Motherhood in India: Glorification without Empowerment?
About this ebook
The articles in this book are chronologically arranged, tracing the different stages that motherhood as a concept has traversed in India – from goddess worship to nationalism, to being a vehicle of reproduction of the sexual division of labour and the inheritance of property via the male-line. Underlying these stages are the dialectics between them that have been facilitated by agents such as the state – the ultimate controller of a woman’s reproductive powers. The feminist critique of ‘essentialising’ the role of a woman has been employed to deconstruct and humanise the experiences and lives of mothers.
This anthology therefore attempts to initiate a meaningful and ‘sensitive’ engagement with issues pertaining to a woman’s autonomy over her body and her role also as a mother.
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About the author
Maithreyi Krishnaraj was formerly Director, Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. With her background in three disciplines – economics, sociology and education – she did interdisciplinary work in women's studies and is considered a pioneer in developing the subject. She has published widely in national and international journals and taught as Senior Professor in many universities in India and abroad. Some of her major publications are Real Lives and Mythic Models (2000), Between State and Markets (2007), Gender, Food Security and Rural Livelihoods (2008) and Women Farmers of India (2008).
