Review of Nivedita Menon's "Seeing like a Feminist"

Sunita Pathania,The Sunday Tribune

Feminism is an understanding of the ways in which men and women are produced and inserted into patriarchies. It recognizes that hierarchical organising of the world around gender is the key to maintaining social order. Feminism also acknowledges that in addition to gender based injustice, multiple structural inequalities define the present social order. Hence destabilisation of established social order is not only desirable but possible as well. Thus, in its questioning of the status quo, the feminist perspective is a “gesture of subversion towards power’.

Nivedita Menon’s Seeing Like a Feminist has as its core focus the analysis of several issues that concern feminist politics and activities in contemporary India at the conceptual level.

Women empowerment in Pakistan

Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh government on Thursday launched comprehensive policy document focused on institutionalising women empowerment and creation of enabling environment for women to realise their potential in all spheres of life.

Caretaker Sindh Minister for Women Development, Anis Haroon on the occasion said there was a need to end the cynicism prevalent in certain sections of the society about implementation of women friendly laws and policies in the country.

"I agree that the process of implementation is slow yet these laws have largely benefited the women," she said.

The minister, also a senior women activist, particularly referred to the amendment in Hudood Ordinance, in 2006, that led to much needed procedural change providing massive relief to women wrongly implicated in Hudood cases.

Haroon said the interim government, despite its limitations that also include paucity of time will also ensure that procedural hindrances in enforcement of public friendly laws are addressed and that the concerned sections are also provided needed relief.

In this context, she said protection committees, an essential requirement under the law for elimination of child labour would also be constituted, without any unnecessary delay. APP 

Bravo!

As the Women's Reservation Bill rings in the centennial year of Women's Day on a celebratory note, 25-year-old Sushma Tiwari's story tells of an inspirational fight-back against a brutal form of patriarchy and caste oppression.
It has been a six-year legal battle for Sushma against the horrific ‘honour killing' by her brother of almost her entire marital family: husband Prabhu Nochil, her father-in-law and two minors in their home near Mumbai, all to avenge her marriage into a family of a ‘lower' caste. Sushma is from a Brahmin family of UP, and Prabhu, an Ezhava from Kerala.
Although the fast track sessions court in Maharashtra, and later the Bombay High Court, awarded the death penalty to Sushma's brother Dilip Tiwari and his accomplices, the Supreme Court in December 2009 reduced the sentence to 25-year imprisonment.
This February, Sushma filed a review petition questioning the decision to let off the perpetrators of this heinous crime.
In 2004, seven months after the couple got married, Shushma's brother and his associates massacred four members of her marital family, and grievously injured two others. A pregnant Sushma luckily escaped.
The Supreme Court, explaining its decision to revoke the death sentence, said: “It is a common experience that when the younger sister commits something unusual and in this case it was an inter-caste, intercommunity marriage out of [a] secret love affair, then in society it is the elder brother who justifiably or otherwise is held responsible for not stopping such [an] affair.”
It added: “If he became the victim of his wrong but genuine caste considerations, it would not justify the death sentence... The vicious grip of the caste, community, religion, though totally unjustified, is a stark reality.”

Sushma has challenged this reasoning, stating this perception “is wrong and totally illegal under our Constitution and various laws of the land like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989” and “can never be made a ground for lessening a sentence. In fact, these feelings of caste hatred are themselves criminal…”
Her petition states: “In fact, mass killings based on the concept of ‘honour' must be viewed by this Hon'ble Court as murders which must be given the highest deterrent sentence.”
In Bangalore recently to attend the National Young Women's convention organised by the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), this resolute young woman told The Hindu that by reducing the sentence, the highest court of the land has sent out a wrong message to all those who wished to marry out of caste. “Even if not for my own safety or that of my five-year-old daughter Trishna, the death sentence must be upheld for the sake of humanity.”

courtesy-The Hindu

Decline In Gender Based Discrimination

Gender-based disparities have shown a decline in the country in the last decade with the national capital scoring the highest, according to a report by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

There is an overall improvement in the performance on the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) over the decade, both in the all-India score and in the scores achieved by the States and Union Territories, the report titled “Gendering Human Development Indices: Recasting the Gender Development Index and Gender Empowerment Measure for Index” says.

The GEM is calculated on political participation and decision-making power, economic participation and decision-making power and power over economic resources of women.

The GEM score for India, which was 0.416 in 1996, increased to 0.497 in 2006.



The National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi had the highest score of 0.564 in 2006, jumping from rank three to occupy the top slot. Nagaland, on the other hand, got the lowest rank, both in 2006 and 1996 with GEM scores of 0.289 and 0.165 respectively.

While 13 States improved their ranks over the decade, 19 lost their respective position during the same period.

The newly formed Jharkhand and Uttarakhand achieved large gains of 0.157 and 0.132 respectively and improved their ranks by six positions each. While Uttar Pradesh and Bihar performed slightly better, the improvement in their GEM was lower in comparison (0.118 and 0.101 respectively). Chhattisgarh improved its score by only 0.058, compared with an improvement of 0.056 by Madhya Pradesh. These States lost four and five ranks respectively.

However, the biggest GEM rank losers are Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Chandigarh and Lakshadweep.

Courtesy-The Hindu