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Essay on Women's Roles in Government and Society
The end of the twentieth century it is impossible to universalize the subordination of the world's women in such a fashion, let alone homogenize the mass of Indian women. Grappling with diversity and difference is central to understanding the position of women in India. Since the heydays of the women's liberation movement in the 1970s, when there was a sense of women's solidarity and sisterhood, feminist theorists have shifted their attention to the study of difference among women. Scholarly analysis used to focus on women's shared oppression and male domination, but more recent research has shown that male domination and female subordination is far from uniform. On the contrary, women's experiences are distinguished by their specific locations within particular ethnic, class and religious groupings.
Thus, no unitary categorization of Indian women is possible. For example, in India over the past two decades the achievements of urban middle-class women in salaried and professional jobs have been as spectacular as the relentless exploitation and acute deprivation of female agricultural laborers (Chatterjee, P. 1995). There are many powerful and influential Indian women in the professions, business, bureaucracy and government who enjoy the privileges and benefits of their class position. Such women have also gained from the anti-colonial struggles of the Indian nationalist movement, which gave them a voice in the political arena.
After independence from British colonial rule in 1947 these women had relatively easy access to the expanding civil service as well as representation in parliament. However, the vast majority of women in India do not belong to this affluent middle class. Their lives are constrained by problems typical of a post-colonial developing economy.At a discursive level there are also contradictions. On the one hand there are belief systems in India which relegate women to an inferior position in society. On the other, competing views construct women as powerful, life-giving and forceful......
