The Discipline of "Women’s Studies" has yet to establish firm roots in Indian academia. What causes an apparent mismatch between a recognised need to systematize an approach to social development and the actualisation of that need in pedagogical practice? In the context of Indian universities in particular, such queries are crucial. To advocate its strengths, Women’sStudies needs the mechanisms of institutionalisation. Materials production is a necessary, effective enterprise. The present anthology of essays is designed as a teaching and library resource for Women’s Studies. Drawing upon the expertise of major disciplines such as history, political science, sociology, psychology and literature, it focuses purposefully on aspects of female experience that conventional learning has either ignored or deliberately relegated to silence. Such damaging silence is now broken. That the women’s movement and women’s studies have a shared trajectory is established through their syncratic relationship set into interdisciplinary frames. Research areas are clearly indicated; the fruits of individual empirical investigation are generously shared. Be it an interview on empowerment policy or stereotypes in cinema, or a glance at the results of militancy, or a return to the pages of history, the issue of denied status to women surfaces over and over again. Yet the authors, by the fineness of their argument, uncover the past in order to move towards a more equitable future.
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