Women’s movements
Women’s Movement — Meaning & Early Phases
A struggle against patriarchy, gender inequality, violence, discrimination, unequal property rights, exclusion from education, unequal representation and the sexual division of labour. Neera Desai saw it as rooted in feminist consciousness and organised effort for women’s equality and liberation.
| Gail Omvedt’s four types | Whether a “women’s movement” |
|---|---|
| Men and women fight a common oppression (issue not sexual discrimination) | Not a women’s movement in the strict sense |
| Women-only on general issues (slum improvement, price rise) | Constructive value (collective strength), but may not challenge patriarchy |
| Women’s reform movements (education, abolition of sati) | Not full women’s movements — do not always attack the structure |
| Women’s liberation movements (against sexual division of labour, patriarchy) | Women’s movements in the proper sense |
Before independence: a 19th-century social-reform phase (Roy, Vidyasagar, Phule) on sati, polygamy, female infanticide, widow remarriage, marriage age, education and property; then a nationalist phase where Gandhi’s mass politics widened women’s public role. Tanika Sarkar (patriarchal structures), Geraldine Forbes (neglect of women’s education), Uma Chakravarti (legal subordination). After independence: demands shifted from male-led reform to gender equality, questioning the division of labour and building autonomous women’s organisations.
Women in the National Movement
Participation breached patriarchal boundaries — from Rani Lakshmi Bai & Begum Hazrat Mahal to Sarojini Naidu, Madame Bhikaji Cama, Sucheta Kripalani, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Hansa Mehta, Dakshayani Velayudhan, Durgabai Deshmukh. Revolutionaries: Pritilata Waddedar, Kalpana Dutt, Lakshmi Sahgal. Bodies: YWCA, 1875; All India Women’s Conference, 1927.
| Scholar | Reading |
|---|---|
| Geraldine Forbes | Women’s participation transformed the public sphere. |
| Uma Chakravarti | Nationalism mobilised women but kept emancipation secondary. |
| Tanika Sarkar | The use of motherhood both empowered & constrained women. |
| Partha Chatterjee | Women placed in the “inner” domain as bearers of culture. |
Assessment. Women entered public politics in large numbers, yet patriarchal limits remained and women’s issues were not always central to the Congress agenda.
Women’s Movement since the 1970s
Four phases — from “grey years” to the contemporary era. I · till 1970 — “Grey years” (Aparna Mahanta); constitutional equality, Hindu Marriage Act 1955, Hindu Succession Act 1956; dowry & patriarchy persist → II · 1970s–80s — Towards Equality (1974); UN Decade for Women (1975–85); autonomous groups; Mathura, Roop Kanwar, Shah Bano, anti-dowry → III · 1990s–2000s — Liberalisation, global feminism, Beijing 1995; workforce entry, sexual harassment, caste-gender, communalism, NGO growth → IV · contemporary — #MeToo, marital-rape debate, LGBTQ+ rights, triple talaq, Nirbhaya reforms; decriminalising homosexuality & adultery
Towards Equality (1974), by the Committee on the Status of Women in India, exposed the declining sex ratio, violence, discrimination and falling female participation in politics and the economy — shifting women’s issues from welfare to development. Autonomous groups of 1975–85 took up dowry, work, land rights, participation, Dalit women, fundamentalism and media representation. Organisations: Majlis, Awaaz-e-Niswan, Saheli, Vimochana, Manushi, Jagoree, the All India Dalit Women Conference.
Women’s Empowerment & Democracy
Empowerment expands education, dignity, bodily autonomy, economic capacity, legal rights, participation, representation and voice in decision-making. It deepens democracy — strengthening grassroots democracy, bringing private violence into public debate, and making democracy more deliberative. The 73rd Constitutional Amendment raised women’s participation in Panchayati Raj and created a new leadership base.
Scholars: Nivedita Menon (structural change and intersectionality); Zoya Hasan (Indian feminism as pluralistic); Arundhati Roy (feminism linked to land, displacement and economic justice); Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Sarojini Sahoo (intersectionality); Devaki Jain (the movement at a crossroad); Romila Thapar (identity politics has dealt the movement a serious blow); Kate Millett’s “sexual politics” and Shulamith Firestone’s “dialectic of sex” remain relevant. Sudha Pai’s “sarpanch pati” warns that formal representation is not substantive empowerment.
UPSC 2000 — Comment: Women empowerment in India and its impact on democracy.
UPSC 2006
Comment: The Concept of Women Empowerment.
Reservation Policy for Women
| Opposition | Support |
|---|---|
| Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru & Sarojini Naidu — may compromise merit / confidence; win on merit | Laura Keenan — stagnant women’s representation reflects hostile social conditions, not lack of talent |
| Towards Equality (1974) — opposed in Parliament and assemblies, favoured local bodies | Rohini Pande — reservation reduces prejudice against women leaders |
| Ela Bhatt — preferred economic empowerment (the SEWA approach) | Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner — Panchayat reservation improves women’s social mobility |
| Sudha Pai — warns of “Pati Panchayats” / “sarpanch pati”; stresses female literacy | Esther Duflo & Raghavendra Chattopadhyay — women-led councils invested more in public goods (e.g. drinking water) |
UPSC 2001 — The women activists did not support Quota till 1974. What led to the subsequent change in their stand?
Anti-Arrack Movement
A mass uprising of rural women in Andhra Pradesh, beginning in Nellore district and the village of Dubagunta in the early 1990s, emerging through the National Literacy Campaign (1990) — where women discussed everyday problems and named arrack as a chief cause of suffering.
Causes: alcoholism, domestic violence, financial insecurity, social disintegration, liquor contractors’ political power and the state’s Varun Vahini programme supplying alcohol sachets. Women led protests, marches, picketing, destruction of brewing material, night patrols, fines and sit-ins — most with little formal education or prior agitation experience.
Feminist significance
Susie Tharu and K. Lalitha read it as a feminist struggle — women challenged patriarchy in home and public sphere alike. Vina Mazumdar saw a crucial moment: rural women changed public policy. It gave practical meaning to “The Personal is the Political.” Chief Minister Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy banned arrack from 1 October 1993.
Contemporary Women’s Struggles
#MeToo
Encouraged survivors of sexual assault and harassment to speak publicly through social media, connecting women across countries, classes and professions. Achievements: exposed the scale of harassment, challenged elite impunity and progressive-male hypocrisy, weakened victim-blaming, built survivor solidarity. Criticism: weak intersectionality, elite-urban visibility, limited reach among informal and rural women, and difficulty of legal follow-up.
“After ages of silence, suffering and misplaced guilt, sexual assault is explosively emerging as one of the telling dysfunctions of present-day capitalist society.”
Angela Davis
Catharine A. MacKinnon: #MeToo is “eroding the two biggest barriers to ending sexual harassment in law and in life: the disbelief and trivializing dehumanization of its victims.” Schultz: harassment is more about sexism than sex. Burke Langone: it is “a symptom of a larger, systemic inequality and systemic pattern of exclusion.”
Ecofeminism
Links climate change, gender inequality, social injustice and environmental degradation to masculine domination. Vandana Shiva: women and nature share a reciprocal, non-exploitative relationship; the degradation of both is tied to colonialism; women’s knowledge makes them central to biodiversity. Bina Agarwal’s critique: Shiva groups all developing-country women into one category and ignores historical, cultural and social processes. Chipko was an early ecofeminist movement — forest loss raised women’s labour and made them stakeholders in afforestation.
Dalit women & intersectionality
Dalit women face overlapping caste, class, gender, and state / upper-caste / police violence. The National Federation of Dalit Women grew from a process begun in 1987 (first national meeting in Bangalore under the Christian Dalit Liberation Movement). They argued mainstream women’s groups ignored caste-based sexual violence and treated women as homogeneous; Gabriele Dietrich and Gail Omvedt showed how caste oppression affects Dalit women differently.
UPSC 2014 — Examine the scope and limitations of women’s movements in India.