GENDER LENS: Women’s Issues and Perspectives

Gender equality is about equal valuing of women and men—of their similarities and their differences. We need equal, respectful partnerships between men and women for the creation of an equitable society in which gender justice is realized. Gender is a complex and multifaceted array of experiences and meanings that cannot be understood without examining through a lens considering the social context within which they are situated. Gender lens then become the spectacles.

Gender Lens: Women’s Issues and Perspectives explores the cultural meanings of gender and gender differences. It makes us think critically not only about gender but about other social divisions as well. The aim is to expand our knowledge and understanding of women in our own society and also those living in societies very different from ours. This book is an interdisciplinary work that places gender at the intersection of society, caste, race, sexuality and work.

The book highlights on themes related to the women’s movement; governance, caste, class and race; work and labour; violence and sexual harassment; women in margins; and health issues. It is a challenge to incorporate all the varieties that characterize the diverse issues related to women in today’s world. This task becomes even more difficult in the developing world, which is a byword for diversity. Therefore, we now have a rainbow of struggles to reclaim women’s space in all these domains that make a colourful mosaic. The challenge here is to give voice to the narratives which use very different categories, that cannot be understood without the contexts and also cannot be fully reduced to writing and yet explore the varied cultural meanings of gender and gender differences.

Rekha Pande is Professor and Head of the History Department and a joint faculty in the Centre for Women’s Studies at University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad. Her work is in the interdisciplinary area of history and women’s studies. She has published in the area of women’s history, cultural history, women and the Bhakti movement, socialization and family, girl child, child labour, women’s work, health, violence against women, women’s movement and impact of globalization on women. Besides her contributions in number of journals, both in India and abroad, she has to her credit eight books. She has been the editor of International Feminist Journal of Politics and Foreign Policy Analysis. She received the International Visiting Fellowship in the School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK; Academic Fellow, University of Buffalo, USA; and International Visiting Scholar, at Maison de Research, Paris. She is the member of board of studies of many universities in India.