Rethinking New Womanhood

Description

Covering India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal, Rethinking New Womanhood effectively introduces a ‘new’ wave of gender research from South Asia that resonates with feminist debates around the world. The volume conceptualises ‘new womanhood’ as a complex, heterogeneous and intersectional identity. By deconstructing classification systems and highlighting women’s everyday ongoing negotiations with boundaries of social categories, the book reconfigures the concept of ‘new woman’ as a symbolic identity denoting ‘modern’ femininity at the intersection of gender, class, culture, sexuality and religion in South Asia. The collection maps new sites and expressions on women and gender studiesaround nationhood, women’s rights, transnational feminist solidarity, ‘new girlhoods ’, aesthetic and sexualised labour, respectability and ‘modernity’, LGBT discourses, domestic violence and ‘new’ feminisms. The volumewill be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including gender studies, sociology, education, media and cultural studies, literature, anthropology, history, development studies, postcolonial studies and South Asian studies. Front Matter ....Pages i-xi Introduction (Nazia Hussein)....Pages 1-22 Front Matter ....Pages 23-23 ‘(New) Woman’ as a Flashpoint Within the Nation: The Border as Method in Tales of Modernity (Nandita Ghosh)....Pages 25-45 Made in Bangladesh: The Romance of the New Woman (Elora Halim Chowdhury)....Pages 47-70 The New Heroine? Gender Representations in Contemporary Pakistani Dramas (Virginie Dutoya)....Pages 71-93 Front Matter ....Pages 95-95 Bangladeshi New Women’s ‘Smart’ Dressing: Negotiating Class, Culture, and Religion (Nazia Hussein)....Pages 97-121 Nepalese (New) Women Workers in the Hotel Industry: Exploring Women’s Work and Respectability (Mona Shrestha Adhikari)....Pages 123-146 Merging Career and Marital Aspirations: Emerging Discourse of ‘New Girlhood’ Among Muslims in Assam (Saba M. Hussain)....Pages 147-168 Earning as Empowerment?: The Relationship Between Paid Work and Domestic Violence in Lyari, Karachi (Nida Kirmani)....Pages 169-187 Heterosexual Profession, Lesbian Practices: How Sex Workers’ Sexuality Right Positions Through Intersection of Sexuality, Gender, and Class Within the Hierarchy of LGBT Activism in Bangladesh (Shuchi Karim)....Pages 189-209 ‘New’ Feminisms in India: Encountering the ‘West’ and the Rest (Sushmita Chatterjee)....Pages 211-226 Back Matter ....Pages 227-231