Article: She is no Sati or Durga: Indian woman unveiled

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http://www.ibnlive.com/news/she-is-no-sati-or-durga-indian-woman-

unveiled/57319-19.html

 

There are two dominant images of the modern Indian woman. The first image is

that of the

meek sati-savitri, an eternal victim who is yet to see the light of modern

values. She may

have donned modern clothes and started living in metropolis, yet she remains her

conservative self, steeped in values of a male-dominated society. The other

image is that

of Durga, the irrepressible rebel, who cannot be contained or tamed.

Radicals and feminists often draw upon this imagery to script a story of the

hidden

modernity of Indian women. The tyranny of these two images often prevents us

from

listening to the voice of the modern Indian woman.

The findings of the CNN-IBN-CSDS-Indian Express survey of Indian women invite us

to

question both these images. To be sure, the survey has over-sampled urban women

(56

per cent as compared to the national average of 28 per cent).

Yet it is not easy to fit in some of the findings with the sati-savitri image.

Both urban and

rural women reject some of the male-centric notions of gender roles:

-- There is an overwhelming support cutting across rural-urban and religious

divide that

parental property should be divided equally among daughters and sons. This

sentiment is

strongest among graduate, single women living in the metros. But even the

younger

generation of rural women clearly favour this.

-- The is a near consensus among women that their role should not be restricted

to

staying at home and looking after the family, as 77 of the urban and 69 of the

rural

support the proposition that there is nothing wrong in women going out and

working. It is

not just that practically every young graduate woman favours this idea. A

majority of old

and non-literate women too endorse the idea of working women.

-- Again, cutting across the rural-urban and class divide, our respondents

reject the

belief that too much education is not good for women. Even the uneducated do not

favour

this proposition.

-- If you thought all these opinions are about politically-correct subject,

consider this:

when asked to react to a proposition that there is nothing wrong for women to

have

sexual desires, the verdict is an abashed 3:1 in favour. The ratio is of course

higher among

the young metropolitan women, but no section displays a dominance of Victorian

prudishness.

An incipient sexual revolution? The beginning of a much-delayed transition from

a

'traditional' and 'conservative' mindset to a modern outlook?