In the 18th century science became more credible and popular and people used it to back up gender stereotypes. They claimed that the differences between men and women weren't just genital and that their different set of hormones dictated their behavior but this too was disproved by several experiments that were conducted.

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Looking at it through a religious viewpoint- religious texts claimed that women were sinful, inferior and conniving and that men as noble intelligent beings had a duty to control them  She also points out the fact that these texts can be contradictory in their description of women.

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Clipping of the Declaration of Rights of Women

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Geetha V dissects gender norms, how they are created, how they influence or behavior and how they act in relation to other sociological systems like religion, caste, class.
She talks about the three ways that gender is interpreted. In the first chapter she mostly focuses on religious, scientific, political viewpoints of gender .

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Consolidation of  missionary discourse can be understood. The involvement of the indigenous people provided ground support for documenting the missionary discourse. If journals and the other sources cannot be read for any specific answers there are other ways to make the text yield its historicity which further made the attempt of Hayden white so possible that is to read the context from the very surface of the text. The ideological tone and cast of the missionary was largely shaped by the financial goals.

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Were there any limitations of the text? (e.g., in terms of scope, region, the generalisations it draws in making its claim.)

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Were there any conceptual connections with other readings or topics from the course?

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Does it raise questions for our understanding of the week’s topic?

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Did it challenge any of your previously-held ideas?

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Did it allow you to think more critically/analytically about society? How did it do this?

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A Question of Silence is a book by Janaki Nair and Mary E. John which has an introduction which is a detailed overview on the concepts covered in the different essays in the book by various authors.  It sheds light on the secrecy or taboos and questions regarding sexuality and sex in India in different major spheres like political, social, economical etc., either in the past or present. It discusses the discovery of golden ages to the representation of 'sex' in various fields.