In the last decade, studies on women have made an impact in the field of literature and social sciences. Whether to become a ‘libber’ or be known as ‘Ms’ is a topic of active discussion in women’s forums the world over. The women’s liberation movement has highlighted the so-called weaker sex’s increasing tendency to kick over conventional traces. Stray bits of information lead to the general impression that women are underprivileged from Tokyo to Tanzania. The present volume is invaluable for a cross-cultural comparison on actual facts which may or may not substantiate this impression.
Aptly sub-titled Illusion and Reality, Phadnis and Malani’s edited work provides competent vignettes of the world’s women in history, religious texts and the law. Meant originally for the national Committee on the Status of Women in India, each contribution is well-padded with dates and statistics. The factual data which the reader collects at the end of two hundred odd pages are impressive. All through, it is the same refrain, women’s emancipation has set in, but is the process fast enough?
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Vina Mazumdar restates the underlying theme of Towards Equality (the report of the National Committee on the Status of Women in India) industrialization has pushed Indian women towards unemployment as their skills become increasingly obsolete. Further, the fact that 94 per cent of women are in the unorganized sector of society means that redress of genuine grievances is a privilege which only a handful can enjoy. Traditionally, the women of Sri Lanka and Nepal had few rights, were married early and had little access to education. The Munis show that while Ceylonese women took advantage of British rule and its veneer of greater participation for the local people, the rule of the Ranas in Nepal retarded the progress of women. But if Nepalese women are underprivileged, their counterparts in South East Asia have had an early tradition of active work and participation in independence movements. Thus Usha Mahajani points out that Vietnamese women not only had a role in economic life but also in outwitting the American forces. Contrary to conventional images, the women of Japan are now active in fields ranging from watch-making to anthropology. Yet one wishes that P.A. Narasimha Murthy had told us something about geisha girls; the popular vision of cherry blossom fringed tea houses with the ubiquitous geisha in attendance—which is still much in vogue—has done little to help the status of Japanese women.
While in parts of the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia women were accorded a high social status in ancient texts, it is interesting to note that Chinese literature and Confucianism regarded women as inferior people. The rights of women were taken up by the KMT regime but the process was completed only with the revolution. A more or less similar pattern was followed in Russia. Again despite the strictures imposed by Muslim law, the women of Egypt, as indicated by Shah Abdul Qayyum, are increasingly joining the educated labour force.
Problems of identity and recognition are not limited to women of the Oriental World. In France, Bhattacharya and Kirpalani tell us, women have to fight against notions of high absenteeism and a quarrelsome temperament. In the USA, the home of the women’s liberation movement, 20 per cent of women are still full-time housewives, spending 50 hours a week on unpaid labour to keep their husbands and children in comfort. Further, equality with men has yet ‘to be achieved. Thus one could adapt Anirudha Gupta’s argument on the correlation between a women’s lowly status in a developing country like Kenya, and prevalent socio-economic structure, to most of the world; irrespective of the country’s political biases or economic systems, women have to be vocal to achieve even a little. For prejudices die hard, and women are often their own worst enemies.
Women of the World should be further encouragement to those interested in the cause of women. The editors have arranged the contributions carefully, and dominant themes are consistently dwelt upon in every essay. Yet, a little more care could have been given to proofreading. To cite a couple of instances: on page 40 we are told that Nepalese women demonstrated before the visiting Indian Prime Minister Nehru in June 1971; further, in 1966, 161 Filipino women as against 134 men finished graduate education but 39,499 women received a bachelor’s degree as against 41,876 women’ (p. 81) (emphasis mine). Such avoidable errors detract somewhat from an overall positive view.
Malavika Karlekar is Sociologist at the Delhi School of Economics.
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