Now let's look at the stories.
Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique published in the US in 1963 is given credit for igniting the Women's Liberation movement. The book questioned why women could only be in roles that required them to be dependend on men financially, intellectually and emotionally; it questioned why women had to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and sons. It may seem unbelievable that a woman writer in Kerala questioned the very same notions 15 years before Feminine Mystique. Saraswathyamma wrote Female Intellect in 1948. Her stories were her reaction to the question she asked herself: "Why can't women live free and work along side men as equals?" She was angry at the second class status given to women. But a character in Female Intellect, Vijayalakshmi, explains the situation: "Tradition, circumstances, social customs and nature's secrets have gotten together and the woman's brain has to surrender before all these." (p 28)
You may agree that the situation remains a universal problem even today. A woman who takes time off to start a family finds that her career track is somewhat limited because her brain has to surrender to Nature's secrets, tradition, circumstances and social customs. This familiar theme was written about over 60 years ago, 15 years before Feminine Mystique.
Saraswathyamma wrote about the then existing social life from a point of view of women. Though that view point came in conflict with the status quo, this conflict became the hallmark of her stories and set them apart. Sadly, she was not recognized as a writer with new ideas until the 90's when feminism became a recognized topic --20 years after her death and over 40 years after she wrote Female Intellect. You may know how these things are, if you write about controversial topics you just don't get published, perhaps even more so if you are a woman.
More on Thursday.
It is sad that this is still a problem today when it was being written about over 60 years ago. Thank you, Achamma, for bringing this important topic to our attention.
ReplyDeleteI know my friend Angie, who is an Indian/British citizen and is becoming an American citizen found great freedom in America that she would not have found in India if she had stayed there. The bondages are so great there for women, even in the Christian communities, and Angie is Christian. The fact that this woman was writing about women's plight in India before Feminine Mystique is a testament that this is a GLOBAL ISSUE for women and women globally must stand together now, today because I am not so sure things are all that different. Top women CEOs? Hillary Clinton president? NOT!!! I heard more young women speak against her than men. Your Indian writer, thank God was NOT SILENCED, thought the culture would have it so. It reminds me of what happened to Kate Chopin, American author of The Awakening. The novel dared to suggest a women leaving her husband and children because an affair has opened her eyes to great freedom and she chooses suicide rather than to go back to a life of bondage. The critics came down so hard on Chopin, she never wrote another word again (unless she did and someone destroyed her work. Anyway, Indian women/American women. The voices remain alive, regardless of whether the authors have died or an attempt has been made to silence them. Glad you are giving this author a lively platform to be heard, Achamma.
ReplyDeleteAchamma, I'm responding to your comment (via e-mail)here. That bit about men having affairs during marriage and if a woman tries it he kills her, of course, goes on, in some countries (Saudia Arabia, Iran-where else currently?) it's legal. In America and probably most other places, it is if the man can get away with murder.
ReplyDelete