CONTEMPORARY GENDER ISSUES: Identity, Status and Empowerment

Understanding gender in the Indian context has always been a daunting task, largely due to the complex social structure characterized by myriad combinations of tradition and modernity. The present volume is an effort to map various issues and challenges confronting the universal task of gender parity. Various strategies to empower women, such as political rights and movements, economic freedom and identity assertion seem to be falling short of achievement of the desired goal. Divided into three sections, various contributions take cognizance of diversity of women issues and their concerns. An attempt is made to present the process of women empowerment in India based on empirical research carried out during the last three decades. The book offers a comprehensive view of the changing status of Indian women.

Gurpreet Bal is Professor of Sociology at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. Her areas of research are entrepreneurship, gender studies, marginalized groups and women in diaspora. She is the author of Development and Change in Punjab (1995), co-author of Strategies of Social Change in India (1996), Mapping Dalits (2009) and co-editor of Development, Gender and Diaspora: Context of Globalization (2003), Restructuring Identities: Society Through Literature (2008), and Urban Development and Governance: Issues, Concerns and Challenges (2013).