Author:
Publication: Organiser
Date: October 25, 2009
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=314&page=18
Introduction: Women and Science in India:
A Reader, Neelam Kumar (Ed.), Oxford University Press, pp 351, Rs 695.00
Social scientists are engaged in studying
the gender bias and unequal position of women in various spheres of social
life. The book under review is a compilation of articles on women in the sciences
and examines the marginal position of women engaged in science. Taking a look
at the careers, participation and attainments of women in the scientific,
engineering and medical professions in India, the book draws on concepts from
history, sociology and economics. It tries to unravel some of the socio-historical
questions related to women in science.
The first section of the book relates the
historical background while the second, consisting of contemporary studies,
advances sociological explanations while dealing with the economic parameters
determining a woman's place in the technical labour sphere.
Geraldine Forbes interrogates the colonial
discourse that claimed the credit for the availability of British 'scientific'
medicine to Indian women. She examines the gap between the rhetoric and the
conditions under which women learned about and practiced Western medicine
in the district of Bengal. According to Geraldine Forbes, the identification
of science with masculinity and Western culture played a key role in the neglect
of both women's education and medical facilities for them.
Antoinette Burton considers how the zenana
(separate women's quarters) functioned as one of the pretexts for acceptance
and professionalisation of both Western and Indian female doctors. The zenana
became the principal space from which Englishwomen could produce new 'knowledge'
of the colonised, given their privileged access as women to areas off-limits
to the colonising men.
Abha Sur focuses on women scientists who worked
in laboratories of India's science legend, CV Raman. Based on autobiographical
narrations, this article shows that notwithstanding the sexual dichotomies
in the nationalist discourse, women's education and aspirations surged ahead
during the freedom struggle. Budding scientists like Anna Mani, Ashima Chaterjee
and Sabita Chandrashekhar emerged then, identifying the class, case and gender
differences. But due to gender biases, Anna Mani could never earn a doctoral
degree. Sunanda Basu, who spent five years in Raman's laboratory, committed
suicide for reasons unknown. Their histories, as Sur argues, "embody
a quagmire of contradictions - of privilege and penalty, of exaltation and
damnation, and of power and subservience."
The second section deals with the contemporary
experiences of Indian women studying science, medicine and engineering. Carol
C Mukhopadhyay provides conceptual reflections and analyses the applicability
of Western theories of gendered science to Indian and other contexts. Using
data from India, she tries to evaluate the relevance of prevailing American
theories to India.
-MG
(Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building,
Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110 001.)
