Off the Beaten Track

Rethinking Gender Justice for Indian Women
Madhu Kishwar, Oxford University Press, September 1999
Price: Rs 295/-, Pages: 290
ISBN 019 5648461

These essays from MANUSHI challenge statist approaches to Indian women’s rights. They review various laws ostensibly enacted to strengthen women’s rights; the reasons for the failure of anti-dowry campaigns; why the culture of son preference is spreading; the denial of inheritance rights to women; how women relate to love, sex and marriage; sexual harassment; the problem of identities; the culture of beauty contests, and certain cultural icons that hold powerful sway among Indian women. This thought-provoking collection attempts to answer one of the most serious questions facing the women’s movement today – why it is that, despite so much attention being focused on women’s rights, the contemporary women’s movement has failed to solve any of the issues it took up over the last two decades.